A frame analysis of the New York Times coverage of the Omicron variant surge in the United States
The final count for each frame is as follows:
The final count for each category of first quoted sources is as follows:
The analysis showed that the most prevalent frame used by the New York Times when covering the Omicron surge was Political Response, followed by Social Consequence and Healthcare Response. The least-used frame was Economic Consequence, with Human Interest in second to last place. Politicians were quoted first the most, followed by Health officials. Healthcare workers and Company spokespeople were quoted the least often.
Multiple interesting phenomena were observed in the coverage throughout the short and consequential Omicron surge. First, political frames were used proportionally more at the beginning and end of the domain, while in the middle, Social Consequence, Outbreak, Responsibility, and Human Interest increased in use. The prevalence of the Outbreak and Social Consequence frames began to eclipse that of the Political Response frame (which was the immediate front runner at the beginning of December) in mid- and late-December when Omicron cases in New York City began accelerating at an unprecedented rate. At this time, the number of articles per day in the domain increased as well. This suggests that as cases rose, the New York Times focused less on political action and more on the very real human toll the surge was taking. Then, once the surge was subsiding, it focused once more on the political aspects of the pandemic.
Second, Responsibility, Social Consequence, and Outbreak frames hardly ever appeared on their own. Those frames were most often present in stories with two or more frames. In contrast, Political Response and Healthcare Response frames were often presented on their own. Finally, in the last half of the domain, the New York Times coverage of Omicron’s effect on education began to increase dramatically, significantly boosting the use of the Social Consequence frame. It was at this time that I added the "Education" column to the list of the possible sources. I felt that schoolteachers, principals, district superintendents, and other related titles did not fall under the classifications “Academic” or “Community member,” and they were often the first to be quoted in such articles.