The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Challenge for Media and Communication Studies

Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech, Bartłomiej Łódzki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000537451
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This truly interdisciplinary volume brings together a diverse group of scholars to explore changes in the significance of media and communication in the era of pandemic. The book answers two interrelated questions: how media and communication reality changed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how media and communication were effectively studied during this time.

The book presents changes in media and communication in three areas: media production, media content, and media usage contexts. It then describes the theoretical and practical, methodological, technical, organizational, and ethical challenges in conducting research in circumstances of sudden change in research conditions, emergency situations and developing crises. Drawing on various theoretical studies and empirical research, the volume illustrates the principles and results of applying diverse research methods to the changing role of media in a pandemic and offers good practices and guidance to address the problems in implementing research projects in a time of sudden difficulties and challenges.

This diverse and interdisciplinary book will be of significance to scholars and researchers in media studies, communication studies, research methods, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies.

Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003232049-5/ecological-approach-fausto-colombo?context=ubx&refId=aa5bc500-bb40-4ccb-879b-d5c8562efa67

Part I New theoretical and methodological foundations

1 Dilemmas and uncertainty Seven research challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic

Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech

DOI: 10.4324/9781003232049-3

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic must not only be regarded as a medical event but also as a social phenomenon, shattering the status quo (Teti et al., 2020). With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social order has been disrupted in many dimensions. This also applies to academic practice: research, teaching, and administrative activities. A pandemic represents a kind of crisis, disruption, emergency. Like wars, natural disasters, and financial collapses, epidemics and pandemics reorganise the previous balance of power, opportunities and priorities. This forces members of society to react and change, and scientists are not spared.

Scholars have faced challenges, dilemmas and problems that they did not expect. Researchers of social phenomena belonged to this group of academics who, despite the difficulties during the first wave of COVID-19, in many cases did not lose the opportunity of conducting research, as happened to many natural scientists.

However, this does not change the fact that in the context of sudden threats and changes, questions arise about the possibilities, validity, and, sometimes, duties of researchers. What should they do and how? What should they give up? What are the priorities? What principles? What possibilities? The pandemic reorganised everyday life. Suddenly, at a single point in time, fundamental issues had to be redefined. This is what has happened in the field of science, for example. Important questions have arisen, including what the responsibility of media and communication scholars is, how they should respond to the current situation, and what tasks they should plan.

This chapter describes the seven main challenges faced by media and communication researchers in the pandemic: methodological, ethical, thematic, publication time, and publication convention, as well as the purely human and concerns about the future. Each challenge is analysed taking into account both dilemmas and doubts, and including examples of reactions and other recommendations. The analysis of each challenge includes key questions that the researchers had to answer and examples of practice that attempt to answer them and find a solution to the situation.

The research

The research was carried out just before the start of the so-called second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in early autumn in Europe, and was inspired by observations of changes in the academic community, based on social media reports from academics themselves, as well as academic and media organisations and other institutions and informal groups. The beginning of the pandemic was characterised by shock, disbelief, and fear of the unknown. For many researchers in the social sciences, the lockdown and closure of universities and other research centres meant a sudden halt in research, the suspension of projects, the uncertainty of their future. Although in many cases teaching was automatically transferred to the online space, not all research projects could undergo such a transformation, especially in the short term.

Along with the administrative, technical, and logistical problems of organising the work (how to do it), other problems of a legal and ethical nature began to emerge (is it allowed and appropriate), entailing further dilemmas (when to do it, with whom, with what tools, and with what methods).

In addition, the adaptations and transformations of projects or the freezing of research have been accompanied by numerous changes in the social and private life of researchers, especially family life. Working conditions have changed: often the time and place of work. Despite the danger and stress, in many cases the professional pressure did not diminish. As time passed, medical and psychological problems became apparent in academic staff. At a critical moment, the media reported the death of a sick academic in front of a computer screen during a remote lesson (Davison, 2020). This triggered a wave of discussion, including questions about the limits, above all ethical limits, of the demands placed on academic staff in the conditions of a pandemic. This has prompted consideration of what are the tasks of academics in this new and difficult situation of a global crisis, but also what are the real and safe possibilities for their implementation.

The research presented here answers the question of what social scientists, especially media and communication scholars, were confronted with in their daily practice during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, what their challenges were and what resources were available at the time to meet them. General observations and preliminary reflections were juxtaposed with the results of the researchers’ scientific work, in the form of publications from the first wave of the pandemic, both from the media and communication sciences, other humanities and social sciences, and more distant scientific fields, but addressing the problems of media and communication or social research methodology.

To identify the main challenges during the first six months of the pandemic, a review of scholarly publications in the field of media and communication studies on the relationship between the media and the COVID-19 pandemic was performed using Google Scholar search results of selected keywords.¹ The research was conducted in early September 2020. Only publications that appeared between March and August 2020 were analysed.

