Medical Drama Viewing and Medical Trust: A Moderated Mediation Approach

Nurses are background actors in medical reality television: A character network analysis and call for authentic action

AIM

The aim of this study was to describe how nurses' dialogue compares with that of doctors in the Australian reality television program Emergency and to explain how this dialogue and the use of narration and direct-to-camera monologues contribute to the portrayal of nurses. The final aim was to outline how these findings can inform the actions of nurses, nursing organizations and writers and journalists.

DESIGN

A descriptive study conducted in 2021 and 2022.

METHODS

Character network analysis was used to describe the verbal interaction of nurses and doctors and identify major, minor and background characters. Narration and direct-to-camera monologues were analysed through frequency counts. Cultivation theory was used to interpret the results.

RESULTS

Fifty-four characters were identified, with 19 of these being nurses. Doctors spoke 87.9% of the dialogue. Most of the dialogue (43%) was monologue by doctors directly to the camera. All major characters were doctors, and only one nurse was a minor character. The mean number of mentions by the narrator of a nurse per episode was 4, and 30 for a doctor.

CONCLUSION

The portrayal of nurses in Emergency is inaccurate and the production methods are used to privilege the role of doctors. This finding comes after decades of research showing inaccurate images of nursing in television. Drawing on recent Australian inquiries and the challenges experienced by mental health and aged care nursing, several approaches for collaborative action to improve these images are suggested.

IMPACT

This is the first study of the portrayal of nursing in reality television. These results suggest that much effort is still required even in contemporary reality television to accurately reflect the work and contribution of nurses. It is the shared responsibility of individual nurses, nursing organizations and writers and journalists to accurately portray nurses in the media.

NO PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

This network analysis of a postproduction television program did not allow patient or public involvement in the design or analysis.

Beyond Personal Experiences: Examining Mediated Vicarious Experiences as an Antecedent of Medical Mistrust

African Americans consistently report higher levels of medical mistrust than their White counterparts. As a result, medical mistrust is considered to be a contributor to racial health disparities. Despite calls to address medical mistrust, few studies have explicitly examined it as a phenomenon of interest; those that have, tended to focus on personal experiences while neglecting vicarious experiences. The current study a) explicitly tests the effects of two types of news story content on reported levels of medical mistrust within an African American adult sample and b) examines two widely used medical mistrust measures. Participants (N = 410) were randomly assigned to view a news story based on a 2 (health care, non-health care) x 2 (racial discrimination, nonracial discrimination) experimental design. Results indicated that individually, both health care content and racial discrimination content increased race-based medical mistrust, but had no effect on general medical mistrust. However, when all four conditions were examined, exposure to health-related racial discrimination stories resulted in higher levels of race-based and general medical mistrust than non-health, nonracial discrimination stories. Findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical and practical implications for health communication scholars.

Interactions between emotional and cognitive engagement with science on YouTube

This study aimed to map and characterize public engagement with science on YouTube. A two-part study was conducted. First, we collected and quantitatively analyzed trending videos on YouTube to evaluate the magnitude of public interaction with science content. Then, we assessed actual, rather than self-reports of, media interactions with science-related YouTube trending videos. We tested associations between behavioral engagement of viewing, liking, disliking or commenting, and emotional and cognitive engagement. Our findings affirm that science content attracts high public interest and that emotional and cognitive engagement with science on social media are distinct, but interrelated. We show that regardless of the valence of emotional engagement, emotion is linked to greater behavioral engagement of posting comments and to greater cognitive engagement of argumentative deliberation. Therefore, our findings suggest that social media interactions, which tend to evoke emotional responses, are a promising means of advancing person-to-person engagement with science.