How COVID-19 News Coverage about Minority

Groups Affects Social Discrimination?

: Focusing on Sexual Minorities in COVID-19 News

Introduction

The epidemic of COVID-19 recently has continued for about half a year, making

life difficult by having an unprecedented impact on each field. Even more problematic is

that infectious diseases like COVID-19 are not fair to everyone. Of course, anyone can

ask back what is not fair in the situation where we are in the same danger. But this

fairness means social and cognitive, not biological or pathological. It is about the social

discriminatory view of minority groups in our society at the same time as the spread of

COVID-19. In fact, our society has long had numerous prejudices against minority

groups. According to a study that explains how our media reports on sexual minorities,

43.9 percent of the media reported homosexuality from the perspective of prejudice and

avoidance (Han, 2013). In fact, provocative media coverage based on these stereotypes

and discrimination plays a greater role in today's disaster situation. With stereotypes

already in place, this could lead to a social isolation of extreme exclusivity if added to

the perception that it is a group that can transmit disease to me.

Nevertheless, media reports simplify and represent corona19 related reports to

specific groups. In fact, the COVID-19 can put anyone at risk, but our media necessarily

emphasize that "sexual minorities" and "pseudo-groups" have been exposed to the

disease. They even report on the percentage of certain groups of confirmed cases or
suspected cases, giving the impression that "We're fine. 'Cause we're not like them.” This

is not just a problem for Korea. In the United States, a multicultural country composed

of diverse ethnic groups, it has been revealed that socially discriminated racial minorities

are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and have a higher mortality rate, raising the issue of

health inequality as well as the seriousness of discrimination (Ro, 2020). In fact, the gist

of these findings was that certain minority groups have already lived in vulnerable

environments due to social discrimination and alienation, so there are too many factors

that expose them to viruses and make treatment difficult. However, as people read the

article, they only recognize that certain ethnic groups are more susceptible to COVID-

19, and their discriminatory attitudes become stronger.

Thus, there is a risk that disease reporting on minority groups could lead to

extreme discriminatory attitudes. This study seeks to find out what cognitive processes

COVID-19-related media reports form specific perceptions and attitudes. Numerous

previous studies have explained the relationship between media coverage and perception

of minorities or outgroups(Armstrong, & Neuendorf, 1992; Das et al., 2009; Dixon &

Azocar, 2007; Fujioka, 1999; Schiappa, E., Gregg, P. B., & Hewes, D. E., 2005), but no

studies have been reported on how much this affects existing perceptions when focusing

on specific groups in relation to infectious diseases such as today.

In reporting a particular minority group as a risk group exposed to disease, this

study noted the role of minority stigma as mediator to see how indirect contact with

these media reports affects attitudes toward the group. Stigma is to distinguish certain

groups and give them negative and biased characteristics (Goffman, 1963), and this

study looked at social stigma against sexual minorities. Precedent studies have revealed

the relationship between the impact of media on the formation of stigma and the ripple

effect of stigma (Baek et al, 2017; Kim, 2010; Lim et al, 2012). This paper would like to
examine the structural relationship of the portrayal of the sexual minority group

reproduced in the media coverage to the discriminatory attitude toward the sexual

minority by forming the sexual minority stigma. The purpose of this study is to discuss

the need to reduce stigma on social media through a review of the mediated role of

minority stigma. In particular, from the perspective of the media literacy, if the media

used on a daily basis forms and strengthens minority stigma, this indicates that social

media should be used as educational programs to reduce stigma. This paper would like

to highlight the meaning and ripple effects of the image of minority groups reproduced

in the media, and then discuss the need for a change in perception.

Literature Review

Sexual minority image reproduced through media

The reason for analyzing images of minority groups in the media lies in the role

of the media's frame. Frame is a word that means 'structure,’ explaining that the

perspective and attitude of the receiver vary depending on what frame the media reports

about the event (Iyengar, 1991). Iyengar (1991) used the word 'framing' for the first time

and divided it into 'thematic frame' that reveals the results through structural causes and

backgrounds in the frame process and 'episodic frame' that goes through the overall

composition of a particular issue (Iyengar, 1991).

