Pandemic Deaths: Media Representations of Long-Term Care in Ontario as a Sociological Case Study

Abstract

The mass media influences our worldviews and perceptions, especially of social problems and potential solutions. Importantly, media messages, especially when repeated over time and during a crisis (real or perceived), tend to influence future public policy. Consistent with other periods of crisis and uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemicization has led to an increased consumption of and reliance on news for accurate information and guidance on what to do and how to act amidst changing public health regulations and social norms. While the aging demographic has made media headlines before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the death of nearly 4,000 long-term care facility patients in Ontario alone since March 2020, most of them older adults, has increased the salience of Long-Term Care in the news (television, radio, newspapers, and digital news platforms). In this regard, many claims have been made in the media regarding older adults and their care and safety. But how are the problems leading to mass deaths in LTCFs defined and subsequent solutions presented in the mass media? In order to answer this question, this research asks: how are aging, care, and safety constructed or portrayed in newspaper coverage of LTC in Ontario during the first eight months of the COVID-19 pandemicization? Moreover, what are the implications of these portrayals for an aging population whereby nearly all of us will either need assistance at some point in our lives, provide this assistance to others, or both? Newspaper articles in the National Post on the topic of LTC from March to November 2020 were reviewed using Critical Discourse Analysis. Findings indicate event bias in reporting, journalistic ignorance on the issues in LTC and for those confined therein, dehumanization of older adult subjects, and highly medicalized notions of care and safety.