Who is leading the debate? Comparing representations of the public, politicians and experts in newspaper coverage of COVID-19 policies in the UK

This article presents a critical discourse analysis comparing linguistic representations of the public, experts, and politicians in UK newspaper reporting on COVID-19 policies. The analysis focuses on 120 articles published between 2020 and 2022, sourced from four national newspapers representing a cross-section of political leanings and formats. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of references and quotations suggest that the public is primarily represented as a collective entity, with functional references, rather than as distinct individual actors. Moreover, although the public is the most frequently mentioned among the groups considered, their engagement is mostly conveyed through emotional expressions of vulnerability, with little representation of individual voices. In contrast, politicians are depicted as individuals with far greater agency. Public health experts, meanwhile, are represented as having a marginal role in influencing policy decisions. The analysis of direct quotations carried in the media demonstrates that the stances expressed toward policies in such quotations consistently align with the ideological orientations of the newspapers across all three social groups. In newspapers with distinct left- or right-leaning perspectives, direct quotes tend to show greater levels of policy disagreement than in less ideologically polarised publications. Given that news discourse has been found to strongly influence public perceptions of public health policies, we suggest that the public might be better served by newspaper coverage of health crises that counters the trend of prioritising political biases over evidence-based conclusions. Moreover, featuring the perspectives of the public more prominently in such coverage might enhance positive policy engagement from some sections of the public.