Collecting the data

This research searched the term ‘corona and vrijwilliger*’ for the Dutch news channels NOS, and RTL Nieuws, and the following newspapers: Volkskrant, NRC, Telegraaf, Trouw, and

Algemeen Dagblad. This research made this selection, because all the newspapers report news

on the national level, just as the news channels. Moreover, Factiva made it able to include these news channels and papers. De Volkskrant and NRC focus on people with a higher education degree and fall under the category quality press. De Telegraaf is a populist newspaper with a focus to amuse its readers, the paper is more politically right than left focused, and the paper focuses on a broad spectrum of Dutch citizens. Algemeen Dagblad has no political or religious focus and also falls under the populist press. Trouw focuses on religion and philosophy, it is

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more politically right focused than left, and it is neither quality nor the populist press. Finally, this research also included two online news channels. The NOS is the public broadcast corporation within the Netherlands and has a goal to provide all Dutch citizens with the news. The NOS has no political or religious preference. Besides, the media analysis included RTL

Nieuws because of its more populist focus, and the several news areas it reports about. Both the

NOS and RTL Nieuws broadcast the news on the television, besides the written reportings online. The broadcasts are not included in this research.

The search period used for the media analysis was the period of February 26th to April 24th 2020, because the 26th of February was the day that the Netherlands reported the first hospitalization of a corona patient, and April 24th is the last day that the online survey link was open online. This search led to 79 news articles, of which 22 provided useful information. The criteria for useful information is very simple, namely that the articles provide information about any of the subjects in this thesis, as shown in the coding scheme below. The second search in Factiva looked for the term ‘coronahulp’ for the same news channels and papers, and the same search period as the first search. This search resulted in 18 web news articles, of which 8 useful ones. This research carefully analyzed the total number of 30 useful news items and put the information in the coding scheme. Appendix 1 shows all the 30 news articles and Appendix 2 shows the coding scheme including the quotes from these articles.

Theme Code Explanation code

Forms of volunteering

Emergent Information about volunteers that perform activities that are new in the crisis.

Extending Information about volunteers active in emergency or disaster functions before and extended their activities to tasks in a disaster.

Digital Information about volunteers that use social media and software to produce information in the disaster. Both/several A mixture of emergent, extending, and/or digital

volunteering.

Disaster behavior

Disaster resilience Information about the ability of countries,

communities, and households to manage change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stress – such as earthquakes, drought, or violent conflict – without compromising their long-term prospects.

Disaster myths Information about looting, panic, criminal, and/or antisocial behavior.

Mental problems Information related to people or organizations reporting mental problems due to the crisis, among which feeling lonely, depressed, or anxious.

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Other Information about behavior related to the corona crisis that is not understood as resilience, myths, or mental problems.

Activities Health care Information about volunteers that support health care institutions and/or their personnel.

Information/advise Information about volunteers that somehow provide others with information or advice related to the coronavirus or crisis.

Protective gear Information about volunteers collecting or creating protective gear such as gloves, overalls, and/or mouth masks.

Food-related Information about people voluntarily cooking food, doing groceries, or donating food for other people. Other Information about volunteers helping people or

organizations in some other way.

Motivations 1st _{responder People state that they voluntarily help others because} they are the first ones to notice that someone needs help.

Feeling a need to help People state that they voluntarily help others because they feel a need to do something, to feel useful, it makes them feel better or because they feel empathy for people in need.

Officials cannot manage People state that they voluntarily help others because official organizations need help to manage the situation.

Changes in daily life People state that they voluntarily help others, because their daily lives changed, and they, therefore, have more time or motivation to help others.

Cultural aspects People state that they voluntarily help others, because they normally volunteer as well or because they come from an environment where people help others. Satisfaction People state that they voluntarily help others and

afterward notice a feeling of satisfaction, which motivates them to volunteer again or more often.

Contributions Positive: social capital People state that they contribute because of their contacts and/or resources.

Positive: simple activities People state that they contribute because they were able to do simple activities and therefore relieve others.

Positive: skills and knowledge

People state that they contribute with specific skills and/or knowledge

Positive: other People state that they positively contribute during the crisis with their volunteer work.

Negative: convergence Information about too many resources, information, or volunteers during the crisis.

Negative: obstructions Information about volunteer work that is counterproductive.

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Negative: unpredictable Information about volunteers acting unpredictably while carrying out activities.

Negative: risk and accountability

Information about risk and accountability issues regarding volunteer work.

Role of Social Media

Information exchange Information about the internet/social media used for information exchange, among which the gathering and sharing of corona related information.

Online platform for help Information about online tools used for platforms where the supply and demand for help are regulated. Crowdsourcing Information about the internet or its tools being used

to solve problems together with many people. Crisis mapping Information about the internet or its tools being used

to create the oversight of the corona crisis, mapping where the problems are and help is needed.

Incorrect/fake information

Information about the spread of incorrect and/or fake information online, relating to the corona crisis. Technology in general Information about how technology contributes to the

corona crisis.

Table 22 – coding scheme

4.1.3 Limitations

Performing a media analysis in this research has several limitations. First, news articles are no scientific pieces, and the sources of the stories are often unknown. Therefore, it is dangerous to make statements about the content of news articles. Moreover, news articles never describe the reality exactly, they leave information out or add different information, because they have a different purpose than academic pieces (Decorte & Zaitch, 2009). Therefore, the news articles are not the single data source in this research but are meant to offer triangulation. Furthermore, news articles might be biased, depending on the political color or background of the paper that publishes it. Therefore, this research tried to include several newspapers with different political views and different target audiences. However, even though the analysis included 9 sources, most news articles used in the media analysis came from the newspapers NRC and Telegraaf, as shown in Appendix 1. Luckily, these newspapers target different audiences, but the limited spread of media sources is important to keep in mind when continuing to the results.