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Advocacy and Mobilizing for Health Policy Change: Ghanaian News Media’s Framing of a Prescription Opioid Crisis
Health Communication
Abstract
In Ghana, the year 2018 saw many news articles about the youth, market women, and students increasingly abusing two opioids: tramadol and codeine-containing cough syrups. Our study examines Ghanaian news media framing of the opioid abuse crisis in Ghana to determine if and how the amount and framing of media coverage may have helped push the issue onto the policy agenda. We content analyzed all available online versions of print media coverage of news stories about tramadol and or codeine coverage in Ghana. Findings revealed the predominant and consistent use of the policy frame, societal attribution of responsibility, reliance on expert sources, and the inclusion of mobilizing information. We argue that the news media’s talk about the health crisis as a policy issue might not only offer specific solutions, but also perform an advocacy function by mobilizing various stakeholders as conversation partners to act.
... Such a focus on news sources can determine who the "primary definers" (Hall et al., 1978) of the pandemic were. Importantly, if reporting was informed by evidence-based science and expertise -as demonstrated by much of the health communication literature (Brown et al., 2006;Mheidly & Fares, 2020) -or whether it became politicized, as previous studies of pandemics have also found (Gesser-Edelsburg et al., 2017;Lee & Basnyat, 2013;Thompson & Ofori-Parku, 2021). It is also important to recognize that the sources who are given voice in news coverage will intersect with public understanding and perception of the pandemic. ...
... On the one hand, previous research on pandemic news coverage shows that political and government sources feature prominently as sources (e.g. Gesser-Edelsburg et al., 2017;Lee & Basnyat, 2013;Thompson & Ofori-Parku, 2021). Studies show, at times, similarities across crises and countries. ...
How a health emergency is defined and presented through the news media matters for public understanding and health outcomes. Previous studies have endeavored to identify the patterns of news sourcing in crisis coverage, specifically the interplay between political sources and health expert sources, but yielded inconclusive results. This study analyses the types and roles of actors (those entities mentioned in a story) and sources cited in news coverage of COVID-19 by surveying social media posts published by 15 UK news outlets coverage across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram between 1 January to December 31 2020. Overall, the findings show the prominence of political sources in UK news and that the most frequently named sources were representatives of the UK government. Moreover, when stories involved political actors, they were more likely to be given a voice as a source. This demonstrates how COVID-19 was a generalized crisis for the UK, which cascaded beyond health and into other economic, social, and cultural domains. The data show some variations in sourcing patterns between the different social media platforms. The analysis suggests that this may reflect the conventions of presenting news on each platform, with some tending toward the model of consensus by prioritizing political and government sources, and others contributing to a sphere of legitimate controversy by giving voice to a wider range of sources. This is distinctive and opens up the possibility for further research on how journalists adapt stories for social media and the consequences for public health communication.
... How organizations use and share crisis frames can be influenced by various factors such as news coverage (McGinty et al., 2019;Thompson & Ofori-Parku, 2020) or organization-related factors. This study focuses on the organizational and communicative antecedents and applies the principle of homophily (i.e., "similarity breeds connections"; McPherson et al., 2001, p. 415) to explain the formation of IFC. ...
... First, this study focuses on organization-level antecedents of IFC. Yet societal impact such as news media coverage can significantly influence the process of framing and IFC (e.g., Thompson & Ofori-Parku, 2020). Future studies should examine the cultural or societal antecedents of IFC. ...
Public relations and strategic communication scholars have advocated for a social network perspective for a more relational and nuanced understanding of crisis communication. Drawing upon literature from crisis communication, framing, and network theories, we explicate the notion of interorganizational frame convergence (IFC), the extent to which different organizations share interpretations (i.e., frames) on a particular issue. This study examined an IFC network in which cross-sectoral organizations were connected by semantic ties based on the extent to which they shared similar frames in a crisis. We carried out a content analysis of organizational press releases during the US opioid crisis from 2017 to 2019 (N = 420) and the profiles of these organizations (N = 34). Results from network analyses revealed patterns, processes, and antecedents of IFC during the opioid crisis. We argue that understanding the antecedents and processes of IFC allows more relational and systemic theory construction as well as more effective relationship building.
... [16][17][18] While e-pharmacy promises an alternative and easy way for people to access healthcare products, it comes with a risk of potential misuse of medication, cascading into antimicrobial resistance and addictions, especially when e-pharmacies are not appropriately regulated. [18][19][20][21] Here, it is important to briefly describe the concept of health disparity. Health disparity is defined as preventable differences in health outcomes that result from conditions or contexts that disadvantage people or groups from achieving their full social and economic potential. ...
