Dr. John Pollock, a Health Communication professor, and six TCNJ students published an article in “Tripodos”, a Spanish communication journal, on US nationwide coverage of the federal/national government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
They confirmed a pattern we call a “violated buffer”, in which negative media coverage is associated with proportionately higher percentages in each of the cities studied of relatively privileged or economically “buffered” groups such as higher levels of college-educated, families with incomes of $200,000+, or professional-level occupational status.
“Violated Buffer” coverage is defined as negative coverage of a “biological threat or threat to a cherished way of life”, and COVID-19 coverage illuminates both of those conditions: biological threat and threat to a cherished way of life.
You can read the full article here on Tripodos’s website:
http://www.tripodos.com/index.php/Facultat_Comunicacio_Blanquerna/article/view/802/821
The School of Arts & Communication also published their own article:
https://artscomm.tcnj.edu/2020/08/27/communication-studies-students-publish-article-in-prestigious-spanish-journal/