By using mobility as a proxy, and analysing data on regional news coverage in Germany, the authors investigate empirically whether the geographical heterogeneity in COVID-19-related news reporting has translated into spatial variations in social distancing. The  results confirm that the frequency of and the element of fear in COVID-19 news have a significant, albeit time-varying, relationship with social distancing.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2022.2145012