Moral panic about “covidiots” in Canadian newspaper coverage of COVID-19

Gabriela Capurro; Cynthia G. Jardine; Jordan Tustin; Michelle Driedger

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0261942

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 1, 2021
2 Aug 2021 Decision Letter - Martin Chtolongo Simuunza, Editor PONE-D-21-04611 “Good citizens” and “covidiots”: Moral panic in Canadian opinion discourse of COVID-19 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Capurro, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. The reviewer has recommended that you make minor revisions to the manuscript. Please attend to these suggestions and where you don't agree, provide reasons for that. Then return the revised manuscript to us as advised in this letter. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 16 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to read this amazingly interesting paper. I am glad to see the authors take this topic on. The paper is well written, easy to following and logically organized. My comments below are mere suggestions to make this already interesting and important paper even better. The greatest (only) weakness of the paper is the treatment of moral panics. The authors claim that we are seeing a moral panic, or a sequence of them, about COVID noncompliance in opinion discourse. What the paper is really demonstrating is how opinion discourse presented noncompliance as a moral failure through shaming and the failure to ‘be in it together.’ The result was a sequence of calls for fines, quarantines, etc. I think the three-fold focus on moral order/self-regulation, hostility, and punitive action not only makes sense but is demonstrated well in the findings section. But the link between the moral panic section and the findings one is not so strong. I am aware that the authors have previously written on the relationship between moral regulation and moral panic. Yet none of this is discussed in the current paper. Too bad: it applies so well. The moral panic/regulation literature is full of discussion about personal and collective responsibility, blame, shaming, and so on. In that literature, moral panic is conceptualized as a key sociological process that contributes towards the maintenance of moral order. In plain terms, the literature conceptualizes panic as a kind of emergency response to perceived breakdowns in moral regulation (understood as responsible self-control). It seems like this literature was made for COVID claimsmaking! I would encourage the authors to deal with the current state of moral panic studies more analytically. The framework as it stands is more rhetorical and descriptive than analytical. More than that, I wonder if the authors considered the merits of an elite engineered panic model? Grounds for this come out in the discussion. My own take is that the public health establishment did not adequately address COVID, with their mixed messaging about masks, aerosol, early risk in Canada, schools, reopenings, etc. In fact, this is all coming out today in the so-called third wave. I wonder (somewhat rhetorically) what role official claimsmakers play(ed) in creating the conditions for panic in the first place? That is, it’s their mixed messages, changing views, and sometimes bizarre recommendations that foster opportunities to offload blame the snowbirds, the beach-going kids, etc. It seems to me that bourgeois families pack the highways and fill the ferries and campgrounds every chance they get. It seems to me that those suffering ‘covid fatigue’ find many chances to ‘break the rules’ when the covidiot public health people tell them they can travel. The flip flopping is painful in BC. Bonnie Henry and her team have a habit of changing their minds at the last minute (New Years Eve, Spin classes, recently restaurants). The March 21 messaging around the light at the end of the tunnel also provided insufficient preparation for the growing infection numbers we are seeing in April. My point is that blaming kids, the fatigued, travelers, etc. might draw attention away from the biggest covidiots of all. John Horgan actually blamed young people in BC recently and told them not to blow it for the rest of us. As far as I know, Tofino was packed with middle-aged people over Easter. So were the ferries. I would like to see the authors intensify their own critique of the public health officers and politicians in the discussion. In short, the panic-as regulation framework seems to fit here very well. Not sure why the authors don’t use it. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the paper. One last interesting thing. Some restaurants in Vancouver, folk devils of sorts, refused to close after Bonnie Henry randomly closed them to indoor dining in late March. Yet BC residents can lift weights at a gym. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261942.r001
Revision 1
25 Aug 2021 Author Response Comment 1: The greatest (only) weakness of the paper is the treatment of moral panics. The authors claim that we are seeing a moral panic, or a sequence of them, about COVID noncompliance in opinion discourse. What the paper is really demonstrating is how opinion discourse presented noncompliance as a moral failure through shaming and the failure to ‘be in it together.’ The result was a sequence of calls for fines, quarantines, etc. I think the three-fold focus on moral order/self-regulation, hostility, and punitive action not only makes sense but is demonstrated well in the findings section. But the link between the moral panic section and the findings one is not so strong. I am aware that the authors have previously written on the relationship between moral regulation and moral panic. Yet none of this is discussed in the current paper. Too bad: it applies so well. The moral panic/regulation literature is full of discussion about personal and collective responsibility, blame, shaming, and so on. In that literature, moral panic is conceptualized as a key sociological process that contributes towards the maintenance of moral order. In plain terms, the literature conceptualizes panic as a kind of emergency response to perceived breakdowns in moral regulation (understood as responsible self-control). It seems like this literature was made for COVID claimsmaking! I would encourage the authors to deal with the current state of moral panic studies more analytically. The framework as it stands is more rhetorical and descriptive than analytical. Response: We appreciate the suggestion to include the concept of moral regulation in our analytical framework. We have introduced and explained the concept of moral regulation in the section about moral panics, and we have used it subsequently in our discussion to explain how official discourses of moral regulation prompted a moral panic to be expressed in opinion discourse. Comment #2: More than that, I wonder if the authors considered the merits of an elite engineered panic model? Grounds for this come out in the discussion. My own take is that the public health establishment did not adequately address COVID, with their mixed messaging about masks, aerosol, early risk in Canada, schools, reopenings, etc. In fact, this is all coming out today in the so-called third wave. I wonder (somewhat rhetorically) what role official claimsmakers play(ed) in creating the conditions for panic in the first place? That is, it’s their mixed messages, changing views, and sometimes bizarre recommendations that foster opportunities to offload blame the snowbirds, the beach-going kids, etc. It seems to me that bourgeois families pack the highways and fill the ferries and campgrounds every chance they get. It seems to me that those suffering ‘covid fatigue’ find many chances to ‘break the rules’ when the covidiot public health people tell them they can travel. The flip flopping is painful in BC. Bonnie Henry and her team have a habit of changing their minds at the last minute (New Years Eve, Spin classes, recently restaurants). The March 21 messaging around the light at the end of the tunnel also provided insufficient preparation for the growing infection numbers we are seeing in April. My point is that blaming kids, the fatigued, travelers, etc. might draw attention away from the biggest covidiots of all. John Horgan actually blamed young people in BC recently and told them not to blow it for the rest of us. As far as I know, Tofino was packed with middle-aged people over Easter. So were the ferries. I would like to see the authors intensify their own critique of the public health officers and politicians in the discussion. In short, the panic-as regulation framework seems to fit here very well. Not sure why the authors don’t use it. Response: Using the concept of moral regulation we have included in the discussion some lines regarding how official discourses shifted blame to the individual, which was then reproduced in opinion discourse. We also incorporated this idea to our recommendations, by suggesting reporters and commentators be more careful to not engage in this blame-shifting but instead keep their focus on risk managers and how they are facilitating or hindering risk prevention measures. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261942.r002
15 Dec 2021 Decision Letter - Martin Chtolongo Simuunza, Editor Moral panic about “covidiots” in Canadian newspaper coverage of COVID-19 PONE-D-21-04611R1 Dear Dr. Capurro, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Martin Chtolongo Simuunza, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261942.r003
Formally Accepted
7 Jan 2022 Acceptance Letter - Martin Chtolongo Simuunza, Editor PONE-D-21-04611R1 Moral panic about “covidiots” in Canadian newspaper coverage of COVID-19 Dear Dr. Capurro: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Martin Chtolongo Simuunza Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261942.r004

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