Objective
With the ongoing push for greater digitalization of healthcare in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), the larger questions around who will benefit most from such efforts and what elements of disparities and inequities may further be created or reinforced are often overlooked. This study was undertaken to assess a pioneering e-pharmacy initiative in Ghana that aimed to explore issues of access and disparities in relation to pharmaceutical services.
Method
The study used a qualitative research design where semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually with 21 licensed community pharmacists recruited through purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis approach.
Results
Pharmacists recognized the transformative potential of e-pharmacies, particularly in resource constrained regions that face issues of pharmacy and healthcare deserts. However, drawing on their experiential knowledge, they highlighted the paradoxes and challenges of promoting digitalization of healthcare in a country characterized by poor infrastructure, poverty, and multiple intersecting layers of inequities, as well as digital divides and low digital/health literacy. In the absence of adequate infrastructure, funding support and regulation, the possibility of local pharmacies, often the first point of care, being replaced by big corporations was feared. Participants also cautioned to steer the discourse of e-pharmacy away from access, pricing, and convenience to safety and quality.
Conclusion
Digitalization of healthcare and e-pharmacies holds tremendous potential in the LMICs. However, such technological initiatives, if implemented without proper groundwork and adequate support, would run the risk of creating and exacerbating health disparities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. A bottom-up approach, through grassroot engagement and implementation science, tethered to building safe, affordable, and equitable infrastructure and access to care will be essential for the success of e-pharmacy and other digitalization initiatives in the region and beyond. This research has direct implications for public health, policy, and pharmaceutical care.
... Pharm Ellie worried if the safety of clients could be compromised when they patronize online pharmacy, despite its convenience, and was not sure if she would recommend online pharmacy to her clients. Tramadol, over the years has caused a lot of addiction in the country 15 and to Ellie, the notion that it could be obtained easily was a bit unsettling. ...
Background
Online pharmacies continue to grow worldwide, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ghana is experiencing this growth in an unprecedented way since its government initiated an online pharmacy pilot in December 2021, which was followed by the launch of the National Electronic Pharmacy Platform in July 2022. This pioneering initiative calls for extensive research with pharmacists to gain their perspectives. However, there is a dearth of such studies in the sub-Saharan African countries.
Objective
This study sought to understand how pharmacists in Ghana perceive online pharmacies in terms of the larger socio-cultural and policy implications, as well as the challenges they face in its implementation.
Methods
Using a qualitative research design, local licensed pharmacists were recruited through purposive sampling and by specifically combining the maximum variation and snowball sample techniques. Semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually with 21 pharmacists over the months of February and March 2022. The data were analyzed by using interpretive thematic analysis.
Results
Pharmacists perceived that online pharmacies would transform the pharmaceutical industry in Ghana by making it convenient for people to access medication easily and at a reasonable price, while also offering them privacy. However, concerns were expressed around existing poor infrastructure and inequities, low health literacy, and inadequate regulatory practices that could pose major challenges in the operation of this platform. Engagement of stakeholders was deemed essential for success.
Conclusion
Online pharmacy in Ghana and much of the developing world has the potential to transform and advance the pharmaceutical industry to better serve people. However, it could also lead to increased and irrational use of medications, if not properly regulated. Government, policy makers, and leaders in the field of digital health and pharmacy must also address poor infrastructure and inequities in digital access.
... The emerging academic literature on tramadol in Ghana falls into two main categories. (There is a third emerging literature on the role of the media in the tramadol 'crisis'; see Thompson and Ofori-Parku) [13]. ...
