Framing COVID-19: How UK Government and Media Narrated the “Crisis”

This article aims to interrogate how narrative elements were used in the communication of policy by the UK government and media during the 2020–22 COVID-19 pandemic, using the lens of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). Contrary to homo economicus of the rational universe, the NPF contends that homo narrans navigates the world through stories; comprised of setting, plot, characters (heroes, villains, and victims) and, critically, the story's moral. The study aims to show how these narrative elements were employed as an effective framing strategy designed to sustain public attention and compliance through the playing out of a securitized script, in which archetypal characters—the policy actors—perform a moral story. This study also innovates the plot element, utilizing a theory of circular narrative—story circles—from outside the extant policy literature, it is hoped that this conceptual exploration of narrative dynamics can lay the foundations for future empirical research.