Pandemic

As we were witnessing in the last few months, a spread of the new virus COVID-19 emerged an information outburst. In the beginning, the public faced a simple message from the Czech government about the deadly danger which meant to put into the law measurements, which limited the essential personal freedom. The Czech Republic experienced mandatory masks everywhere, self-isolating rules including no events more than 30 people at the very early beginning but also no events at all very soon after, closed schools, closed restaurants and also closed borders. Fortunately, there was no control over the movements of people inside the country. This situation was called “lock down” which meant that people were closed in their homes, most of them could not go to their work, they could not run their businesses or go out with friends.

This study plans to describe what people did at this time in their homes instead of going outside. In which level, marked this situation their psychological well-being and which role played media and communication technology in this situation. Supposedly, this time represents a remarkable exposure to the mass media news which shape not only people’s opinions but also their mood and consequently, their mental well-being. All the information sources brought a variety of information about the medical and biochemical base of the virus, statistics about contracted and dead people, about the situation in other countries and about possible options to protect against the virus. The information was very often in contradiction; it depended on which source was used. Some videos appeared, which were taken away from social media, which increased doubts if the problem is real or exaggerated or underestimate.

The forced self-isolation also impacted people’s habits and consequently, their physical and mental well-being. Whereas the mainstream media were churning out the data about lethality and graphs comparing the cases in different countries, the marginal media were speculating about possible distortion in this data using records of experts, doctors and nurses who conveyed different messages than mainstream, which might cause insecurity which information sources are reliable.

Historically, the concept of powerful mass media had emerged after the First World War, and the famous example of the power of media was the study The Invasion From Mars (Cantril, Gaudet,& Herzog, 1940). The power of mass media had also been referred many times in the 1970s (Noelle-Neumann, 1973, p. 68). Gradually, a global computer network (Internet) and consequently social media (as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) increased their impact on the society as well, which is evidenced by many studies and described in books (Perse 2016, Burton 2010, Curan 2010, Amichai 2009). A clear example was a situation explored in The Gulf War, which reveals how many people might be mistaken by media and they can claim their opinions without any foundation (Jhally, Lewis, & Morgan, 1991).

The media effects research also tried to find out how emotions improve judgement and understanding of media texts and more details about the influence of engagement with the media and what kind of emotions are aroused and what their output could be (Nabi and Prestin 2016). “After all, the media supply the informational fuel that most citizens rely on to become informed about politics and public affairs. “To put it more bluntly, the media have a major impact on the integrity of democratic citizenship” (Curan 2010).