PREreview of British news media representations of mpox during the 2022 and 2024 outbreaks: a mixed-methods analysis using corpus linguistics

Summary

This paper uses large-scale corpus linguistics methods, which includes approximately 2.3 billion words of British English news data, to examine changes in British media coverage during the two MPOX or formally Monkeypox outbreaks in 2022 and 2024. The authors compared the frequency and co-occurrence patterns of "monkeypox" and "mpox" in the scale of span = 5, logDice ≥ 2, minfreq ≥ 5 and manually reviewed a sample of up to 100 co-occurrence lines. As the result,while reports in 2022 frequently linked the spread to the GBMSM community, reports in 2024 adopted a more neutral tone, using impersonal pronouns such as "mpox spreads..." Figure 1 (page 5) shows a sharp decrease in the frequency of "monkeypox" after the WHO issued its naming recommendation in November 2022. In discussion part, the authors suggest this indicates that the WHO naming guidance "achieved its intended effect." The main contribution of this paper is to reveal changing trends in media discourse on infectious diseases using rigorous and reproducible computational linguistic methods. However, equating linguistic change with "decreased stigma" lacks direct evidence, in terms of word frequency and co-occurrence metrics only indicate changes at the linguistic level, not shifts in societal attitudes. The decline in monkeypox usage may also due to the fading of the epidemic and reduced media attention, rather than to the effects of naming itself. Strengths of the paper include innovative methods, high transparency, and strong relevance to public health communication. Limitations include the analysis of English-language media only, some over-extrapolation of conclusions, and a lack of sociological validation. Overall, the study strongly demonstrates a linguistic destigmatization trend in British media, but cannot definitively prove a reduction in societal stigma. Personally suggests that the authors should considered major revisions on the causal tone or in other words, provide alternative explanations, and clarify the scope of application and data boundaries in the Conclusions and Limitations sections.

Major Issues

1.Causation relationship not strong.

The article repeatedly attributes language changes to the WHO naming policy, but lacks empirical data on behavioral or attitudinal levels; the evidence is limited to covariation between word frequency and co-occurrence.

2. Alternative explanations not fully discussed.

The decline trend for "monkeypox" frequency may be due to the easing of the epidemic and decreased media attention, rather than an effect of the naming.

3. The authors collected data from English media only.

Since British society is multilingual, the results are not universally representative.

4. Not fully define the key concept about “stigma” in this study.

This article primarily infers "stigma" through linguistic indicators, for example, co-occurring words and grammatical agents, but the logical connection between these indicators and social attitudes is not clearly defined.

Minor Issues

1. Interpretation for terminology

Terms like "collocates" and "logDice" could be further explained for those who lacks statistics background.

2. Multiple language consideration

Could apply internationally citations related to different language and the stigma of Mpox in the discussion to enhance external context.

Section-by-Section Review

Abstract

The abstract provides accurate summary of the study’s objectives, corpus-linguistic methods, and key results, describing shifts in British media language from stigmatizing to neutral framing between 2022 and 2024. It is concise and clearly written, but the causal phrasing “WHO naming had the intended impact” slightly overstates the evidence. Personally, this statement may better be rephrased as “media language became more neutral following WHO guidance.” The abstract is otherwise engaging, but would benefit from one brief acknowledgment of limitations, for instance, namely that the dataset is English-only and that linguistic findings do not necessarily represent public attitudes in entire British community.

Introduction

The introduction effectively outlines the public-health context of Mpox, its renaming history, and the need to examine media representations. Novelty and significance are adequately highlighted through the emphasis on corpus methods applied to public-health communication.

Methods

The methods section is detailed and replicable, clearly describing corpus composition, collocation parameters, however, it is recommended to furtherly define the terminologies like "logDice".

Results

Figures 1 and 2 effectively illustrate term-frequency changes.The only interpretive concern is that decreased “monkeypox” frequency may partly reflect outbreak decline or media fatigue rather than purely linguistic reform. No additional experiments are necessary; acknowledging these contextual factors would strengthen the interpretation.

Discussion and Conclusion

The discussion interprets results coherently within the relevant field of health/communication research, aligning with existing work on HIV media stigma. The main issue is causal language, specifically, statements implying that WHO naming caused destigmatization should be softened to reflect correlation rather than proven effect. Limitations are mentioned but require further defined especially the English-only dataset, the indirect measurement of stigma, and potential confounding from media-interest cycles. Implications for this study is relevant to future media-language guidance.

References

The section for reference meets scholarly standards and supports the integrity of the manuscript and it is comprehensive, recent, and appropriately balanced between linguistic and public-health literature.

Competing interests

The author declares that they have no competing interests.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The author declares that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.