Comparative analysis of the framing of Covid-19 in the IRAN’s national media and Instagram between March and October 2019

In order to understand the characteristics of crisis communication in Iran, this article compares the framing of the Covid-19 epidemic in the TV News and the Instagram. The way the media works has an effect on the public understanding of the crisis and its solutions. the alignment of the official and social media can facilitate the achievement of balance after the crisis or intensify the maintenance of the imbalance. This article is based on the conceptual framework of the necessity of information balance to overcome the crisis with an inductive approach. It applies the components of the framework introduced by Entman and the frameworks introduced by Setreet and Nisbet to reveal the frames in sample texts. The findings show the presence of eight frames on television, which include the controllable corona virus in Iran, the crisis-causing corona virus in America and Europe, equating mourning with health, equating epidemic with imposed war, cooperation of people and officials for Solving crisis, conflict, formal acivism, and progress. Also, the frames on Instagram are containment corona, Pandora's box, individual responsibility to solve the crisis, conflict, official activism, and progress. Four frameworks are common to both media. The frames of the two media have a similar function in terms of portraying the actors for causal attribution of responsibility, promoting the positive performance of the officials, and controlling the situation. But even though Instagram is dealing with the covid megacrisis, television is using this megacrisis for political and propaganda purposes.