The Role of Mass Media Interventions in Influencing Public Health Policy Processes in Kenya: a Case of Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study examined the role of mass media interventions in influencing public health policy processes in Kenya. The main objective of this study was to examine the role of mass media interventions in influencing public health policy processes in Kenya with a particular focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. The study covered a period between 13th March 2020 and 27th May 2020, and it highlighted major themes of the pandemic. A total of 5034 newspaper articles were analyzed with 60% (3021) in the Daily Nation and 40% published by the Standard newspaper. The analysis that entails a “systematic reading of a body of texts, images, and symbolic matter” to decipher meaning and respond to research questions to collect data for this study build on media framing and social representation theories. Specifically, the study’s objectives include identification of planned media interventions used in coverage of COVID-19 by Daily Nation and the Standard Newspapers, assessing the influence of media coverage on implementation of public health policies during COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya and identification of dominant frames used during the coverage of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak by the Daily Nation and Standard newspapers in Kenya. This study analyzed data both quantitatively and qualitatively using descriptive and in ferential statistics. The study found that the media in Kenya majorly reported the pandemic in news reports (59%) and most certainly considering there could be some writers who conducted in-depth analysis of the pandemic, feature stories accounted for 10% of the total coverage. The study found that the newspaper articles largely provided pertinent information to their audience on how the pandemic might affect them, held authorities accountable, and offered independent advice. Most certainly this influenced the way government responded by coming up with various policy and regulatory measures. Indeed, the coverage of Covid-19 in the two newspaper (Daily Nation and the Standard) w as in line with government imperatives.