Media Coverage of Child Trauma: Implications in Social Framing Research

1
Media Coverage of Child Trauma Implications in
Social Framing Research

• Anandhi Narasimhan, MD

2
Objectives

• Define cognitive frames and understand the
  relationship to public thinking
• Understand how media frames may influence
  peoples thinking of child trauma
• Recognize how frames can affect public policy

3
Outline

1. Definitions
2. Historical Background
3. Description of Framing Research
4. Our current study- introduction, methods, data,
   preliminary findings
5. Future Implications

4
Definitions

• Communication-process of sharing information
• Mass Media-section of the media designed to reach
  a very large audience(1920s-newspapers and
  magazines)
• Framing-a method of providing category and
  structure to thoughts (wikipedia)

5
Frames

• The way in which the world is imagined
  determines a particular moment what men will do
  (Lippman, W. 1921. Public Opinion. New York The
  Free Press.)
• - describing the connection between mass
  communications to public attitudes and policy
• - Concept of frames based on this connection

6
(No Transcript)
7
Composition of Frames

• Visuals
• Metaphors
• Messengers
• Narratives
• Scripts
• Numbers

8
Index

• In economics, this is a single number calculated
  from an array of prices and quantities
• In terms of framing, indexing is a process of
  creating mental shortcuts to make sense of
  something
• This allows us to fill in blanks for missing
  information, remember certain facts, and forget
  those that do not support the frame

9
News Frames

• Research has shown that types of news frames
  influence how the public attributes
  responsibility
• Two types- episodic and thematic
• Episodic tends to elicit individualistic rather
  than societal attributions of responsibility
  thematic framing has the opposite effect.
  (Iyengar,1991)

10
Examples

• You believe that the current war was a mistake,
  so you are drawn to news stories that reinforce
  this notion, and disregard those that dont
• You believe that public schools in Los Angeles do
  not provide adequate education, so you are drawn
  to what reinforces this idea

11
Public Health and the Media

• A systematic review showed that mass media
  campaigns helped in increasing The use of child
  car seats( Zaza et al, 2001)

12
Deficits in News Media Coverage

• Inaccuracy in the coverage of scientific
  published papers(Schwartz et al, 1999 and Loo et
  al, 1998)
• Overstating the risks or adverse effects of an
  intervention(Brown et al, 1996 and Lebow et al,
  1999) i.e. suicidality and ssris

13

• A retrospective analysis of 207 television
  (n37) and newspaper (n180) stories from the
  period 1994-98 about three drugs (pravastatin, a
  cholesterol-lowering drug alendronate, a
  biphosphonate for the prevention and treatment of
  osteoporosis and aspirin, used to prevent
  cardiovascular disease) showed that
• 83 of 124 stories used a relative frame only
  when quantifying benefits of drug, which can be
  misleading
• 53 of 207 stories didnt mention possible
  adverse effects
• 70 of 207 didnt mention drug costs
• 60 of 85 stories did not disclose industry
  relation of expert or study they cited

14
Pharmaceutical Influence

• Collective accumulation of information and past
  experiences about a topic is known as social
  knowledge.
• Social knowledge influences development and
  transmission of perceptions about prescriptions
  of medications, including psychoactive
  medications.
• Social knowledge has a component of symbolism
  meaning of drug described as images,
  representation, or metaphors.

15
Pharmaceutical Influence

• This imagery and symbolism is remembered and
  transmitted through society.
• This is how mass media suggest to patients that a
  specific medication promises to solve health and
  life problems in magical ways i.e. Prozac-happy
  pill, feel-good pill, magic bullets, like
  insulin for my mind/mood (Montagne, 2001, 1996).
  Eli Lilly launched campaign to condemn medias
  exaggeration of the effectiveness of prozac in
  response (Listening to Eli Lilly, 1994).

16
Strategic Frame Analysis

• Identifies the dominant frame as it exists in
  public opinion and is reflected in the media,
  demonstrates its impact on public thinking, and
  identifies, measures and tests alternative frames
  that can change decision outcomes.
• (Gilliam and Bales, Social
• Policy Report, 2001)

17
Content Analysis

• Identify key concepts, pictures, key words
• Decide how above will be recorded as data- coding
  protocol
• From this, recorded communication can be
  analyzed, i.e. tv news, newspapers, magazines,
  books
• Investigate composition of meaning, and their
  linguistic, affective, cognitive, social,
  cultural, and historical significance

18
Examples of Frame Analysis

• News exposure to violent youth superpredators
  increased adult support of punitive crime policy
  (Gilliam and Iyengar, 1998)
• Politicians moved to enforce more restrictive
  youth policies such as lowering the age at which
  a juvenile can be tried as an adult (Males,
  1998), passing youth curfews, gang injunctions,
  search of childrens lockers and placing metal
  detectors in schools.

