Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure

Ava Francesca Battocchio; Kjerstin Thorson; Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice; Marisa Smith; Yingying Chen; Stephanie Edgerly; Kelley Cotter; Hyesun Choung; Chuqing Dong; Moldir Moldagaliyeva; Christopher E. Etheridge

doi:10.1177/00027162231214398

Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure

Ava Francesca Battocchio, Kjerstin Thorson, Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice, Marisa Smith, Yingying Chen, Stephanie Edgerly, Kelley Cotter, Hyesun Choung, Chuqing Dong, Moldir Moldagaliyeva, Christopher E. Etheridge

College of Information Sciences and Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

The decline in the number and quality of local news media has led to digital platforms becoming more central in circulating local information, affecting what information and issues are accessible to community residents. We demonstrate this by focusing on health disparities related to COVID-19, examining how both news and non-news civic organizations in six Great Lakes communities addressed pandemic-related racial inequities. Our analysis of interviews and a corpus of Facebook posts suggest that (1) very little discussion of health disparities emerged on Facebook from organizations in these communities, and (2) the majority of this content was produced by local news outlets. This article offers a vision of what local content might look like in the absence of robust local news outlets and highlights potential consequences of local civic information infrastructure with digital platforms playing a central role.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	144-171
Number of pages	28
Journal	Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Volume	707
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231214398
State	Published - May 2023

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Sociology and Political Science
General Social Sciences

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10.1177/00027162231214398

Cite this

Battocchio, A. F., Thorson, K., Hiaeshutter-Rice, D., Smith, M., Chen, Y., Edgerly, S., Cotter, K., Choung, H., Dong, C., Moldagaliyeva, M., & Etheridge, C. E. (2023). Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 707(1), 144-171. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231214398

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title = "Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure",

abstract = "The decline in the number and quality of local news media has led to digital platforms becoming more central in circulating local information, affecting what information and issues are accessible to community residents. We demonstrate this by focusing on health disparities related to COVID-19, examining how both news and non-news civic organizations in six Great Lakes communities addressed pandemic-related racial inequities. Our analysis of interviews and a corpus of Facebook posts suggest that (1) very little discussion of health disparities emerged on Facebook from organizations in these communities, and (2) the majority of this content was produced by local news outlets. This article offers a vision of what local content might look like in the absence of robust local news outlets and highlights potential consequences of local civic information infrastructure with digital platforms playing a central role.",

author = "Battocchio, {Ava Francesca} and Kjerstin Thorson and Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice and Marisa Smith and Yingying Chen and Stephanie Edgerly and Kelley Cotter and Hyesun Choung and Chuqing Dong and Moldir Moldagaliyeva and Etheridge, {Christopher E.}",

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month = may,

doi = "10.1177/00027162231214398",

language = "English (US)",

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Battocchio, AF, Thorson, K, Hiaeshutter-Rice, D, Smith, M, Chen, Y, Edgerly, S, Cotter, K, Choung, H, Dong, C, Moldagaliyeva, M & Etheridge, CE 2023, 'Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 707, no. 1, pp. 144-171. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231214398

Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure. / Battocchio, Ava Francesca; Thorson, Kjerstin; Hiaeshutter-Rice, Dan et al.
In: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 707, No. 1, 05.2023, p. 144-171.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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AU - Smith, Marisa

AU - Chen, Yingying

AU - Edgerly, Stephanie

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Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure

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