“HEALTHCARE” VOCABULARY IN PRINT MEDIA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FREQUENCY AND READERS’ PERCEPTION BEFORE AND AFTER THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC OUTBREAK

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the “healthcare” vocabulary in the print media, its usage frequency in the periods before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and public perception of the news containing this vocabulary. The importance of the study is confirmed by the fact that it contributes to developing knowledge in the field of study and understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on human lives.

The research methodology includes comparative, content, and diachronic analyses of the news articles and the newspaper Instagram-page followers’ comments. The sentiment analysis for measuring the tone of the newspaper followers’ comments was conducted utilizing the “Text Analyzer” mobile application to identify the changes in the public perception of the news containing the “healthcare” vocabulary. The corpus of news articles selected from the newspaper of the Aktobe region (the Republic of Kazakhstan) “Diapazon” was distributed into two groups: (1) published from January to December 2019 (N=3494), and (2) published from January 2020 to December 2020 (N=4419).

The study revealed a high frequency of the “healthcare” vocabulary in the news articles in both studied periods and a rapid growth of the articles containing the “healthcare” vocabulary in March, 2020 with the differential of 640 articles (12% rise). The content analysis showed a significant difference in the usage of particular “healthcare” vocabulary units. The comparative analysis of the “healthcare” vocabulary in the articles published in 2019 and 2020 revealed the most and the least frequently used words. The sentiment analysis of a random sample of the followers’ comments on the articles containing the “healthcare” vocabulary showed the general tone and polarity of opinions of the citizens of the Aktobe region. The prevailing negative tone of the comments on the news articles describing healthcare issues in both periods demonstrates the emotional significance of the topic. In both periods the negative tone was high in the news articles describing both distressing and encouraging news.