19
Goals of Our Study

1. Perform a content analysis of media coverage of
   child trauma
2. Understand how child trauma is portrayed in the
   media
3. Use this information to help develop effective
   public health campaigns to promote increased
   willingness to access care for victims of child
   trauma

20
Methods

• We chose 16 major newspapers representing
  different demographic regions, ethnic and
  cultural diversity, political and religious
  affilations, small and large market sizes
• New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times,
  Atlanta Constitution Journal, Christian Science
  Monitor, El Paso Times, Topeka Capital Journal,
  Des Moines Register, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning
  News, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Miami Herald,
  Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Salt
  Lake City Tribune, Minneapolis Star Tribune

21
Trigger Words

• Child Abuse, also physical or sexual abuse
• Child Trauma
• Child Kidnapping
• Child Hostages
• Youth Violence
• War related violence involving children

22
(No Transcript)
23
Trigger Words contd

• Genocide involving children
• Dog bite or animal bite involving child
• Burns involving child
• Shaken baby
• Adolescent suicide
• Child witnessing suicide
• School shootings

24
Trigger Words contd

• Child Amputation
• Child hit by a car
• Cancer in child
• War orphans
• Violence in Darfur involving children
• Child Trafficking
• Child Prostitution

25

• Abd al-Rahman, Age 13I am looking at the sheep
  in the wadi riverbed, or oasis. I see Janjaweed
  comingquickly, on horses and camels, with
  Kalashnikovsshooting and yelling, kill the
  slaves, kill the blacks. They killed many of the
  men with the animals. I saw people falling on the
  ground and bleeding. They chased after children.
  Some of us were taken, some we didnt see again.
  All our animals were taken camels, cows, sheep,
  and goats. Then the planes came and bombed the
  village.

26
(No Transcript)
27
Methods Contd

• Articles were divided and distributed to three
  coders
• One coding packet filled out for every article
• Coders rated articles for trigger words,
  attribution of responsibility, recommendations,
  tone, type- thematic or episodic, government
  source, education source, industry source,
  non-profit agency source, primary or secondary
  topic

28
Methods contd

• Access World News Bank was the search engine used
  to locate articles from newspapers
• Time frame July 1, 2006 to July 31, 2006
• Trigger words entered into search engine and
  articles from the sixteen newspapers were
  identified

29
Methods contd

• Reliability checked by randomly selecting
  articles by independent reviewers and comparing
  coding data
• Data Analysis- descriptive study verses
  prescriptive study such as in clinical trials, so
  no hypothesis being validated or rejected

30
Results

• First Trigger Word- Child Abuse
• First 60 articles out of 472 cited
  reviewed
• 13 removed because they were repeats
• or unrelated to children
• Leaving 47 articles

31
Results Contd

• Story Type Code
• Episodic- 40
• Thematic- 17
• Episodic/Some Thematic- 28
• Thematic/Some Episodic- 15

32
Results Contd

• Tone
• Problem Frame-30
• Problem Frame/Some Benefit-21
• Benefit Frame-2
• Benefit Frame/Some Problem- 4
• Neutral Frame- 43

33
Results Contd

• Reccommendations - 36 17 out 47
• Mental Health Services- 11
• Medical Care- 18
• Community Programs- 9
• Child Protective Services- 30
• Other Recs included shelters, parents speaking to
  children, Non-profit agencies, crisis assistance,
  clergy

34
Results Contd

• Attribution of Responsibility-36
• Family/Parent-59
• Policy and Legislation- 18
• Law Enforcement- 6
• Child Protective Services-6
• Other Attributions-war, resistance to change,
  racism, drugs, affected population

35
Results Contd

• Government Source Cited- 66
• Industry Source Cited- 23
• Education Source- 2

36
Conclusions

• Attribution of Responsibility was predominantly
  linked to parents/family
• More of the stories tended to be episodic in
  nature as opposed to thematic
• About one-third of stories had recs, even fewer
  for Mental Health Services
• Education source is not a component of most
  stories

37
Questions

• How much does the public know about the effects
  of trauma on children?
• Do people think that treatment is necessary and
  are they familiar with available treatment?
• How will their knowledge influence their support
  for public health campaigns to increase
  willingness to access care?

38
Future Steps

• Expand research to include other media outlets,
  television news, radio
• Conduct Focus groups to see how public discourse
  is influenced by messages from the media
  regarding child trauma
• Simplify Models developed to correct
  misunderstandings and false beliefs
• Conduct Priming Surveys

39
Acknowledgements

• Mentors Coders
• Robert Pynoos, MD, MPH
  Julia Newbold
• Alessia Gottlieb, MD
  Eden Fairweather
• Frank Gilliam, PHD,Vice Chancellor, UCLA
  Lorena Chavea
• Department of Communications
• Bonnie Zima MD, MPH
• Margaret Stuber, MD
• Sheryl Katoaka, MD
• Collaborators
  Technical Support
• National Center for Child Traumatic Stress- UCLA
  Joan R Kaplowitz, PhD
• And Duke
  UCLA Library
• Alan M. Steinberg, PHD, Associate Director
  Vanderbilt TV NewsArchive

40

• You must be the change you want to see in the
  world.
• (Mahatma Gandhi, (1869-1948)