Newspaper Framing Of A Health Crisis And Public Perception In Kenya: The Case Of Kenyatta National Hospital Wrong-Patient Brain Surgery

Abstract

This study investigated the role of newspapers’ frames on public perception of Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) during the wrong patient brain surgery crisis. To be specific, the study examined the most prevalent crisis frame featured during KNH wrong-patient brain surgery crisis. Second, it examined whether the four newspapers’ (The Daily Nation, The Standard, People Daily, and The Star) coverage of KNH wrong-patient brain surgery crisis was reported negatively or positively (valence framing). In addition, the research investigated how the most dominant public perception towards KNH varied by demographics of gender, age, religion, and year of study. Lastly, it examined whether there was a significant correlation between the most prevalent newspaper valence and the dominant public’s perception. Findings show that attribution of responsibility (35.10%) was the most dominant frame during the crisis period. The coverage of the crisis was overwhelmingly reported in a negative tone (81.34%) while the correlation between media coverage and public’s perception of KNH is a weak positive correlation (+.23). Relatedly, there is also a strong positive correlation (+.81) between the most prevalent newspaper valence reporting and the public’s dominant perception. By demographics; male (50.65%), first years (36.28), those aged 18-20 (54.7%), and Christians (88.3%) recorded the highest negative perception towards KNH. Media coverage of the surgery, organizational crisis history, poor response strategy, individual experience, negative relation history, negative word of mouth, and diminished expectations are the reasons why the public held negative perception towards KNH. This should formulate a base from which organizations approach crises, as they determine the public’s perception of the organization. The youth are interested in issues of public interest. As such, this is a challenge to crisis managers who are required to balance their approach towards different types of stakeholders in terms of message creation and dissemination. The outcomes of this study show that media frames shape how the public perceive organizations. As such, this demonstrates the reasons why it is important for crisis communication managers to treat news media with utmost seriousness, as they define how institutions or organizations are perceived by the public.