Over the last five years, media reports in West African countries have suggested a tramadol abuse ‘crisis’ characterised by a precipitous rise in use by youth in the region. This discourse is connected to evidence of an emerging global opioid crisis. While the reported increase in tramadol abuse in West Africa is likely true, few studies have critically interrogated structural explanations for tramadol use by youth. Nascent academic literature has sought to explain the rise in drug use as a function of moral weakness among youth. This Ghanaian case study draws on primary and secondary data sources to explore the pain that precedes tramadol abuse. Through a discourse analysis of 295 media articles and 15 interviews (11 with youth who currently use tramadol and 4 with health system stakeholders), this study draws on structural violence and moral panic theories to contribute to the emerging literature on tramadol (ab)use in West Africa. The evidence parsed from multiple sources reveals that government responses to tramadol abuse among Ghanaian youth have focused on arrests and victim blaming often informed by a moralising discourse. Interviews with those who use tramadol on their lived experiences reveal however that although some youth use the opioid for pleasure, many use tramadol for reasons related to work and feelings of dislocation. A more complex way to understand tramadol use among young people in Ghana is to explore the pain that leads to consumption. Two kinds of pain; physical (related to strenuous work) and non-physical (related to anxiety and the condition of youth itself) explain tramadol use requiring a harm reduction and social determinants of health approach rather than the moralising ‘war on drugs’ approach that has been favoured by policy makers.
... The global impact of the opioid crisis has captured the attention of news media throughout the last decade and, consequently, influenced a growing body of literature on news media and this crisis. To this end, studies analyzing the news framing of the opioid crisis are mostly US-based (Eichenlaub & Nasher, 2021;Hswen et al., 2020;Lawson & Meyers, 2020;McGinty et al., 2016McGinty et al., , 2019Orsini 2017), with only a few focusing on Canada (Johnston 2020;Matthias et al., 2019;Quan at al., 2020;Webster et al., 2019;Wild et al., 2019) and other countries (i.e., Ghana) (Thompson & Ofori-Parku, 2020). Altogether, such research highlights various trends in how the opioid crisis, opioid users, causes, and solutions are framed and discoursed by news media, acutely, though, from the US context, as the ensuing literature shows. ...
This study examines news media framing of the opioid crisis in Canada to advance an understanding of the dominant discourses and identify the narratives shaping public and policymakers’ opinions and preferred solutions. We conducted a content and frame analysis of 2,273 Canadian news articles published between January 2016 and December 2019. The analysis revealed that harm reduction and treatment were the preferred solutions instead of criminalization, and public health framing predominantly occurred. The overall tone emerged as empathetic and softer and, generally, the leading policy choices and opioid crisis were framed contradistinct from past drug epidemics.
... In addition, future research should consider testing combined policy-based and values-based narratives outside of the USA to examine how such frames impact policy support and counterarguing among distinct populations with differing levels of individualistic and collective orientations. 42 It is also essential to examine the long-term impacts of such combined strategies beyond specific policy support, for example, on generalised support for policy interventions to support population health. In addition, future research should examine the specific ways in which public health advocates use individual-level and rights-centred language, and compare these with the ways in which industry uses this language. ...
Objectives:
To examine news coverage of Mexico's front-of-package food labelling policy.
Methods:
We used Lexis Nexis to identify newspaper articles that mention the proposed law in four Mexican newspapers representing politically centre-left and centre-right perspectives. We coded for type and valence of arguments, sources and research evidence cited.
Results:
We identified N=361 relevant articles. Coverage of the front-of-package food label policy was primarily news (vs editorial/opinion). While most were neutral in tone, left-leaning newspapers had slightly more positive overall coverage compared with right-leaning newspapers, indicated by publishing more stories in favour of the policy, fewer in opposition, more propolicy arguments and more frequent inclusion of perspectives by government officials and public health advocates. Despite some evidence of bias, there was a general lack of credible opposition to the policy and mention of opponents across newspapers.
Conclusions and policy implications:
The relative absence of food and beverage industry stakeholders in news coverage of the food label policy is unexpected given their documented involvement in prior food policy debates. We discuss possible reasons for their conspicuous absence and lessons for public health advocates around the globe.
... How we frame the deepfake problem, however, impacts the solutions that will be proposed for stemming the prevalence of fake videos. Indeed, researchers show that the framing of issues like gun violence 15 or drug abuse crises 16 impacts how people think about those issues. If fake videos are framed as a technical problem, solutions will likely involve new systems. ...
This research interrogates the discourses that frame our understanding of deepfakes and how they are situated in everyday public conversation. It does so through a qualitative analysis of popular news and magazine outlets. This project analyzes themes in discourse that range from individual threat to societal collapse. This article argues how the deepfake problem discursively framed impacts the solutions proposed for stemming the prevalence of deepfake videos online. That is, if fake videos are framed as a technical problem, solutions will likely involve new systems and tools. If fake videos are framed as a social, cultural, or as an ethical problem, solutions needed will be legal or behavioral ones. As a conclusion, this article suggests that a singular solution is inadequate because of the highly interrelated technical, social, and cultural worlds, in which we live today.
