What’s the Word on Ebola? Using Textual Analysis to Explore the Role of Media In Securitizing Ebola during the 2013-16 West African Outbreak

Background and Purpose: As people worldwide rely on various news media sources to stay informed about local and global events, the role of media in the securitization of everyday issues has been extensively studied and remains a concern. Securitization involves framing public health issues as threats and security concerns. Mass media is believed to influence public perceptions through its language, framing, and word choice, making it a crucial part of the securitization process and a key securitizing actor. Health crises such as epidemics have long been viewed and addressed through a security lens, which has significantly shaped responses. Using the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2013-16, this work examines the media's role in framing the outbreak as a security issue. This research aims to answer the questions: What narratives did local and international media present regarding the Ebola outbreak from 2013 to 2016? What security and securitization elements are evident in media narratives about the Ebola outbreak?

Methods: Utilizing Text Analytics, which combines both qualitative and quantitative techniques, a large collection of news media articles from U.S.-based sources (The New York Times, n=816; The Wall Street Journal, n=539) and Sierra Leonean-based sources (The Sierra Leone Telegraph, n=523; Awoko Newspaper, n=3,578) was analyzed using Orange Data Mining and ProQuest TDM Studio. Topic Modeling was applied to identify latent topics within the documents, and afterwards, Distant Reading was conducted to better understand the themes in each topic.

Results: Findings indicate that both local and international media served as securitizing actors and illuminated securitizing actions during the outbreak. International media employed language such as "fight" and "combat" to describe domestic and global responses to the health epidemic, while repeatedly associating Ebola, terrorism, and actors such as ISIS. Local media also contributed to securitizing Ebola within the country by using specific language and framing the virus in a war-like context, but primarily by spotlighting securitizing measures and security-focused responses underway.

Conclusions and Implications: Securitizing a health crisis can have serious repercussions, especially for those in low-resource settings. When health crises are framed as security threats, responses often neglect human rights and psychological well-being, particularly for marginalized communities. Although it may seem that public health efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa focus on what is often called a “collective good,” they are frequently driven by Western interests and self-preservation. Framing an infectious disease outbreak as a security threat raises important questions about policy and practice—such as what happens when we decide to go to war against a virus that exists within people's bodies. This work clearly shows that both international and local media act as securitizing agents, often using war-like language to describe outbreak responses and portraying the virus as an evil force to be fought, challenging us to be intentional and critical about discourse and how information is framed.