Family Disaster: The Origins of Gender Violence Legislation in Turkey

This article provides a case study regarding struggles over framing gender violence as a political issue. It looks at how gender violence initially entered political discourse and state legislation in Turkey. It identifies the main political actors as feminists, Islamists, and Kemalists, and examines their impacts on state policy-making processes and outcomes. It argues that, in the Turkish context, the Islamism-Kemalism divide contoured the limits and possibilities of frame institutionalization in legislation and characterized state responses to gender violence through familial ideology, which prioritized family privacy and unity over women's right to live free from violence.

Between information campaign and controversy: a quantitative newspaper content analysis about COVID-19 vaccination in Switzerland and Austria

AIMS

Because media portrayal reflects and shapes public opinion and health policy, investigating news coverage of public health issues is highly relevant for public health research and practice. Addressing a topical issue, this study investigated how newspaper coverage framed COVID-19 vaccines in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland and how it developed over time.

METHODS

A quantitative newspaper content analysis of six newspapers from Austria and German-speaking Switzerland published between January 1 and 31, 2022 was conducted. Frames were identified for each country separately through hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward's method) based on frame elements.

RESULTS

Four frames were identified in both countries: (1) Evaluating new vaccines, (2) Discussing mandates, (3) Promoting vaccination, (4) Mentioning vaccines. In Frames 1 (Switzerland 86.4%, Austria 93.3%) and 3 (Switzerland 92.7%, Austria 98.9%), most articles included vaccine-endorsing statements, with Swiss coverage including additional negative statements more often than Austrian coverage (43.2%/44.6% vs 4.0%/3.3%). Frame 2 was closely linked to vaccine skepticism only in Austria and contained more evaluative statements in Austrian newspapers (25.4% endorsing, 35.4% rejecting; in Switzerland 14.5%/18.1%). The Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung published most articles (497/1091, 45.6%).

CONCLUSIONS

The commercialized and comparatively high share of tabloid news coverage in Austria may have contributed to oversimplified and polarizing COVID-19 vaccine debates in this context. Insufficiently balanced and adequate information may contribute to a loss of public trust in vaccination and may therefore affect vaccination uptake. Authorities and public health professionals should consider this effect when designing information campaigns.

A Mediated Tolerance of Violence: An Analysis of Online Newspaper Articles and "Below-the-line" Comments in the Latvian Media

A mediated tolerance of violence: an analysis of online newspaper articles and "below-the-line" comments in the Latvian media This article analyses the framing of tolerance of violence in Latvian newspaper articles published online and the reader response "below-the-line" comments to these and how these frames may negatively present and impact those who suffer violence. It makes visible the language used and concepts employed in such cases where someone supports, justifies, or positively perceives violence. The text is based on qualitative media content analysis of 3,166 documents in the Latvian, Russian and English languages from Latvian news sources online published between 2010 and 2018, as well as the comments provided by readers on these. Frame analysis is employed in order to show the different ways in which violence can be practiced and tolerated, closely related to human beliefs. We show how aspects of these may be related to the particular post-Soviet cultural context of Latvia but give a broader view of tolerance itself. The study shows a linguistic tolerance of violence expressed in terms of human nature and its resulting inevitability, in terms of love and thus integral to romantic and kin relations, is imbued with victim blaming and also that punishment for violence should itself be violent. Violence can even be a source of humor, particularly when committed against males. Further, reporting of violence can be regarded as improper and interferes with domestic privacy. These, taken as a whole, justify the existing social order and societal and cultural beliefs and practices on/of gender relations, child-rearing practices, religious beliefs, and notions of love and care. Our analysis shows that violence is not only tolerated in itself, but also the expression of tolerance is itself tolerated in these mediated expressions which are published with impunity and remain unmoderated.

It Takes Two to Tango: How the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in Israel Was Framed by the Health Ministry vs. the Television News

Background

The internet has become a major resource in information transfer during COVID-19, and traditional means of communication are digitized and accessible online to the public at large.

