Spain's second wave of Coronavirus.
-5 steps critical analysis on Mariana's BBC News Article on "Coronavirus: why Spain is seeing second wave".
DESCRIPTION: Spain has the fastest-rising caseload in Europe. When the state of emergency ended in June 21st, Spain was registering more or less a hundred cases per day. Nowadays, the number of cases increased to 3000. The government is aware of these numbers and by the fact that a second wave is about to start. One specific region has been more attacked by the virus: Aragon.
ANALYSIS: In the article an interesting pattern is given by the words which are addressed to Spanish politics: poisonous. Pedro Sanchez and the national government are being accused because of lies related to death rates in the nation. Furthermore, the regional government of Madrid has been accused and criticized as well. As the author stated: “Spanish politics has lacked any consensus or spirit of collaboration in managing the coronavirus crisis” (Badcock, 2020).
INTERPRETATION: The article properly explain Spain’s management of COVID-19 condemning how much time is needed in order to “put measures in place” as Prof Hernandez says. A short list of statistics is provided and highlights how numbers in Spain are actually worrying if compared to other big European countries such as Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and the UK. Spanish democracy is playing a big part for these results. Furthermore, the author of the article included a critic from Ximenia di Lollo, of Doctors Without Borders, related to the lack of preparation and organization of the Spanish government towards the virus issue.
EVALUATION: The article is complete, statistics are well made and provide the perfect facts in order to raise awareness of the problem. The article’s main message is how and why Spain is facing so many difficulties regarding the containment of the virus. There is a bias against the management of the situation from Spanish politicians who are believed to be the major responsible of the problem since they did not adopt the right measures for the purpose of preventing the spread of the virus.
ENGAGEMENT: I think the article provided accurate words and numbers to clearly explain the situation. However, I would give more space to videos or pictures since they easily capture the attention of the reader and in an important topic such as coronavirus, videos would provide a better understanding towards the dangerousness of the problem.
I really liked your analysis of this article. From what you have said it seems that the article provides a good criticism of the way Spain has handled the virus, providing evidence for its points with data and statistics, as well as consulting professionals like doctors. It is interesting that you say the article has a bias against the Spanish politicians in charge of the situation, do you think maybe some focus should have been given to how the individual have been handling it as well, since that would also have an affect on numbers rising? Even if measures have been put in place, if no one is following them or taking them seriously, they will not work.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your analysis Mariana, and for your comments Regina. I think that what you describe is typical advocacy journalism. We mentioned how Spanish press tends to focus on commentary and opinion, which, on the other hand seems essential during times of crisis. What do you think of the language that this articles uses? Do you think that provocative language is acceptable in an opinion genre? Finally, the engagement is a production stage, rather than an analysis stage. You should explain what kind of action would you take to contribute to the truthful dissemination of Covid-related information to the general public.
ReplyDeleteSorry Lapo, I can see now this is yours and not Mariana's!!
ReplyDelete