Ghana’s vibrant media has played an important role in the country’s democratization. From its strong advocacy during the country’s struggles for independence and democratic rule to its current watchdog role for society, the Ghanaian media has continually set the agenda on matters of critical importance, sustained the discourse, and effected change. This has earned Ghana a reputation as one of the most media-friendly countries in the world, rising steadily on the World Press Freedom Index from 67th in 2002 to 23rd in 2018, from 19th among African countries to No. 1 (Reporters Without Borders, 2002; 2018).
However, popular support for a free media has dropped sharply in Ghana: According to Afrobarometer survey data, a majority of citizens now say the government should have the right to prevent the media from publishing things that it considers harmful to society.
Survey findings also show that most Ghanaians rely on radio and television for their news, though social media and the Internet are growing in importance as news sources, especially among young and well-educated citizens. A majority of citizens say they trust information from the media, but many also see at least some members of the media as corrupt.
In countries where illiteracy levels are high, media platforms such as print have tended to be exclusive of certain segments of the population, and therefore not wholly effective in reaching the masses with information, such as that relating to health. In Ghana, this barrier between literacy, media and audiences is blurring, as radio ‘converges’ with print such that newspaper stories of the day form the basis for morning radio (local language) discussions. This article investigates the implications of this ‘converged’ platform for expanding the spaces for health communication. Further, it explores audience interest in health issues in a growing cacophony of politics-based discourse. A qualitative content analysis of selected editions of two leading Ghanaian newspapers (Daily Graphic and Daily Guide) and the most popular morning radio programme (Kokrokoo) was undertaken to examine the extent to which newspaper stories on three health conditions (malaria, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis) gain prominence or suffer neglect as they transit from print through morning radio to the listening public. The findings suggest that the ‘converged’ platform may not wholly be creating more space for health education/ communication.
An experiment examined how episodic and thematic political message frames affect attitudes toward older adults and Social Security. When exposed to messages about abolishing Social Security, participants exposed to episodic frames were significantly more likely to endorse message-consistent attitudes than participants exposed to a thematic frame. In mediation analyses, an episodic frame featuring a counterstereotypical exemplar increased endorsement of individual responsibility for retirement planning, which then led to more negative attitudes toward Social Security. These effects did not occur with a stereotypical exemplar in an episodic frame. The same mediated pathway influenced attitudes toward older adults in a more complex manner. Results provide support for individual responsibility attributions as a mediating mechanism underlying the effects of certain episodic frames.
The public’s lack of understanding as well as their misconceptions about autism in China contribute to the underdiagnosis and undertreatment of the disorder and the stigma associated with it. Mass media is the primary channel through which people learn about autism. This paper examines how leading newspapers in China cover autism in the 10-year period between 2003 and 2012 through a framing analysis. It finds that while autism has received increased media attention, it is increasingly framed as a family problem—family members are cited or quoted more than any other sources and the responsibility of dealing with autism is ultimately assigned to families. Autistic people are largely silenced unless they are autistic savants with special talents. The use of the scientific discourse and the human interest discourse both decrease over time in percentage, while the use of other discourses such as the public relations discourse becomes more dominant.
The relationship between journalists and their sources has been described as an interdependent relationship where each part needs the other. For political actors, this relationship is particularly important during election campaigns, when their need to reach voters through the media is even more urgent than usual. This is particularly true with respect to European Parliamentary election campaigns, as these are often less salient and as people's need for orientation is greater than in national elections. However, there is only limited cross-national research on the media's use of news sources and whether there are associations between the use of news sources and media framing. This holds true for research on election campaigns in general and on European Parliamentary election campaigns in particular. Against this background, this study investigates cross-national differences and similarities in the media's use of news sources in their coverage of the 2009 European Parliamentary election campaigns and the extent to which the use of news sources is associated with the media's framing of politics and the EU. The study draws upon a quantitative content analysis of the media coverage in twelve countries. Findings suggest that there are both important similarities and differences across countries with respect to the use of news sources and that there are cases when the use of news sources is related to the framing of politics and the EU.
This study explores agenda setting, framing, and the concepts of media advocacy and mobilizing information through content analysis of The New York Times and The Washington Post news coverage of autism from 1996 to 2006, the year the Combating Autism Act was passed. Findings revealed that science frames decreased over time, while policy frames increased. Medical, government, family, and nonprofit sources were most common in news coverage. Solutions were mentioned more frequently than causes; however, mobilizing information was limited. Theoretical implications and practical applications are discussed.