Objectives

This study seeks to examine how Israel's two main television news channels (Channel 12 and Channel 13) covered the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, compared to how the Ministry of Health ran the campaign.

Methods

A qualitative study based on triangulation of online content analyses from three different sources: advertising campaigns, social media posts and reports on television news channels. The research sample included 252 reports from the newsrooms of Channel 13 (n = 151) and Channel N12 (n = 101), Israel's two leading news channels, all broadcast between December 1, 2020 and November 30, 2021. The sample also included posts from Israel Ministry of Health Facebook page and advertising campaigns from the Facebook page of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LAPAM), which constructs advertising campaigns for the MOH (113 items).

Results

The research findings reveal congruence between the way the MOH framed its vaccination campaign and news coverage of the vaccination issue. The vaccination campaign used three primary framing strategies: (1) positive framing (emphasizing the vaccine's advantages and stressing that the vaccine is safe and effective based on cost-benefit calculations and public health perspectives); (2) fear appeal strategy (conveying persuasive messages that seek to arouse fear through threats of impending danger or harm); (3) attribution of responsibility strategy (blaming the unvaccinated and targeting all those who criticized Israel's generic vaccination policy).

Conclusion

As the watchdog of democracy, the news should function as a professional and objective source that criticizes government systems if necessary and strives to uncover the truth throughout the crisis. Public trust, which is so essential during such a crisis, can be achieved only if the news channels provide reports and meaningful journalistic investigations that challenge the system. By doing so, they can help fight conflicts of interest that divert management of the crisis from the professional health field to the political-economic arena.

Health promotion innovations scale up: combining insights from framing and actor-network to foster reflexivity

There are numerous hurdles down the road for successfully scaling up health promotion innovations into formal programmes. The challenges of the scaling-up process have mainly been conceived in terms of available resources and technical or management problems. However, aiming for greater impact and sustainability involves addressing new contexts and often adding actors whose perspectives may challenge established orientations. The social dimension of the scaling-up process is thus critical. Building on existing conceptualizations of interventions as dynamic networks and of evolving framing of health issues, this paper elaborates a social view of scaling up that accounts for the transformations of innovations, using framing analysis and the notion of 'expanding scaling-up networks'. First, we discuss interventions as dynamic networks. Second, we conceptualize scaling-up processes as networks in expansion within which social learning and change occur. Third, we propose combining a 'representational approach' to frame analysis and an 'interactional approach' that illustrates framing processes related to the micro-practices of leading public health actors within expanding networks. Using an example concerning equity in early childhood development, we show that this latter approach allows documenting how frames evolve in the process. Considering the process in continuity with existing conceptualizations of interventions as actor-networks and transformation of meanings enriches our conceptualization of scaling up, improves our capacity to anticipate its outcomes, and promotes reflexivity about health promotion goals and means.

"I don't Teach Violence, I Teach Self-Control"; The Framing of Mixed Martial Arts Between Mental Health and Well-Being

This paper draws on conceptual and analytical tools from cultural sociology to analyze media representations of the MMA right after the murder of a twenty-year-old boy, that took place in a small village in central Italy by a gang of young men, two of whom frequented a MMA gym. While often characterized as violent and uncivilized, MMA has a core following of fans who watch and practice MMA out of an interest in the effects of the sport in terms of health and well-being. Through in depth qualitative analysis of  MMA media discourse offered by traditional and new media, this paper explores the way the MMA media constructs symbolic boundaries around different kinds of fights inside and outside the gym, through aesthetic and moral evaluations based on the hierarchical 'distinctions' between "violence" and "health" as possible outcomes of the MMA training process. Particularly, we carry out a discourse analysis based on Italian Newspapers, Magazines and Facebook groups dedicated to MMA, through which we frame the multiple representations of the discursive production built around the MMA in Italy. Our aim is to identify the different ways in which the discussion about this event provided narrative paths and points of view about the meaning of MMA, focusing on the reputational consequences concerning health, especially in its physical and mental expressions. This research may prove useful for scholars interested in MMA, culture, and sports media studies.

