Title: Medicine in the News
1Medicine in the News
2Nuffield Council on Bioethics, human behaviour
the ethical context (2001)
- The media is one of the most important means by
which the general public receives information
about scientific issues and will therefore have a
key role to play in informing people about new
developments.
3Medicine and the news
- The news is an important means of representing
medicine and its possibilities to the public - It is important to understand the ways in which
images of medicine come to be created and
sustained
4Objectives of this session
- Explain, in brief, different approaches to media
analysis - Give examples of media analysis applied to news
of medicine and health
5Ways of understanding how people respond to media
messages
- Mathematical model of communication
- Hypodermic needle model of media effects
- Uses and gratifications model
- Semiotics
- Preferred, negotiated, and oppositional readings
6Mathematical model of communication (Shannon and
Weaver, 1949)
7Hypodermic needle model
- Based on crude form of behaviourist pyschology
- Idea that the makers of media messages can
manipulate their audiences - Success of fascist propaganda in 1930s Germany
8Hypodermic needle model
- Largely dismissed by most serious academics but
continues to find popular support in media
discourses e.g. the James Bulger case. - Lies behind moral panics about the media.
9Uses and gratifications model
- Uses and gratifications approach suggests that
people are purposeful and strategic in using the
media - They choose what they watch and watch things in
order to fulfil particular needs (eg to relax) - Rejects simplistic assumptions of hypodermic
model
10Uses and gratifications model
- Two-step flow model tried to account for the
fact that people belong to different social
groups - HoweverUG tends to exaggerate active and
conscious choice - Interprets all effects of media in terms of
gratifications
11Semiotics
- The science of the sign.
- Polysemy the multiple meanings that a message
can have. - Closure how the range of meanings can be closed
down. - Preferred readings what the message sender
wants you to understand.
12Semiotics how is the preferred reading indicated?
- Epilepsy gene identified
- http//news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_196
2000/1962724.stm
13Preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings
- Preferred reading the intended one (can be
achieved by framing, use of captions etc) - Negotiated reading dominant values and social
structure is accepted, but specific message may
not be - Oppositional reading reader subverts the
intended message
14Types of media analysis
- Content analysis
- Discourse analysis
- Reception analysis
15Content analysis
- A primarily quantitative technique
- Used to identify frequency of phrases or concepts
within a text - Usually done using computers
16Discourse analysis
- Focuses on text and talk as social practices
- Focuses on the resources/interpretative
repertoires drawn on to enable those practices
(eg stereotypes) - Interested on how discourses are organised to be
persuasive
17Principles of DA
- Discourse refers to all forms of talk and texts
DA is interested in the content and
organisation of these. Draws on many ideas from
semiotics. - All language is constructive manufactured from
pre-existing resources the assembly of the
account involves selecting between different
possibilities the way we deal with the world is
mediated by language.
18Doing DA
- No cookbook set of procedures perhaps the
least systematic of all qualitative approaches.
Does not usually involve computers. - Ask yourself what features produce this
reading? - Search for patterns in the data, including
interpretative repertoires (eg notion of genetic
modified foods as frankenstein foods). - Search for the functions of the discourse.
19Examples of discourses
- Discourse around cloning
- Discourse around NHS managers
- Discourse around waiting lists
20Reception analysis
- Asks not what do media do to people? but what
do people do to media? - Combines semiology and (usually qualitative)
audience research - Audience seen as active creators of meaning
- Notion of interpretative communities
21Doing reception analysis
- Involves ethnographic techniques watching a
family watch television, using focus groups,
interviews etc. - Computers may be used to assist in the analysis.
22More important concepts
- Moral panics
- Bias towards positive results
- Bias towards human interest
23Moral panics
- Certain groups (folk devils) periodically
become the focus of moral panics. - Labelled as being outside the core values of a
society, seen as a threat. - Achieved by framing of stories. Use of resources
such as authoritative voices (eg scientists,
judges).
24Moral panics and medicine
- Designer babies
- Incompetent practices
- Villainous doctors
- Bizarre health policies
- Medical researchers
- Killer diseases
25Moral panic about cloning
- The characterization of cloning as an ethical
issue centers around three connected concerns - the loss of human uniqueness and individuality
- the pathological motivations of a cloner
- the fear of out-of-control scientists.
26Bias towards positive results
- As with professional journals, the mass media are
more likely to report a positive finding. - Increasingly evident that scientists attempt to
manipulate media eg by early release of findings. - Newsworthiness gatekeeping.
27Bias towards human interest
- Stories focusing on particular individuals
- Emphasis on hope or destruction
- Individuals themselves recruited to serve
particular discursive functions - http//news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_190
6000/1906999.stm - News values 'news hooks', 'relevance',
'accessibility' and 'controversy' .
28Examples of studies
- Henderson L, Kitzinger J (1999) The human drama
of genetics hard and soft representations of
inherited breast cancer. Sociology of Health and
Illness 21(5) 560-578 - Content analysis of British newspapers and
magazines
29Henderson and Kitzingers findings
- Breast cancer reported 7 times more often than
lung cancer - Constructed as a inherited genetic condition
- Heavy emphasis on prophylactic mastectomies
- Human interest generated by stories of women
faced with dilemmas (22 of stories)
30Examples of studies
- Entwistle et al (2000) The case of Norplant as an
example of media coverage The Lancet 355 1633 - Analysis of 101 newspaper articles
31Norplant
- Early reports presented Norplant very positively
disadvantages downplayed. - Reports that it was in great demand but women
might be denied access to it. - Less than a year later, newspaper reports about
Norplant were dominated by the stories of
individual women who had had bad experiences with
the product.
32Examples of studies
- Henderson et al (2000) Representing infant
feeding. BMJ 321 1196-1198 - Content analysis of references to infant feeding
in UK newspapers and tv programmes
33Infant feeding
- Breast-feeding rarely shown on tv
- Problems were often described with
breast-feeding, none with bottle feeding - Breast-feeding used as a signifier of social
class associated with middle class women or
celebs - May discourage acceptance of breast-feeding
34And finally
- Bad press for doctors http//bmj.com/cgi/content/f
ull/323/7316/782? - Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and Daily Mail
contained more than twice as many negative
stories about doctors as positive ones, but there
was no significant change in the ratio of
negative to positive stories over time. - The total number of articles about doctors
increased over time.
35Conclusions
- Mass media are an important source of images
about medicine. - It is important that doctors are responsible in
their relationships with the mass media. - More research (particularly reception analysis)
is needed.