The increasing popularity of the framing concept in media analysis goes hand in hand with significant inconsistency in its application. This paper outlines an integrated process model of framing that includes production, content, and media use perspectives. A typology of generic and issue-specific frames is proposed based on previous studies of media frames. An example is given of how generic news frames may be identified and used to understand cross-national differences in news coverage. The paper concludes with an identification of contentious issues in current framing research.
This study examines mainstream news coverage of the direct-to-consumer advertising phenomenon since FDA deregulation of such ads in 1997, and helps illuminate framing of stakeholder claims. The authors found that prominent frames describe drawbacks and benefits of DTC ads in addition to power relationships between the Food and Drug Administration and drug companies. Sources most likely to be quoted were representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. The authors argue that issues such as consumer interests and ethics are overshadowed by special interests, and that balanced coverage is narrow in scope. The authors use both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine frames in-depth and to explore relationships among frames.
The present study answers calls of previous research to analyze the content of online news, assessing differences between print and online newspapers in frequency of “mobilizing information” (Ml)—information aiding people to act on pre-existing attitudes. Conceptual and operational definitions of locational, identificational, and tactical MI are included. Results revealed that online newspapers did not have significantly more MI than their print counterparts. This finding counters the assumption that online newspapers have more mobilizing content than print.
This article describes media coverage of elder abuse from 2003 to 2005. Guided by media typification and framing literatures, eight newspapers' elder abuse coverage was content analyzed. The newspapers' coverage usually typified and framed elder abuse in a criminal justice context. The stories covered most often featured episodic frames, 57.1%, while a majority, 65.2%, of the coverage framed elder abuse as an individual- as opposed to a societal-level problem. Most elder abuse occurs in domestic settings, yet the newspapers' coverage most often focused on elder abuse in long-term care settings.
A large and growing body of mass media research centers on the concept of “framing.” This article responds to Entman's (1993) call for the establishment of a paradigm of news framing research, drawing on work in the sociology of knowledge to argue that news framing research operates according to principles of a Lakatosian research program (Lakatos, 1974) in which researchers employ and refine specific theories to generate findings in particular studies about a common core of irrefutable conjectures. In the metatheory developed here, the research program is inclusive of 3 paradigmatic outlooks, called cognitive, constructionist, and critical, that provide researchers with specific images with which to examine the interaction of media frames and individual- or social-level reality. Thus, contra Entman (1993), I argue that there is not, nor should there be, a single “mended” paradigm of framing research. The research program has benefited the communication discipline by encouraging researchers to use specific theories to progressively explicate a complex process.
In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position. In reflecting what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues--that is, the media may set the "agenda." of the campaign.
Newspapers are one of the most important sources of health information for the public in China, yet little is known about the coverage of health issues in Chinese newspapers. Using the theories of agenda setting and framing, we explored research questions such as what health-related topics were covered and how they were covered in Chinese newspapers. This study used a sample of two constructed weeks in 2007 of one national and five leading local newspapers of the five most populated cities in China: 558 health-related articles were identified. It was found that certain diseases and risk factors were underreported as compared with their actual morbidity and mortality rates in China. Most of the health reporting was framed in a non-negative frame. It was also found that causes and preventions of diseases were more likely to be attributed to the individual than to the society. As one of the first comprehensive content analyses on the coverage of health-related issues in China, this study provides health care professionals and policymakers a broad picture of health information available to the public in Chinese newspapers.
By examining the publicily identified top two health problems in the United States, this research, using an experimental design, investigates whether different news frame combinations intensify or diminish framing effects. In this study, the cognitive dimension and affective dimension of framing defined as thematic/episodic and gain/loss, respectively, are manipulated to determine if changing the way newspaper stories report obesity and lung cancer will alter the readers' attribution of societal and individual responsibility. This study revealed a significant interaction between thematic framing and loss framing on societal attribution of responsibility for the health issues-lung cancer and obesity.
To describe how content analysis of the news assists media advocates.
A description of how findings from the Berkeley Media Studies Group's research on how 2 public health issues have been portrayed in the news has informed media advocacy.
For media advocates, the research suggests they make themselves available to reporters, prepare spokespeople representing key stakeholders, and make data available. For reporters, the research suggests they expand sources beyond the "usual suspects," provide context in regular reporting, increase enterprise and investigative reporting, and ask better questions based on epidemiology and risk factors.
