IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v707y2023i1p144-171.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure

Author

Listed:
  • Ava Francesca Battocchio
  • Kjerstin Thorson
  • Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice
  • Marisa Smith
  • Yingying Chen
  • Stephanie Edgerly
  • Kelley Cotter
  • Hyesun Choung
  • Chuqing Dong
  • Moldir Moldagaliyeva
  • Christopher E. Etheridge

Abstract

The decline in the number and quality of local news media has led to digital platforms becoming more central in circulating local information, affecting what information and issues are accessible to community residents. We demonstrate this by focusing on health disparities related to COVID-19, examining how both news and non-news civic organizations in six Great Lakes communities addressed pandemic-related racial inequities. Our analysis of interviews and a corpus of Facebook posts suggest that (1) very little discussion of health disparities emerged on Facebook from organizations in these communities, and (2) the majority of this content was produced by local news outlets. This article offers a vision of what local content might look like in the absence of robust local news outlets and highlights potential consequences of local civic information infrastructure with digital platforms playing a central role.

Suggested Citation

  • Ava Francesca Battocchio & Kjerstin Thorson & Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice & Marisa Smith & Yingying Chen & Stephanie Edgerly & Kelley Cotter & Hyesun Choung & Chuqing Dong & Moldir Moldagaliyeva & Christophe, 2023. "Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 707(1), pages 144-171, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:707:y:2023:i:1:p:144-171
    DOI: 10.1177/00027162231214398
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162231214398
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00027162231214398?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:707:y:2023:i:1:p:144-171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.