Framing dementia experiences in a positive light: Conversational practices in one couple living with dementia

The general approach to a life with dementia is negatively charged, and alternative views are rarely found in research or in media coverage. This case-study explores conversational practices for framing dementia in a more positive light, employed by a husband of a wife with dementia. Framing regards the structured experiences of dementia, drawing on Goffman’s ‘Frame Analysis’. Benefitting from conversation analysis, this article presents principal results of four conversational practices used by the spouse without dementia: mitigating trouble, normalising trouble, justifying trouble, and praising. The conclusions drawn are that the practices contribute to the challenging of the dominant negative framework of the dementia experience, as they facilitate talk which emphasises the wife with dementia’s positive progression and skills in managing the household chores. Despite a positive framing of dementia, this couple still embed their talk in the overall negative framework of loss and decreased cognitive competence. The visualisation of a positive framing could add to a broadened view of dementia, which in turn could contribute to greater well-being for those affected. However, the results may also imply a risk of one spouse’s conversational practices of normalising and mitigating trouble being dominant in interaction and thereby neglecting the other spouse’s experience of the situation.

Women's Narratives about COVID-19, Preventive Practices and Sources of Information in Northwestern Tanzania

COVID-19 has affected millions of people across the world. We conducted a phone based qualitative study to explore women’s perceptions of COVID-19, knowledge of its symptoms, transmission, and prevention practices in Northwestern Tanzania. We also examined their sources of information about the disease. Findings show that much of women’s framing of etiology, symptoms, and transmission routes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) greatly reflects the World Health Organization (WHO)/Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) frame. Their preventive practices against COVID-19 included the biomedical, cultural, and religious frames, as participants engaged traditional practices and spiritual interventions alongside public health recommendations. Mass media was the main source of information about COVID-19, and one of the trusted sources, in addition to religious and local leaders. To be effective, health promotion programs on pandemics should make more use of the mass media, and communal networks to reach populations.

Using frame analysis to re-analyse the results of inductive thematic analysis: A methodological discussion of investigating meanings and learning contexts in baccalaureate nurse education

AIMS

Recovery of the antecedents and assumptions of Goffman's frame analysis to illustrate learning contexts in baccalaureate nursing programs.

DESIGN

A discussion paper on the secondary analysis of focus group data.

DATA SOURCES

Focus group data collected in a multi-site study conducted in 2017 to understand the challenges of transitioning to practice in Lebanon. The discussion is illustrated with empirical data, but the article is a conceptual paper not a research report.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING

Transition to practice research requires studies of interaction in university schools of nursing to examine the meanings embedded in classroom instruction.

METHODS

Clarification and use of Goffman's concepts of primary frame, mainframe (storyline), keying, and re-keying to describe how differences in learning contexts make the transition to practice difficult.

CONCLUSION

Baccalaureate nursing education consists in re-keying the knowledge students bring with them to university into an idealized conception of nursing practice. This storyline dominates classroom learning and is re-keyed into the pragmatic approach to nursing practice that dominates learning contexts in clinical units. Students respond to discrepancies between the meanings embedded in classroom and clinical unit learning contexts by striving to apply the classroom storyline or delaying their commitment to a nursing career.

IMPACT

The discussion explains how secondary analysis can overcome some of the limitations of inducive thematic analysis. It promotes frame analysis as an intuitive, conceptually sound method for identifying dominant meanings in baccalaureate nursing education. Qualitative researchers who have used inductive thematic analysis can use frame analysis to complement their previous analyses with a structural sociological perspective. We suggest dimensions to help investigators interpret learning contexts. Frame analysis of classroom interaction will bring new insights to transition to practice research.

Stigma: the representation of anorexia nervosa in UK newspaper Twitter feeds

BACKGROUND

There is evidence that the representation of mental health in newspapers has an influence on readers' attitudes, however, relatively little is known about how the industry presents accounts of anorexia nervosa. Further, the industry increasingly uses Twitter as a medium for reaching readers and this remains an under-examined area of research.

AIMS

To explore the representation of anorexia nervosa in the UK national press' Twitter feeds.

