Print Media Representations Of An Unusual Health Event: Chikungunya virus, risk and identity on Réunion Island

Abstract

In 2005-6, the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion experienced a massive epidemic of the mosquito-borne viral infection Chikungunya. Reporting on the epidemic in the print media demonstrates a considerable lag compared to the realtime evolution of the epidemic, and this paper explores possible reasons for that delay. We analyse the content of print media articles about Chikungunya from two Reunionese newspapers (Témoignages and Clicanoo) and two newspapers from metropolitan France (Le Figaro and Le Monde). In the Reunionese newspapers, the delay in acknowledging the public health risk posed by the virus suggests passive denial in the early stages of the epidemic, followed by acceptance with blame attributed to the French metropolitan government – reflecting the uneasy historical relationship between the Reunionese and the government. In the French metropolitan newspapers, the delay is even greater and may reflect the influence of residual colonialist thinking on the priority placed on reporting on an epidemic in a remote tropical location: once a risk to metropolitan France is identified, reporting intensifies considerably. The media representations also highlight the importance of belief systems as modulators of people’s risk perception and their subsequent health-protection behaviour. We suggest that a better understanding of these drivers of health behaviour in multicultural societies may provide important opportunities to reduce the community burden of disease.