Content analysis can help media advocates pinpoint areas for creating news to advance policy.
Analyzing newspaper articles and television news, we explore how American news media have framed the issue of obesity. More specifically, we analyze the way the media present the question of who is responsible for causing and fixing the problem. Our data reveal that over the last 10 years, mentions of personal causes and solutions significantly have outnumbered societal attributions of responsibility. Recently, however, a balance was established between individualistic and societal attributions of responsibility. Mentions of societal causes and solutions have increased considerably, whereas decreasing numbers of personal solutions have appeared in the media. Findings also indicate that television news is more likely than newspapers to mention personal solutions, but less likely to attribute the responsibility to society.
Older men are at increased risk for prostate cancer. As seniors turn to the Internet for cancer information, it is important that the resources they locate about lifestyle behaviors and screening are culturally appropriate and easy to understand. This study was a comprehensive analysis of prostate cancer risk as portrayed on the Internet with assessment of content readability and cultural sensitivity.
We selected Web sites about prostate cancer risk and prevention by comparing common sites across three top-rated search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN). A total of 70 Web sites on prostate cancer containing a Web page on risk factors or prevention or both for racial and ethnic populations were included. We assessed readability of one page per Web site using Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), Flesch-Kincaid (FK), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) measures. Cultural sensitivity of the Web page was evaluated using the Cultural Sensitivity Assessment Tool (CSAT) and questions from a cultural sensitivity checklist.
Mean readability of Web pages was Grade 12.90 (high school graduate level) using SMOG and Grade 11.20 according to FK. Mean FRE was 45.04 (fairly difficult to read). The mean CSAT score was 2.78 and classified as culturally sensitive. Of the 36 Web pages considered culturally sensitive (CSAT >2.50), 75% did not portray images of representative racial or ethnic individuals as intended readers or as being at high risk for prostate cancer. Older adults and seniors were identified as intended readers on 73% of Web pages.
Online cancer resources are targeting appropriate age groups (high-risk older adults). However, the pages required fairly high-level reading skills and had limited cultural sensitivity. These factors make the pages unsuitable for diverse Internet users.
Media are an indispensable partner in health communication, but there is often concern about how the media cover health and science issues. These critiques tend to be based on analyses of news content that don’t consider the production process of the content. Using a media sociology framework, the article examines the news production process of the Ebola outbreak from the perspective of Ghanaian journalists. The study finds that existing and new routines influenced what the media produced. This study reiterates the call for public health to work closely with the media and to provide translated health information in multilingual low-literate societies.
The past several decades have seen a shift in environmental and risk communication that emphasizes harnessing local knowledge to enhance environmental advocacy. As a result, one would expect local advocacy organizations to manifest this shift. Using Friends of the Nation (FoN; a Ghanaian local advocacy organization) as a case study, this research examines how FoN is constructing offshore oil production risks. The study found that FoN uses “whale deaths” as an exemplar of ecological risks associated with offshore oil production, even though in Ghanaian folk culture coastal communities view whale deaths as signs of bumper fish harvest. The article argues that the disconnect between the dominant frame and local meaning system could be explained in terms of FoN’s policymakers-facing as opposed (or in addition) to community residents-facing engagement approach. Recommendations for environmental advocacy are discussed.
Mass media have a responsibility to popularise social and developmental issues. This is a central thesis of the normative view of mass media and development. Given the precarious nature of environmental sanitation in the West African country, Ghana, what is the nature of media coverage of environmental sanitation? And how does media coverage relate to people's perceptions of and attitudes toward the problem? While it may be counterintuitive for people to rely on media as sources of information on an obtrusive problem such as environmental sanitation, using content/frame analysis and a survey, this article suggests the potential of mass media (television news) in Ghana to project particular worldviews relating to issues that audiences encounter in their daily lives - a mechanism this article refers to as agenda moulding. Thus, even for obtrusive social and development issues such as environmental sanitation, the nature and level of media coverage matters.
Objective:
Opioid analgesic abuse is a complex and relatively new public health problem, and to date little is known about how the news media frame the issue.
Methods:
To better understand how this issue has been framed in public discourse, an analysis was conducted of the volume and content of news media coverage of opioid analgesic abuse over a 15-year period from 1998 to 2012 (N=673 news stories). A 70-item structured coding instrument was used to measure items in four domains that prior research suggests can influence public attitudes about health and social issues: causes, solutions, and consequences of the problem and individual depictions of persons who abuse opioid analgesics.
