Domesticating models: On the contingency of Covid-19 modelling in UK media and policy.

ABSTRACT: Our article traces the representation of pandemic modelling in UK print media from the emergence of Covid-19 to the early stages of implementing the first UK-wide lockdown in late March 2020. Covid modelling, it is widely assumed, has shaped policy decisions and public responses to the pandemic in unprecedented ways. We analyse how the UK print media has configured modelling as a significant evidence tool in the representation of the pandemic. Interrogating assumptions about infectious disease modelling, we ask why models became the trusted tool of choice for knowing and responding to the Covid pandemic in the UK. Our analysis has yielded four different periods in the evolution of intersecting policy and media frames. Initially, modellers, policymakers and media alike emphasized uncertaint

SUBMITTER: Engelmann L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9892880 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature