Narrativity and the mediation of health reform agendas

Developing a Critical Media Research Agenda for Health Psychology

This article outlines reasons why psychologists should concern themselves with media processes, noting how media are central to contemporary life and heavily implicated in the construction of shared understandings of health. We contend that the present research focus is substantially medicalized, privileging the investigation and framing of certain topics, such as the portrayal of health professionals, medical practices, specific diseases and lifestyle-orientated interventions, and restricting attention to social determinants of health as appropriate topics for investigation. We propose an extended agenda for media health research to include structural health concerns, such as crime, poverty, homelessness and housing and social capital.

Mediation and the Construction of Contemporary Understandings of Health and Lifestyle

The practice of using media to promote the benefits of diet and exercise has been associated with the rise in prominence of a sense of personal obligation for one’s own health. This article contributes to recent critiques of the emphasis being placed on individual responsibility for health. We argue that if health psychologists are to develop an adequately social understanding of our role in promoting health, then we must begin to examine the influence of our practices and agendas on public understandings. Extracts from research accounts are used to illustrate the pervasiveness of media health messages in everyday life and the prominence of a sense of individual responsibility.

Informed Patients and the Internet

This article investigates how individuals’ use of the Internet for finding health information may affect the relationship between health professionals and patients. It explores people's rationales for searching for information online, the information selection process and the implications for doctor–patient interactions. Qualitative interviews were conducted by email with 31 health information seekers. Study findings show the importance of the ‘everyday’ in orientating health information searches and of personal experience in navigating a multiplicity of online sources. Interviewees emphasize the primary role of the doctor–patient relationship for delivering health and medical information, their Internet searches complementing rather than opposing professional expertise.

Presuming the influence of the media: teenagers' constructions of gender identity through sexual/romantic relationships and alcohol consumption

Using empirical data from group discussions and in-depth interviews with 13 to 15-year olds in Scotland, this study explores how teenagers' alcohol drinking and sexual/romantic relationships were shaped by their quest for appropriate gendered identities. In this, they acknowledged the influence of the media, but primarily in relation to others, not to themselves, thereby supporting Milkie's 'presumed media influence' theory. Media portrayals of romantic/sexual relationships appeared to influence teenagers' constructions of gender-appropriate sexual behaviour more than did media portrayals of drinking behaviour, perhaps because the teenagers had more firsthand experience of observing drinking than of observing sexual relationships. Presumed media influence may be less influential if one has experience of the behaviour portrayed. Drinking and sexual behaviour were highly interrelated: sexual negotiation and activities were reportedly often accompanied by drinking. For teenagers, being drunk or, importantly, pretending to be drunk, may be a useful way to try out what they perceived to be gender-appropriate identities. In sum, teenagers' drinking and sexual/romantic relationships are primary ways in which they do gender and the media's influence on their perceptions of appropriate gendered behaviour is mediated through peer relationships.

Newspaper Reports Constructing Allegations and Responsibilities in the Pitcairn Island Sexual Abuse Trials

The Pitcairn sexual abuse trial was widely reported in New Zealand newspapers and this study examines constructions of both allegations and explanations of sexual abuse. Discourse analysis was used to study a database of 76 reports from the Dominion Post and New Zealand Herald. The analysis identified three discourses that co-articulate allegations of sexual abuse and attempts to explain and account for these allegations. The first discourse deals with reported allegations of childhood sexual abuse and trauma. The second discourse deflects responsibility from the accused men and lays open explanations drawing on the history and culture of Pitcairn. The third discourse constructs abuse as something that occurred because Britain failed to meet its responsibilities and provide adequate legal and moral guidance. These discourses are discussed in terms of the actions they perform in terms of reducing the level of personal responsibility for crimes of sexual abuse.

Sexual Abuse, Counselling and Compensation: Discourses in New Zealand Newspapers

This article offers a critical discursive analysis of contemporary media accounts of controversial New Zealand legislation designed to provide counselling and monetary compensation to sexual abuse victims/survivors. Analysis of newspaper texts from 2002 to 2005 located a heated debate, with opposition to and defense of the legislation. Opposition was articulated through strong emotional talk and perpetuation of a `big scam' discourse that positions sexual abuse survivors as potentially untrustworthy, fraudulent claimants. Counsellors/therapists are positioned as part of a predatory, money-hungry industry, which uses questionable practices to create false memories or reports of sexual abuse. The persuasive function served by this emotionally laden big scam discourse has a higher profile than arguments defending the legislation. The dominance of the big scam discourse arguably contributes to the suffering of sexual abuse survivors, more often women and children, by maintaining attention on authenticity and entitlement. Humanitarian attempts to address the deleterious effects of sexual abuse are undermined.

Constructing health news: possibilities for a civic-oriented journalism

Health is a very prominent news category. However, we know little about the production processes of journalists leading to the health stories we encounter on a daily basis. Such knowledge is crucial for ensuring a vibrant public sphere for health. This article draws on interviews with eight health journalists in New Zealand to document what they consider to constitute a health story, their professional norms and practices, their perceptions of audiences, and the need for increased civic deliberations regarding health. Journalists privilege biomedical stories involving lifestyle and individual responsibility, and have limited frames for presenting stories that involve socio-political concerns. Stories are strongly shaped by journalists' considerations of their target audience, the sources they draw on, their professional norms, and institutional practices. This results in the omission of stories that have relevance for minority and disadvantaged groups and limits the nature of the stories told to ones that reflect the views of the majority. However, journalists are also reflective about these issues and receptive to ways to overcome them. This raises possibilities for health researchers to engage with journalists in order to repoliticise health and promote a more civic-oriented form of health journalism.