Hodgetts, Darrin James, Chamberlain, Kerry, Scammell, Margaret, Karapu, Rolinda and Waimarie Nikora, Linda (2008) Constructing health news: possibilities for a civic-oriented journalism. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 12 (1). pp. 43-66. ISSN 1461-7196
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://hea.sagepub.com/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2014 SAGE Publications |
| Divisions: | Media and Communications |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HE Transportation and Communications P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Mar 2014 15:38 |
| Last Modified: | 05 Nov 2024 20:09 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/55984 |
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