*Farhana Abdul Fatah, Nor Azikin Mohd Omar, Norazrin Zamri
Abstract:
News media reporting on vaccines amid a global pandemic plays a vital role in not only communicating pertinent details, but also in shaping the public’s attitude towards vaccines. Indeed, despite global efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 through vaccination, the public’s attitude towards vaccines has been varied. This qualitative study attempts to discern the relationship between media reports and public concern by exploring religion as a newsworthy aspect for media reporting on COVID-19 vaccines in Malaysia. We drew upon insights from discursive news values analysis (DNVA) to examine news headlines from 10 Malaysian newspapers in English and Bahasa Malaysia. A focus group discussion (FGD) conducted with five selected members of the public supplemented the primary data.
Keywords: Discourse analysis, discursive news values, media, religion, COVID-19