METHOD

Frame analysis was used to examine the manner in which anorexia nervosa was represented in the Twitter feeds of all national UK newspapers between 2009 and 2019 (n = 332). This qualitative approach used Braun and Clarke's stages of thematic analysis, while drawing on Van Gorp's use of a frame matrix to support the definition of the news frames.

RESULTS

The analysis identified four news frames: social model, illness model, stress-recovery model and clickbait model.

CONCLUSIONS

The newspapers drew on a range of perspectives in their representation of anorexia nervosa, which typically were not stigmatising in their accounts. However, there was a pattern of using sensationalistic images in some of the tweets, which may encourage readers to view people with anorexia nervosa as Other, and as a consequence contribute to stigmatisation.

Dying on television versus dying in intensive care units following withdrawal of life support: how normative frames may traumatise the bereaved

While treatment is often withdrawn from patients in intensive care units (ICUs), few people outside the healthcare profession have witnessed a death under such circumstances. Family members who have made the decision to withdraw treatment may have expectations about the dying process, what constitutes a good death and how they should behave in an ICU based on popular prime-time television series. An inductive comparative thematic coding strategy is therefore used to examine how death following treatment withdrawal as depicted in a US medical drama (Grey's Anatomy) differs from realities observed for 6 months fieldwork at an ICU in Canada. Three common frames (privacy, emotional control and memorialising) help patients' intimates normalise the unfamiliar experience and guide their behaviour during the event. However, discrepancies between media representations and experiences in the ICU, especially around the frames of timing of death and the physicality of the unbounded body (incontinence and agonal breathing), can traumatise them. The bereaved may be left viewing ventilator withdrawal and dying as chaotic processes and believing their loved one suffered through a bad death. Understanding these normative and discrepant frames should help healthcare professionals better prepare the public to witness death.

Frames of decision-making in prenatal consultations in England and France. Towards a sociological, relational, and processual approach to autonomy

RATIONALE, AIMS, AND OBJECTIVES

The article looks at how, during consultations, pregnant women identified as presenting an increased risk of giving birth to a child with an impairment, and practitioners in the field of prenatal diagnosis, decide whether or not to accept the risk of a miscarriage and proceed with a diagnostic examination.

METHODS

We conducted 63 observations of consultations in France and 22 in England. Participants were women for whom an elevated risk of abnormality had been identified and the practitioners involved in their care. Our analytical approach consisted in suspending the normative concepts of nondirectiveness and autonomy, and in drawing on Goffman's (1974) notion of "frame" to take account of the experiential and structural aspects that the protagonists bring into the (inter)actions.

RESULTS

We identified four frames: medico-scientific expertise, medical authority, religious authority, and compassion. Observation of the ways in which the frames intertwine during consultations revealed configurations that facilitate or hinder the fluidity of the interactions and the decision-making process. The medico-scientific expertise frame, imposed by the guidelines, heavily dominated our observations, but frequently caused distress and misunderstanding. Temporary or sustained use of the compassion and/or medical authority frames could help to repair the discussion and create the conditions that enable women/couples to reach a decision. Variations in configuration highlighted the differences between practitioners in the two countries.

CONCLUSIONS

Combining frames allows protagonists to exert reflective abilities and to maintain/restore interactions. The frame analysis promotes a vision of autonomy that is sociological, relational, and processual. The frames are anchored in different structural conditions in England and France.

Negotiating climate change: A frame analysis of COP21 in British, American, and Chinese news media

Climate negotiations have increasingly resonated with global governance and world power relations. However, media studies of climate change have paid relatively less attention to media frames of the problem solving. This study addresses this issue by examining the media coverage of COP21 from three countries that have considerable influence on climate politics: the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. By applying an inductive frame analysis, the study identified 10 media frames embedded in the discussions on climate negotiations. A deductive analysis further assessed the prevalence of these frames. The findings suggest that the frames were significantly influenced by the values of the established and emerging powers in the international policy area. The British and American media upheld the underlying norms that have long underpinned the existing Western-led order, while Chinese media coverage manifested a rising power in need of world recognition.

