In the course of a paper in the project seminar “Neue Medien”, a student examined media presence and search results on the coronavirus in connection with weekly infection figures in Austria. It is clearly visible that the level of infection figures does not correlate with the number of press releases according to the APA and search interest on the Google search engine in Austria.
The highest interest (search requests for coronavirus on Google) was in calendar weeks 8 to 16 in 2020, i.e. shortly before the first lockdown and in the weeks after. From calendar week 20, interest in coronavirus settled at a steady level. The number of press reports also remains constant from week 23 onwards.
Even high case numbers in the second lockdown towards the end of 2020 did not lead to more search requests on Google. At this point, Austrians seem to have become accustomed to the presence of the coronavirus, so that a further increase in the number of infections or the imposition of another lockdown does not cause increased search interest.