Framing pandemic news. Empirical research on Covid-19 representation in the Italian TV news

The article contributes to the vast literature on the media representation of Covid-19, by exposing the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Covid-19 media coverage in Italy, run on the full archive of prime-time TV news – Tg1, Tg2, Tg3, Tg4, Tg5, Studio Aperto, Tg La7 – between February 28, 2020, and February 27, 2021. All verbal contents of TV news have been analyzed, based on a sample of 2,555 news shows and 14,304 news stories related to the epidemic, for a total of 1.6 million words. By applying the media framing models, we realized a two-step work: a mapping of TV coverage across one year; and an in-depth investigation on the most relevant keywords, gathering and variant. The main results show how the different Italian television news broadcast the pandemic "waves", paying attention to issues considered as emergencies. Through a cluster analysis, we found some recurring and absent narratives of the media representation on Covid19. Along with the reflection on the framing of the pandemic, we will come out with some insights into the blaming strategies put in motion by the TV news.