Media Framing and the Threat of Global Pandemics: The Ebola Crisis in UK Media and Policy Response

Pandemics pose new and difficult challenges. Risks associated with the spread of pandemics generate intense speculation in Western media. Taking the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak as a case study, the article critically analyses how the risk of contagion in the US, Europe, and the UK has been constructed in UK media and policy discourse. Drawing on the importance of media framing in shaping a given problem definition, causal interpretation and treatment recommendation, the article critically assesses the impacts of the British newspaper framing of Ebola, questioning the rationale of a UK domestic political response based on containment and border screenings. The article also takes a comparative angle, engaging with constructions of previous pandemics. Underscoring the importance of a sociological analysis of these framings, the article critically reflects on the role of media communication in reproducing certain topoi, which reduce the scope for open public debate around best responses to a pandemic emergency.

'I expected just to walk in, get my tablets and then walk out': on framing new community pharmacy services in the English healthcare system

Reconfiguration of the healthcare division of labour is becoming increasingly attractive in the context of increased patient demand and resource constraints. One example is the introduction of extended roles for pharmacists to provide patients additional support to manage their medicines, while also reducing work pressures experienced by other health professionals. Understanding how such policies are framed by those delivering and receiving care has been under-theorised. Using Goffman's frame theory, we examine one newly introduced community pharmacy service (New Medicines Service (NMS)) to illustrate how a policy intended to support patient medicine-taking through the extended roles of pharmacists is framed and where this deviates from its proposed aims. Three themes emerged: (i) the spatial-material artefacts; (ii) existing discursive culture and practice around medicine-taking; and (iii) the NMS interactions that shape and govern framing and subsequent interpretation of the NMS. Our study offers an explanatory and dynamic view of the framing process with important lessons for reconfiguring medicine management policy and practice. As well as illustrating framing as being variegated, complementary or conflicting, it also shows how this plurality and fragility had consequences for patient engagement and sense-making. The consequences for engagement and recommendations for implementing future initiatives are discussed.

Alibis for Adult Play: A Goffmanian Account of Escaping Embarrassment in Adult Play

The social meanings of play sit at odds with norms of responsible and productive adult conduct. To be "caught" playing as an adult therefore risks embarrassment. Still, many designers want to create enjoyable, nonembarrassing play experiences for adults. To address this need, this article reads instances of spontaneous adult play through the lens of Erving Goffman's theory of the interaction order to unpack conditions and strategies for nonembarrassing adult play. It identifies established frames, segregated audiences, scripts supporting smooth performance, managing audience awareness, role distancing, and, particularly, alibis for play: Adults routinely provide alternative, adult-appropriate motives to account for their play, such as child care, professional duties, creative expression, or health. Once legitimized, the norms and rules of play themselves then provide an alibi for behavior that would risk being embarrassing outside play.

Breaking Boundaries: Complementary and Alternative Medicine Provider Framing of Preventive Care

This textual examination extends understandings of how complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers constitute preventive care in their discourse by identifying the frame of breaking boundaries referencing relational, structural, and philosophical orientations in their practice with their clients. Analysis of semistructured, in-depth interviews with CAM providers ( n = 17) reveals that the frame of breaking boundaries was comprised of three themes: finding one's own strength; I don't prescribe, so I'm exploring; and ground yourself, and have an escape route. The themes describe preventive care by identifying how CAM providers negotiate their relational positionality in connecting with clients, structural positionality within the field of health care, and philosophical positionality within the ontological understandings that guide how health is defined and conceptualized. The study contributes toward enhancing diverse understandings of constituting preventive care in practice and suggests pragmatic implications for addressing biomedical provider communication with their patients seeking CAM care alongside conventional treatments.

