Contribution edit
Stigmatization and Scapegoating
One of the most common social effects of infectious disease is stigmatization and scapegoating of specific populations of people, such as immigrants or even those of a certain nationality or ethnicity[1]. Numerous studies have shown that a major cause of stigma comes from biased media and government coverage of an infectious disease. This stigmatization tends to become more prevalent when media coverage of the disease is at its' highest, when multiple media outlets create different narratives for the disease, and when a disease is known to be highly infectious but is still relatively unfamiliar to the general population. This in turn causes the population to elicit strong emotional responses such as fear and uncertainty which leads to stigmatization by allowing the majority population to have a sense of superiority over the group that is being marginalized[2][3][4]. It has also been shown that individuals who display collectivistic behaviors would be less prone to having a xenophobic mindset, whereas individuals who display more individualistic behaviors would be more prone to having xenophobic mindsets due to perceptions of being "more vulnerable" to the disease.[5]
This scapegoating and stigmatization can have a wide array of consequences on both a macrosociological and a macrosociological level. For example, during the 2003 SARS outbreak at Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong, many of the individuals affected by the disease experienced stigma in every aspect of their daily lives. They were denied various services such as home delivery or maintenance, denied service at hotels and clinics, as well as experienced discrimination by their employers, friends, and family members[2].
References edit
- ^ Roy, Melissa; Moreau, Nicolas; Rousseau, Cécile; Mercier, Arnaud; Wilson, Andrew; Atlani-Duault, Laëtitia (2019-06-18). "Ebola and Localized Blame on Social Media: Analysis of Twitter and Facebook Conversations During the 2014–2015 Ebola Epidemic". Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry. 44 (1): 56–79. doi:10.1007/s11013-019-09635-8. ISSN 0165-005X.
- ^ a b Lee, Sing; Chan, Lydia Y.Y.; Chau, Annie M.Y.; Kwok, Kathleen P.S.; Kleinman, Arthur (November 2005). "The experience of SARS-related stigma at Amoy Gardens". Social Science & Medicine. 61 (9): 2038–2046. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.04.010. ISSN 0277-9536.
- ^ Gilles, Ingrid; Bangerter, Adrian; Clémence, Alain; Green, Eva G. T.; Krings, Franciska; Mouton, Audrey; Rigaud, David; Staerklé, Christian; Wagner-Egger, Pascal (2011-08-31). "Collective symbolic coping with disease threat and othering: A case study of avian influenza". British Journal of Social Psychology. 52 (1): 83–102. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02048.x. ISSN 0144-6665.
- ^ Eichelberger, Laura (September 2007). "SARS and New York's Chinatown: The politics of risk and blame during an epidemic of fear". Social Science & Medicine. 65 (6): 1284–1295. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.04.022. ISSN 0277-9536.
- ^ Kim, Heejung S.; Sherman, David K.; Updegraff, John A. (2016-05-20). "Fear of Ebola". Psychological Science. 27 (7): 935–944. doi:10.1177/0956797616642596. ISSN 0956-7976.
 | This is a user sandbox of Blake.Travis. You can use it for testing or practicing edits. This is not the sandbox where you should draft your assigned article for a dashboard.wikiedu.org course. To find the right sandbox for your assignment, visit your Dashboard course page and follow the Sandbox Draft link for your assigned article in the My Articles section. |