Coverage of an online journal about dengue in recife/pe, brazil: an analysis of content

Abstract

The dengue has consolidated itself as one of the biggest challenges of public health of the last times in the city of Recife. This research aimed to annalyse the news contents about dengue in an online journal of a major gifital influence in Recife, PE. It is a qualitative descriptive study, which used content annalysis as the organizational technique method and as data annalysis, the time frame for search of the reports in the online jornal was from January to April of 2016 and the contentes were grouped according to the following categories: a) authorities role; b) epidemiological information; c) community blame; d) prevention means and vetor control; e) promoted educational measures. During this same period, there were 13.049 new cases of dengue on the online jornal, and 42 tidings were published about dengue in the online journal. However, only six tidings were about the disease in the city which was being studied. From the analysis, it was possible to observe that the information sources were more used by the paper, specially the ones offered by the city’s health office.  The most part of the tidings narrated the authorities role and epidemiological information, as the number of notified and confirmed cases as well as deaths. A maioria das notícias narravam o papel das autoridades e informações epidemiológicas, como número de casos notificados, confirmados e os óbitos. It was proved the reduced number of issued informations during the epidemic processes, and during all year long. However, the online jornal disclosed some important tidings in relation to teh number of cases of the disease, being of great importance to the population awareness and to public health.