EBOLA IN SIERRA LEONE:
A History of the 2014 Outbreak Based on National and International Reports
EBOLA IN THE MEDIA
The international media has exacerbated attitudes of fear and panic surrounding the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Television broadcasts, newspapers and social media have all contributed to this sense of panic. While many times these outlets provide reliable and necessary information to the public, recently they have fallen short of providing a reasonable response to the situation in Sierra Leone, as well as West Africa as a whole.
An article entitled "Let's Help the Media Be Better on Ebola," provides a sort-of self-criticism of the handling of the Ebola outbreak by the Huffington Post, as well as the contribution of the media to the sense of mass hysteria regarding the disease. Author Jason Linkins states, "none of it is Ebola's fault. It's the media's fault,"(Huffington Post, 2014) and provides solutions to this problem such as "[toning] down the melodrama" and "don't be afraid to ask knowledgable people the questions that arise from popular-but-mislaid fears."
In October 2014, Thomas Frieden stated that Ebola is "not a significant public health threat to the United States."(Bloomberg, 2014) However, this reassurance by the director of the largest public health agency in the country has done little to satisfy the media, the American public, or citizens of the world. The brutality of Ebola symptoms, in combination with an increasing number of people expressing their opinions on Facebook and Twitter, has created an international media frenzy. According to Ashish K. Jha, Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, "the problem is that every time someone has a fever and has been in Africa, the media are reporting it."(Forbes, 2014) Despite the prevelence of other diseases associated with the continent such as malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, etc., it appears that the international media siezes every opportunity to report a potential Ebola case.
CDC's Tom Frieden on Ebola: 'We Will Stop it in it's Tracks'
The American Media
Mass Media Coverage: Overtime, but not Overboard?
While without a doubt the mass media exageration of the Ebola outbreak has caused unprecedented chaos both nationally and internationally, the counterargument exists that the level of attention given to Ebola by popular news sources has actually helped prevent transmission of the virus. In comparison to other diseases such as the flu, Jay Bernhardt, founding director of the Center for Health Comunication at the University of Texas, states "If any or all of these issues received the levels of media coverage and public concern that Ebola was receiving, thousands of annual deaths could be prevented." (Washington Post, 2014)
Although public health experts claim that Ebola is a low-risk threat to the United States, it is posible that over cautious mindsets illicited by mass media exaggeration have hindered the progression of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. The United States entertains approximately 37 flights per week from West Africa, and Western Europe much more at about 235, (FiveThirtyEight, 2014) so the movement of people from Ebola-stricken areas of the world is undeniably global. Therefore, it is plausible to speculate that the overreaction of the public to the Ebola outbreak has actually limited the global transmission of the disease.
Table of flight numbers from West Africa to other continents
(FiveThirtyEight, 2014)
Sierra Leone Media
In contrast to Western media outlets, the Sierra Leone media coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak is not infiltrated with hourly updates, daily criticisms or an exaggerated sense of fear. While this is ironic considering the epidemic is actually in the country of Sierra Leone, and the United States and Europe have only seen a few, isolated cases, the slow local media repsonse is representative of a lack of proximity to the internet, television and social media.
Additionally, the adult literacy rate in Sierra Leone is 43.3%, (UNICEF, 2012) so even if all Sierra Leoneans did have access to these media outlets, they might not be able to comprehend the messages behind them. This then points a finger at the local public school system, which points a finger at the lack of financial resources available, which then contributes to poverty and disease - creating a never ending cycle for the country of Sierra Leone.
(AudienceScapes, 2014)
Includes online newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
For comparison, the average American household has 2.5 TV sets (The Neilson Company, 2011)
On average, Americans spend 87 minutes listening to the radio every day (The Statistics Portal, 2014)