Information control in time of crisis: the framing of SARS in China-based newspapers and Internet sources.

A content analysis examined 727 SARS news stories from a commercial China-based Web portal, a national Chinese newspaper, and a Chinese regional newspaper. Coding included news frames (health severity, human interest, economic, attribution of responsibility, denial) and the type of cited sources (domestic and international). MANOVA analyses indicated that the national newspaper used the health severity frame more often than the regional newspaper. The China-based Web portal used the economic frame and international sources significantly more often than either newspaper. Results are discussed in terms of the future of the Internet in China as a tool to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases through rapid information dissemination.