Covid19 Pandemic and Media Performance in Bangladesh

A Youth Perspective Study

Abstract

Mass Media plays a crucial role in the contemporary world and it has become more significant in health information communication since the covid19 pandemic emerged. The study aims to identify how the Bangladeshi mass media responded and performed in tackling the outbreak situation from the perception of selected youths. Employing a mixed research method, the study collected data from selected 100 respondents from an online questionnaire survey. The major findings of the study reveal that to some extent Bangladeshi media performed well in the pandemic, updating regular news about the virus, giving advertisements, launching various programs, guidelines regarding health issues and seeking information in covid related corruption cases. Nevertheless, media helped citizens with information, few drawbacks of media has been found for publishing fake news which results rumor and decline of trust in the citizens regarding their programs. The findings appear that the majority of the respondents reprimand the health ministry for insufficiency in disseminating health guidelines through effective programs, discontinuing daily press briefing of corona patient. Besides, a great concern has also been expressed as the freedom of media and journalists hampered in the covid19 pandemic, disrupting their work in that challenging time. The overall study finds out that the media performed moderately during covid19 pandemic, whereas it could have served better in that situation. The study suggests that media in Bangladesh can perform better if provided adequate freedom to carry out appropriate investigations, develop creative contents to make citizens more aware and familiar with the pandemic, update credible sources of information, and avoid any sort of infodemics, follow international media sources to be more effective and efficient.