In the United States, where active discussions on homosexuality are taking place,

Li & Liu (2010), who analyzed the press frame on gay marriage, a social issue in the
United States, distinguished and analyzed the topic-centered frame and anecdotal frame

of same-sex marriage that appeared in American newspapers. It can be seen that more

than 80 percent of the total five newspaper articles were focused on the story. It was also

divided into three categories, pro, anti and neutral, to frame the article's argument, which

showed no major difference among the media companies and the article was found to be

fair and well balanced overall. However, Chomsky & Barclay (2007) analyzed the

attitudes of American media toward homosexuality. Studies have shown that most media

report homosexuality is threatening the military, government safety and American

citizens. At the same time, it can be seen that the news frame is taking a pro- and anti-

gay stance on homosexuality issues. Frame classification on same-sex marriage tended

to be divided and subdivided mainly into two categories: pro- or anti-homosexuality

(McFarland, 2011).

In Korea, there are mainly studies that analyze the ideology of each newspaper

based on research on minorities, considering the limited research on the press frame for

homosexuals. Hong (2010) analyzed the frame of news about marriage immigrant

women in the minority, focusing on the Chosun, Dong-A, Kyunghyang, and Hankyoreh.

The progressive media Hankyoreh and Kyunghyang reported favorable and positive

articles suggesting problems and alternatives for immigrant women, including the

promotion of their rights and political participation. In addition, Hankyoreh, a politically

progressive media, devotes more space to the minority and the weak compared to the

conservative Chosun. On the other hand, the Chosun can be seen as a good

representation of the ideology of the press, which focuses on the social center,

conservative, or privileged class’s interests (Baek, 2006). There is also an argument that

distorted media coverage of homosexuality still exists, playing a role in producing only

homophobia in society (Baek & Kim, 1998).

 Previous studies so far discuss the image and stereotypes of sexual minorities

reproduced through various media. However, because studies of specific groups

reproduced through social media are limited to general perceptions in general situations,

a review of the impact of images of specific groups in media reports in disaster situations

on perceptions and attitudes toward minority groups is required. In particular, this paper

would like to explore the influence on perception according to how sexual minorities are

portrayed in disease reports.

How Reproduced Images on Media Affect Attitudes toward Specific Targets

Although the perception of a particular target is also formed through direct

contact, indirect contact through the media also greatly affects the recognition or attitude

formation(Schiappa, E., Gregg, P. B., & Hewes, D. E., 2005). Precedence studies have

confirmed that stereotypes and attitudes vary depending on how the media describes a

particular group. For example, people may see positive news about certain group

members and evaluate them more positively (Armstrong, & Neuendorf, 1992; Fujioka,

1999), or have negative prejudices against them after seeing criminal reports (Das et al.,

2009; Dixon & Azocar, 2007). The previous study was conducted on how the level of

use of swine flu news affects distance to people infected with the virus, and the more

people who watch the news about the virus, the more negative attitudes it has taken

against it, and the more negative images it has (Kim, 2010).

Parasocial Contact hypothesis

 The change in perception and behavior through media content is explained by

contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954). According to the theory of contact, the outgroup

contact with people results in a positive attitude toward the outgroup (Allport, 1954).

Therefore, contact is a strategy that reduces prejudice or stigma. It can be used, where

contact is divided into direct and indirect contact. Direct contact can be made through

face-to-face contact with the person, and indirect contact can be made through the media

(Herek & Capitanio, 1997). According to prior studies that explained the effects of

indirect contact through media, indirect contact using television reduced the stigma on

people with AIDS (Herek & Capitanio, 1997), and changed attitudes toward illegal

immigrants (Joyce & Harwood, 2014). According to a recent Meta-Study on Contact

Theory (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), intergroup contact clearly reduces prejudice and

intergroup contact can be generalized not only in contact sites but also in other

environments. The essential factor of contact effects shown in the meta-study is

intergroup anxiety, which reduces bias because inter-group anxiety is reduced. In the

same context, it can be explained that if there is more indirect contact with sexual

minorities and the content of indirect contact is positive, a positive attitude toward sexual

minorities is formed.

Recent studies have sought to explain intergroup anxiety in a larger theoretical

framework, the Integrated Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000; Tauch, et al.,2007).

