HOT CRISES AND MEDIA REASSURANCE - A COMPARISON OF EMERGING DISEASES AND EBOLA ZAIRE

Drawing on the sociology of moral panic, this paper argues that the me dia will shift from alarming to reassuring coverage when a 'hot crisis ' portends a possible grass root panic. To determine whether this mode ration effect follows from dread-inspiring events that are developing in unpredictable and potentially threatening ways, the paper compares newspaper and magazine coverage of emerging diseases with their covera ge of Ebola Zaire. The results reveal that the mutation-contagion pack age, with its frightful account of emerging diseases, was quickly aban doned and subverted during the Ebola epidemic. In its place, the media fashion a containment package that uses a strategy of 'othering' to a llay the fear. The conclusion discusses the flexibility in the tool ki ts used by the media to frame events.