COVID-19 in the Media Essay Example

There have been 528,966,258 confirmed cases worldwide and of those 528,966,258 confirmed cases, 6,287,786 people have died from COVID-19 (World Health Organization, 2022). The biggest speculation of COVID-19 is what the vaccines have to do with it. Hello my name is Joshua Rattray and I am going to talk about the effect that the media has on the views of COVID-19 and vaccines.

One of the biggest questions since COVID-19 is “getting the COVID-19 vaccine gives you COVID-19”. The reason this entire question even exists is because the media uses drama and emotional language to sway the reader in believing that the vaccine has the power to do this. The reason people will easily believe this is because of this one question. ‘If it’s on the internet, it has to be real’, right? The media has the best team of writers in the world, they use literary devices to persuade the reader to believe everything they say. Even though they will use these devices, they more often try to make an emotional link to the topic, which sells the topic like Elon sells cars. Our brains are hardwired to accept things that are told to us from anyone who has higher power or is as simple as being famous, so be careful! Because there is so much ‘fake news’ in the world right now. We must find the right source of information. We see that people are dying, and they have just got the vaccine. We put that equation together and we get the answer. Vaccines are not trustworthy and will try and kill you. Hearing experiences like that automatically give us the answer we want to hear. Stay away from the vaccines!

As we continue talking about the questions circulating around the COVID-19 vaccine. Scientists think otherwise. “The vaccine for COVID-19 cannot and will not give you COVID-19”. (Kelen and Maragakis, 2021) Dr Gabor David Kelen and Lisa Marangkais posted a ‘story’ on the www.hopkinsmedicine.org both doctors explain that the vaccine literally will not give you COVID-19. Even though vaccines do not ‘give’ you COVID-19, people who want to cause confusion will use stories or experiences from people and even their own, where the vaccine has given them side effectsPeople think that they can’t believe the doctors because they are supposedly being ‘paid’ to tell people that it’s not dangerous, but I think it would be quite difficult to pay nearly every doctor worldwide to tell you this, don’t you? The media will contradict the experts, but it is mostly found they will have no credentials or any valid reason for their argument to back it up. I believe that we should be putting our trust in the doctors, not just because they’re ‘experts’, but because they are part of the very few people who know what they’re talking about and have studied on topics like these for very long in universities. The reason we are tricked so easily is because this false information that we hear whether it be from a person of great stature or some creep behind a screen. They can not be trusted if they do not have proper understanding of the topic, nevertheless they will write with persuasive text that for our brains doesn’t require any logic all it needs is a bit of emotional content to fill our hearts and we’re hooked. Nothing else matter, no one else’s opinion matters. So, find someone you trust! Don’t be silly! I know you’re smarter than that.

In the search for an answer, we often find ourselves looking in the wrong place. But I can assure you the vaccine can not give you COVID-19. There are people who will tell you that, making a little side effect into something much bigger than it should be. Just get the vaccine. No need to worry. Just get the vaccine.

References:

World Health Organization (2022). WHO COVID-19 dashboard. [online] World Health Organization. Available at: https://covid19.who.int/.