The theory of integrated threats described threats as realistic threats (the threat of the

political and economic parts of the ingroup), symbol threats (the threat to the belief and

value system of the ingroup), and intergroup attitude (the anxiety caused by the

interaction of the outgroup members of the ingroup). Stephan and Renfro (2003) also

said that realistic and symbol threats occur at the group level, and intergroup attitude

occurs at the individual level. With respect to the threats described above, the study by
Pettigrew et al (2007) suggest differences in the intermediation of direct and indirect

contact. Both direct and indirect contacts (extended contacts) showed a reduction in bias

due to a reduction in group-level threats (realistic and symbol threats), whereas the

effects of personal-level threats (intergroup attitude) were shown to be small in indirect

contact (extended contacts). In other words, direct contact reduces prejudice against

outgroups (in the process of each), but indirect contact reduces prejudice against external

groups due to the reduction of collective-level threats rather than individual-level threats.

Therefore, it is suggested that individual or group threats should be analyzed separately

depending on the type of contact.

Social Identity Theory

Unlike the contact hypothesis, people can rather keep their existing attitudes even

though they have come into contact with the outgroup. According to the Social Identity

Theory (Tajfel & Turner,1979), the identity of individuals is divided into individual and

social identities. Individual identity is a sense of individual uniqueness and one’s own

characteristics and social identity is a sense of identity as a member of a group. People

who have a high identity for their group try to maintain their self-respect by comparing

others with their own group and by favoring their own group and disparaging their outer

group. Many previous studies have shown that the higher the social identity, the higher

the favoritism of my group (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner& Brown, 1978; Wright et al,

1990). In addition, studies have shown that Koreans have a relatively stronger racial bias

than foreigners, particularly in favor of whites, but explicitly not in favor of Southeast

Asians and blacks (Noh & Bang, 2008).

 In general, people with high group identity show a high anxiety against the

outgroup, avoiding contact, and have a higher bias against the outer group

(Petigrew,1998).

A study that identified the effect of regulating the identity of the ingroup that affects

inter-group prejudice found that people with low group identity had a bias reduction

effect after considering the common characteristics of the ingroup and the outgroup,

while those with high ingroup identity did not (Crisp & Beck, 2005). However, the effect

of reducing prejudice by contact can also be seen in people with high group identity with

high inter-group instability. Studies have shown that people who have shown strong

group identity in heterosexual groups also have the effect of contact, reducing prejudice

against homosexual groups (Hudson, Harry & Mitchell,2009).

Based on the above two theories, one can predict how COVID-19-related media

reports on sexual minorities affect individual perceptions. Media reports that classify

sexual minorities as COVID-19 presumptive cases enable people to have negative

indirect contact with certain groups. It can be inferred that if there is less indirect contact

with homosexual groups and the content of indirect contact is negative, a negative

attitude toward sexual minorities is formed. This can strengthen the phenomenon of

ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation, which is explained in the social identity

theory.

The Mediated Effect of Stigma on Discrimination

Society stigmas people with characteristics that pose a threat to their groups in

functioning effectively (Neuberg et al, 2000). Gofman (1963) defined stigma as 'a
disgraceful attribute that appears to those who have an undesirable difference.' A stigma

can be summed up as a distinction between me and others and a negative assessment.

Stigmatization appears in a way that recognizes the category of a particular group that

corresponds to it based on visible markings and further devalues their value (Brown et

al., 2003). Until now, social stigma on health defects such as disease and disability has

been discussed as a major issue of health communication. Typical health issues with

high stigma include AIDS and tuberculosis, mental illness and smoking, and drug

addiction, which gives negative assessments to people with or engaging in certain

diseases and limits their identity to stigma as well as social exclusion, rejection and

condemnation (Scheff, 1966). In addition, this social discrimination is likely to

eventually lead to a hindrance to the implementation of an individual's health behavior,

raising the need to pay attention to social stigma from the perspective of health

communication.

