COVID-19 Pandemic in the media mirror: The issue of media influence

This article deals with the study and analysis of the role of media as a tool for influencing mass consciousness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Media researchers attempted to analyze the extent of media’s impact on recipients’ decisions, such as vaccine refusal, non-compliance with quarantine measures, and violation of other restrictions imposed during the global health crisis. One of the reasons for the destructive behavior of citizens in different countries was the infodemic – the oversaturation of the global media landscape with unreliable and unverified information. In these circumstances, the media had various tasks, from informing the audience about processes related to the new disease to promoting vaccination. This led to the media resorting to various models of influencing the audience, described in both classical theories of media influence and modern ones. The author of the article analyzed publications from the perspective of media influence, as well as research aimed at identifying the mechanisms of media influence on society during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the study, the author concludes that the influence of media on society is a structurally and functionally complex process influenced by numerous factors such as the information policies of specific media outlets, individual characteristics of journalists and information recipients, the political environment, etc. It was also established that during the pandemic, distortions in the communication process occur not randomly but according to specific models described in various theories of strong media influence, including the magic bullet theory, framing, agenda-setting, and others.