Threat Amplified, Blame Restrained: LLM-Assisted Media Framing Analysis of the 2026 Bangladesh Measles Outbreak

Abstract

How news media frame and emotionally code a public health emergency shapes public risk perception and trust, yet outbreak-coverage dynamics remain understudied for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We examine sentiment and stance in English-language Bangladeshi coverage of the 2026 measles outbreak -- the country's most severe in two decades, with over 97,000 suspected cases and 600 deaths across 61 of 64 districts, unfolding after the 2024 change of government and a 2024-2025 vaccine stockout. Using the Internet Archive, we build a reproducible corpus of 403 headlines from seven national outlets (396 in-window in 2026), label them for binary sentiment and four-way stance via a large language model under a locked codebook, and validate against a two-coder human-adjudicated gold standard (n=153; Cohen's kappa=0.89 stance, 0.75 sentiment). Aligned to the DGHS epidemic curve, coverage grew significantly more negative (56% to 88% negative; Cochran-Armitage z=4.12, p<.001) and risk-amplification framing intensified (44% to 84%; z=4.15, p<.001). Media negativity lagged incidence, tracking cumulative mortality. Contrary to the political backdrop, blame remained a minority frame (~9% overall) and was overwhelmingly systemic (32 of 37, 86%) rather than directed at named actors. The pipeline offers a scalable, transparent method for LMIC outbreak-media analysis; Bangladeshi coverage amplified threat far more than it assigned political blame.