According to previous studies, the media affects the formation of stereotypes, or

stigma, about a particular group (Fujioka, 1999; Jeong et al., 2011). Repeated exposure

to images on the media leads to forming stereotypes about specific groups, and these

formed stereotypes move toward social discrimination. Studies on stigma show that

media content causes discrimination and attitude toward certain groups through stigma

(Kim, 2010). News exposure to immigrant women has raised positive or negative

memories of news, and this news memory has affected the stigma of migrant women. As

a result, it influenced the multicultural orientation by reinforcing stigma against

immigrant women as a mediator (Jeong et al., 2011). Stigma is the sociocultural product

and can be formed, reproduced, and strengthened through the media. It means that

discrimination can be minimized through the reduction of stigma if the stigma is formed
by media reports related to sexual minorities and ultimately acts as a variable that causes

gender discrimination.
Research Hypothesis and Model

This study seeks to examine structurally the influence of indirect contact with

sexual minorities through media on attitudes toward sexual minorities. Specifically, the

research models and hypotheses are presented to comprehensively verify the direct and

indirect effects of media's COVID-19 related homosexuality groups content by

examining the mediated effects of stigma (Figure 1).

Hypothesis 1: The more negative the exposure with the minority group related to

COVID-19 through the media, the more discriminatory against the minority group will

be.

Hypothesis 2: The more negative indirect contact with sexual minority groups about

COVID-19 through the media, the more likely the sexual minority stigma will be, which

will lead to a discriminatory attitude toward the sexual minority group.

Figure 1 Research Model

Variables

Indirect Contact with Sexual Minorities through Media Coverage

Indirect contact through the media can be measured by frequency of contact and

descriptions and evaluations of representations (Tan, Fujioka, & Lucht, 1997). Therefore, this

study defined indirect contact with sexual minorities through social media as subjective

perception of sexual minority representation shown on media coverage, which examined the

subjective perception that respondents felt about the proportion of sexual minority-related

content (recognition of the degree of sexual minority-related content) and images

(recognition of positive and negative representation of sexual minority-related content).

Specifically, referring to the study by Lee(2010), indirect contact through social media

consisted of the following items, measured on a five-point recert scale (1 point: strongly

disagree, 5 points: strongly agree): 'COVID-19-related media reports seem to describe sexual

minorities as ____’' 'The media reports related to COVID-19 don't talk much about sexual

minorities' ‘I often read sexual minorities in media reports about COVID-19.’ In other words,

the proportion of sexual minority-related content encountered in media reports and how

respondents felt about the images were measured, and the larger the number, the higher the

negative perception of sexual minorities through the media.

Sexual Minorities Stigma

 The stigma of sexual minorities is a negative and disgraceful stereotype that other

generations have about the abilities or tendencies of sexual minorities. Yet a measure of

stigma for sexual minorities has not yet been developed. Thus, the same minority group, the

stigma scale for the mentally disabled, was revised and used: A total of five factors are

divided into: 'unrecoverable,' 'separate treatment needed,' 'risk,' 'violence,' and 'incompetence’

(Kim, 2003). In this study, survey questions was as follows: 'I think sexual minorities need

treatment,' 'I think they should be isolated from society,' 'I think sexual minorities are

personally dangerous,' 'I think sexual minorities are socially dangerous,' 'I think sexual

minorities are violent,' 'I think they are incapable.'

Discrimination against Sexual Minorities

The sexual minority discriminatory perception scale, consisting of a question

developed by Jones et al (2014), called Ally Identity Measure (AIM), consists of in detail (a)

knowledge and skills, (b) openness and support, and (c) oppression awareness, which means

that sexual minorities are evaluated positively in three dimensions by separating them from

other groups. Referring to the scale, the study asked two questions for each of the three

factors and measure the perception of sexual minorities with a total of six questions: ‘I know

about resources (for example: books, Web sites, support groups, etc.) for sexual minority

people in my area’ ‘I have developed the skills necessary to provide support if a sexual

minority person needs my help’ ‘I have engaged in efforts to promote more widespread

acceptance of sexual minority people’ ‘I have taken a public stand on important issues facing

sexual minority people.’ ‘I think the sexual minority groups are oppressed by society in the

United States’ ‘I think sexual minority individuals face barriers in the workplace that are not

faced by heterosexuals’
Control Variables

Gender, age, income, educational background, and opportunities for interaction with

sexual minorities were used as control variables. Since the results of the experiment may vary

depending on the degree of interaction with sexual minorities, it should be controlled. In

other words, this paper wanted to look at how indirect contact through the media affects

perception by controlling the above variables that affect sexual minority awareness and

discrimination.
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