Due to the low percentage of publications on the COVID-19 pandemic falling within the scope of the discipline of media and communication studies, the search in Google Scholar was expanded to include publications from other disciplines and where the published articles dealt with media and communication issues. Due to the low percentage of such materials, the search was continued and extended to include theoretical and methodological problems in the broad social sciences relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as publications from distant disciplines (e.g. medicine) concerning communication and media issues.

Juxtaposing initial observations from the first weeks of the pandemic, based on media and individual reports, with the results of an analysis of publications from the first six months of the pandemic, the main challenges faced by the social scientists in the new situation were identified: methodological, ethical, thematic, publication time, publication convention as well as the purely human and concerns about the future. What they consisted of and how they were dealt with after the first clash with the new circumstances were identified.

Challenge 1: methodology

In different parts of the world, the first six months of the pandemic did not look the same. It differed in China, Italy, Sweden, and the United States, and in Poland, Australia, and Germany. Different local conditions meant that lockdown policies, pandemic control and effectiveness of actions taken were different, which translated into the availability of specific practical research options. In each place, however, researchers were largely immobilised, constrained, subjected to the pressure of a sudden transformation of work from offline to online or, at best, to a hybrid mode. Methodological problems have arisen in projects that are continuing or have just started.

Questions to be raised

What methods, tools, and techniques are best, most effective, most ethical, yet financially accessible in this situation? How to ensure methodological correctness of their application? How to transform qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies? Where possible, what can be substituted for tools and methods that cannot be implemented? What research is precluded by the lockdown and the pandemic itself? What possibilities have arisen from this situation – what can be done that was not possible before and will not be possible later? Finally, what other possibilities can be used that the current situation conditions or creates, and can be used in a way that is both effective and appropriate?

Examples

Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies required very different transformations. Deborah Lupton’s project “Doing fieldwork during pandemic” is a good example of a collective response to the challenges posed early. At the core of the project was a shared Google sheet, constantly developed by researchers, presenting a variety of methodologies from the humanities and social sciences, mainly qualitative. The initial focus was on the ethnographic perspective, before moving on to novel and universal methods applicable to other disciplines, including media and communication studies. The first months of the pandemic were spent formulating a key document, edited by D. Lupton, which in its final version included a description of 34 research techniques. In June 2020, the originator of the initiative started a channel on You Tube: “Innovative Methods Webinar Series”, which was dedicated to the presentation, adaptation and development of further innovative research methods. The novelty of the proposals not only served to find solutions to the problems forced by the pandemic but also set new directions for the future.

Methodological innovation proved to be a key good practice. Its development was also called for by authors and editors of humanities and social science journals. Researchers were expected to learn from past catastrophes to create new methods for now and for future (Feters & Molina-Azorin, 2020). In general, practice has shown that a rapid transition towards remote and mediated research is possible thanks to new technologies. This generates delays, new difficulties, and changes, but does not block the research processes completely.

Challenge 2: ethics

To find quick solutions to the “how to do research” problem has not always been easy; or the solution has proved to be half-hearted when confronted with ethical dilemmas. Existing ethical procedures proved to be insufficient. They did not take into account situations such as sudden changes in the population and the emergence of high-risk groups or groups of high social need. While general ethical principles, codes of good practice, and regulations guided the way, individual rules had to be defined by researchers themselves and adapted automatically. Some of the dilemmas (e.g. concerning whether this was the time for research activity at all) concerned the initial phase of the pandemic, related to the shock and the adaptation process; others remained relevant also in the following months (e.g. those concerning what topics should be taken up for the common good). Some, such as the psychological burden (related to anxiety and depression resulting from the prolonged lockdown) with the passing of time, began to raise other ethical dilemmas for researchers and respondents.

Questions to be raised

Is it right to conduct research under the current conditions? Which topics should be undertaken and which should not? Which sources to use – which are reliable and ethical? Is it ethical to reach informants? How to choose them and who not to choose for research? What topics are relevant to the collective good now? What activities should be discontinued? How have ethical principles already changed and how might they still change in the near future? What is easy to forget in the research process, and should not be forgotten when the situation is volatile, stressful and unpredictable?

Examples

The search for answers to ethical questions in the first weeks and even months of the pandemic has shown the significant role of online communication channels such as blogs and other websites that are not traditional academic communication channels. It was from such sources that information seekers could draw inspiration, compelled to respond immediately. In the first six months of the pandemic, it was difficult to find ethical guidelines dedicated to media and communication researchers in the strict sense. On the other hand, there was no lack of studies which, thanks to their universal approach to the humanities and social sciences, provided recipients with the knowledge they needed immediately.

Among the key general guidelines, the following postulates can be mentioned:

• the health, safety and well-being of researchers and respondents is a top priority, standing above the interests of researchers or deadlines (Jow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I New theoretical and methodological foundations
• Part II Changes in media outlets activity and practices
• Part III Changes in media content and narration
• Part IV Changes in media usage and reception
• Conclusions
• Index