Thread by @Vic_Rollison

I asked Victorians to tell me what’s it’s been like to live through daily barrage of biased media reporting while also dealing with covid threat. I was inundated with over a thousand replies and DMs. I wanted to summarise what everyone told me. A thread👇🏻

Here is my tweet asking for responses. You can scroll the 100s of responses. There are many common themes which show how terribly the media - national and Victorian - have failed the Victorian public during the pandemic crisis.

https://twitter.com/Vic_Rollison/status/1316981260628205568

Many people said they felt anxious enough about covid - scared of catching it, friends and family getting it, jobs and businesses lost, lockdown isolation, missing family - and that when they turned to the media for information, they were left feeling more anxious and upset.

People used strong language to describe their anger and frustration at media bias - furious, gutted, heartbroken, devastated, infuriated, livid, despairing, betrayed. So much hurt, anger and emotional anguish. The reasons for this anger was fairly consistent amongst most people.

One thing that made me most sad was that hundreds said they felt Australia was against them. Victorians felt neglected and on their own - as all the media focus was on what Victorians had done wrong, holding them up as the leper colony for all other states to laugh and point at.

There were responses that said the first wave didn’t feel as bad as everyone was in it together, but then in second wave, Victorians were singled out and made to feel like the rest of the country were against them. The biased political media pitted Victoria against everyone else.

Many mentioned this as a cause of their anxiety, while saying they felt the same way about how the Federal government treated Victorians too. The media attack and the Morrison govt neglect were indistinguishable in the comments about media bias - the anger about both is palpable.

It was also interesting to note that many said they accepted mistakes had been made and many acknowledged such mistakes will happen in a pandemic. They said Andrews was clearly working hard under difficult circumstances, and continued to do whatever he could to keep people safe.

Related to this, people understood covid had got out of hotel quarantine, but felt the media’s constant obsession with it meant that’s all they heard about for months. The audience wanted media to move on, but they were stuck on this point. This left people feeling in the dark.

Many told me they hadn’t been strong Andrews supporters before, but backed him as they could see he was doing his best to keep them safe. This is the key thing - when he was constantly attacked, these people felt they were less secure. Sutton was also mentioned in this respect.

The attacks on Andrews therefore were also experienced as attacks on all Victorians. The opposition to lockdowns felt like it was opposition to the hard work Victorians were doing. Many older people told me they felt media commentary framed them as selfish for wanting to be safe.

Quite a few also said they could see the media opposing all the strategies Andrews was bringing in to fight the pandemic, and they were fearful this would undermine the success of those strategies and undermine the public’s covid response - leaving them vulnerable to catching it.

Quite a few people also said the clear political agenda present in much media reporting made it hard to know what was really happening in Victoria, leaving them feeling confused and upset that they weren’t getting all the information. They also named disinformation as scary.

A common thread was also the division and conflict felt by people when they had family, friends or colleagues accepting the biased media attacks and using similar commentary to oppose lockdowns or call it the ‘Dandemic’, the fault of ‘Dictator Dan’, etc. People were torn apart.

The Victorian Liberals were often described as responsible for stunts and political game playing which left people feeling insecure and angry - particularly when media amplified this game playing for political reasons. Huge amount of anger is directed at Victorians Liberals.

In terms of the outlets mentioned, by far the most common named were Murdoch outlets - Herald Sun, Australian, Sky News. Others also mentioned The Age and a large number also said they were devastated the ABC had joined the biased pile on and that they could no longer trust ABC.

Finally, all the hurt and anger described above was made even worse by offensive name calling of people who said they supported Andrews’ handling of the pandemic. Names such as Dan Stans, being called Trump cultists and accused of Stockholm Syndrome - made people upset and angry.

So there you have it. The huge number of responses were a wave of emotion and turmoil. People said even when case numbers came down, they were sent into despair when media attacks didn’t end. I hope some journos read this thread and have a think about how they’ve contributed. End

PS. Thank you to everyone who contributed their experiences. This is research for the book I’m writing about media inequality - it will be a chapter about the influence of media inequality on the audience. As you can see from the thread, the influence is emotionally damaging.