British news media representations of mpox during the 2022 and 2024 outbreaks: a mixed-methods analysis using corpus linguistics

Background Since 2022, over 100,000 people across 100 countries have been diagnosed with mpox (formerly monkeypox, renamed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in November 2022). News media plays a central role in outbreaks, disseminating information and shaping public discourse. Corpus linguistic approaches to massive language datasets can reveal how such outbreaks are represented but remain under used in public health. Using these methods, we investigated representations of mpox in British news media during the 2022 and 2024 outbreaks. Methods We analysed the 83 billion word English Trends corpus in SketchEngine, quantifying use of monkeypox and mpox in 2022 to 2024, and applying Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies to compare news media content from 2022 and 2024 (peak incidence periods), comprising 1.2 billion and 500 million words, respectively. Using corpus linguistic tools, we explored the contexts in which mpox and monkeypox occurred, assessing shifts in representation. Findings Monthly use of monkeypox peaked at 0.07 occurrences per million words (n=6591) in May 2022, dropping by 99.8% by November 2022. Grammatical and lexical analysis of 2022 reporting found frequent attribution blame for transmission, particularly to gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (GBMSM). In 2024, coverage adopted more neutral language, largely avoiding stigmatisation. Interpretation UK news media reporting on mpox shifted from stigmatising language in 2022, often targeting GBMSM, to more neutral and inclusive coverage in 2024. The WHO endorsed nomenclature change may have contributed, illustrating the impact of such interventions. This study demonstrates the value of corpus methods in tracking linguistic representations of infectious disease outbreaks