Natural versus anthropogenic climate change: Swedish farmers' joint construction of climate perceptions

While previous research into understandings of climate change has usually examined general public perceptions, this study offers an audience-specific departure point. This article analyses how Swedish farmers perceive climate change and how they jointly shape their understandings. The agricultural sector is of special interest because it both contributes to and is directly affected by climate change. Through focus group discussions with Swedish farmers, this study finds that (1) farmers relate to and understand climate change through their own experiences, (2) climate change is understood either as a natural process subject to little or no human influence or as anthropogenic and (3) various communication tools contribute to the formation of natural and anthropogenic climate change frames. The article ends by discussing frame resonance and frame clash in public understanding of climate change and by comparing potential similarities and differences in how various segments of the public make sense of climate change.

Naming and framing in genomic testing

What's in a name? Terminology has the power to shape the ethical and regulatory debate surrounding commercially offered genomic testing. This article discusses the normative effects of naming and framing, and proposes that the medical frame, with its focus on the reduction of harm, should be used in the evaluation and regulation of predictive genomic testing.

A study on the development of public campaign messages for organ donation promotion in Korea

This study aims to find an effective method of expressing a message in public service ads by investigating whether or not a message framing type affects the outcome. Specifically, the study looks into the effects of messaging on organ donation by identifying how the type of message framing (positive vs. negative) and appeal type (rational vs. emotional) affect the attitude and behavioural intention of the consumer. The individual characteristics of each subject such as altruistic mind, level of self-monitoring and issue involvement were selected as intermediate variables that may affect the impact of a message. The study therefore tries to establish a proposition that can be used to generate an effective promotional message on organ donation in a systematic way.

Studying policy implementation using a macro, meso and micro frame analysis: the case of the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care (CLAHRC) programme nationally and in North West London

BACKGROUND

The publication of Best research for best health in 2006 and the "ring-fencing" of health research funding in England marked the start of a period of change for health research governance and the structure of research funding in England. One response to bridging the 'second translational gap' between research knowledge and clinical practice was the establishment of nine Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs). The goal of this paper is to assess how national-level understanding of the aims and objectives of the CLAHRCs translated into local implementation and practice in North West London.

METHODS

This study uses a variation of Goffman's frame analysis to trace the development of the initial national CLAHRC policy to its implementation at three levels. Data collection and analysis were qualitative through interviews, document analysis and embedded research.

RESULTS

Analysis at the macro (national policy), meso (national programme) and micro (North West London) levels shows a significant common understanding of the aims and objectives of the policy and programme. Local level implementation in North West London was also consistent with these.

CONCLUSIONS

The macro-meso-micro frame analysis is a useful way of studying the transition of a policy from high-level idea to programme in action. It could be used to identify differences at a local (micro) level in the implementation of multi-site programmes that would help understand differences in programme effectiveness.

Framing public policy and prevention of chronic violence in American youths

Metaphors can both inspire and mislead the public. Current metaphors for youth violence are inconsistent with scientific evidence about how chronic violence develops and evoke inaccurate or harmful reactions. Popular, problematic metaphors include superpredator, quarantining the contagious, corrective surgery, man as computer, vaccine, and chronic disease. Four new metaphors that more accurately reflect the science of child development are proposed to shape the field. Preventive dentistry offers a lifelong system of universal, selected, and indicated intervention policies. Cardiovascular disease offers concepts of distal risk factors, proximal processes, equifinality and multifinality, and long-term prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's public health model focuses on injury and the victim to elicit popular support. Public education for illiteracy offers concepts of long-term universal education coupled with specialized help for high-risk youths and goes beyond metaphor to represent a truly applicable framework. Research is proposed to test the scientific merit for and public receptivity to these metaphors.

Role of thymine in protein coding frames of mRNA sequences

Distribution of thymine in protein coding mRNA sequences has been studied here. Our study suggest that thymine in protein coding sequences are not randomly distributed but with probability. Frame1 prefers to have definite amount of thymine. It is observed that the thymine content of frame 4 is also involved in protein coding. Frame 3 prefers to have least amount of thymine. However, frame 2 and frame 6 shows a variable degree of thymine content. The mRNA sequences of heterosexual animals, particularly, the human show a different distribution profile (less thymine in frame 1) compared to that of yeast and plants.