Centering survival as cultural strategy: Black newspapers’ cultural descriptions of the Coronavirus pandemic

ABSTRACT

Black newspapers historically procure, tailor, and disseminate information for Black Americans and the communities in which they live. Examining the relationship between Black newspapers and Black communities reveals the role of cultural knowledge when faced with the prevalence of COVID-19. This qualitative content analysis explores COVID-19 news coverage from three purposely selected Black newspapers, paying particular attention to descriptions of the cultural importance and psychosocial implications of COVID-19 and the promotion of mitigation strategies for navigating the pandemic. The study reveals the selected newspapers described Black Americans’ health and racial disparities related to the pandemic and demonstrated various ways each newspaper centered vaccination and testing as a form of community resilience to COVID-19. The results further indicate that Black newspapers should be considered crucial information resources in disseminating culturally tailored information among Black Americans.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Black newspapers
• qualitative content analysis
• racial disparities
• cultural trauma
• health disparities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Black American refers to persons with Sub-Saharan African ancestral origins with Brown or Black complexion. The term Black Americans signifies a geographical origin of African descent with attempts to describe a cultural group (Agyemang et al., 2005).