Results:
Although experts have deemed opioid analgesic abuse a public health crisis, results of our study suggest that the news media more often frame the problem as a criminal justice issue. The most frequently mentioned cause of the problem was illegal drug dealing, and the most frequently mentioned solutions were law enforcement solutions designed to arrest and prosecute the individuals responsible for diverting opioid analgesics onto the illegal market. Prevention-oriented approaches, such as prescription drug-monitoring programs, were mentioned more frequently in the latter years of the study period, but less than 5% of news stories overall mentioned expanding substance abuse treatment, and even fewer mentioned expanding access to evidence-based medication-assisted treatments, such as buprenorphine.
Conclusions:
Findings underscore the need for a concerted effort to reframe opioid analgesic abuse as a treatable condition addressable via well-established public and behavioral health approaches.
As the first study of Chinese newspaper coverage of depression over the past twelve years, this paper analyzed how state-controlled Party press and market-oriented City press framed depression and attributed responsibilities at individual and societal levels. The study also explored how cultural and organizational factors influenced frame building. Findings indicate that print news coverage utilized more thematic than episodic framing. However, there was a gradual decrease in thematic and increase in episodic framing over time. Chinese newspapers placed more problem-solving (but not causal) responsibilities on the society. City press was less likely than Party press to make societal-level responsibility attributions.
This research examined attributes of three social problems—pollution, poverty, and incarceration—in 300 news articles from 1995 to 2000. Coverage overwhelmingly indicated no specific cause, effect, or responsible agent for each problem, and rarely mentioned nonprofit citizen organizations or the individual-level terms “environmentalist,” “activist,” and “advocate” in content. Media coverage also did not discuss any likelihood that these problems could be solved and did not report any calls for reader action. Media content may have promoted political apathy due to a lack of connection between the social problem, nonprofit citizen organization activities, and individual behavior.
This study explores how the American news media frame the poverty issue, looking at the way the media present its causes and solutions. It also examines the notion of frame building, exploring the factors that may influence the media's selective uses of certain frames. Media attributions of responsibility are largely societal, focusing on the causes and solutions at the social rather than personal level. Liberal newspapers made more references than conservative papers to social causes and solutions. Television news is slightly less likely than newspapers to make social-level attributions.
This paper compares the news coverage of HIV/AIDS in China by the Xinhua News Agency of China and the Associated Press of the United States in 2004. By examining the frames embedded in the two news discourses, the study aims at uncovering how the social reality of HIV/AIDS in China is constructed by the two leading news organizations. Findings suggest that an overarching anti-government frame was evident in AP's report whereas Xinhua's coverage has articulated a pro-government frame. Three major frames, i.e. the dishonesty/oppression frame, the human rights abuser frame, and the incompetence frame, have combined to support the anti-government frame in AP's report. Xinhua's pro-government frame is also supported by three distinct frames, i.e. the defense frame, the progress frame, and the ambivalence/ambiguity frame. Overall, multiply realities are constructed on the social phenomenon of HIV/AIDS in China by the news media and the contrasting frames as identified in the study have lent support to the argument that news is a socially constructed product, not an objective mirror of social reality. Complexities in journalistic framing are discussed to account for the different message framings in the news and practical implication for international audience framing is also suggested.
/ This study investigates the prevalence of news frames in SARS news coverage from the Xinhua News Agency and the Associated Press (AP), as well as whether the frames were predicted by news environment and the SARS timeline. Factor analysis supported four frame dimensions: attribution of responsibility, human interest, economic consequences and severity. Frame prevalence was considered in terms of, first, the story as the unit of analysis and, second, word count as the unit of analysis. For both types of measurement, attribution of responsibility and severity frames were more common in AP. For economic consequences, story frame prevalence was higher in AP, while word frame prevalence was higher in Xinhua. For both types of measurement, economic consequences decreased over time, while attribution of responsibility and severity increased. Attribution of responsibility and human interest frames increased more over time in AP, while the severity frame increased more over time in Xinhua.
This study content analyzed 602 news story abstracts on breast cancer from the three major TV networks during the past three decades (1974 to 2003). The amount of news coverage on breast cancer increased during the time period. Some topics, such as prevention and treatment, increased significantly, whereas other issues, such as surgery and celebrities, decreased. The use of thematic frames and discussion of research developments increased across time, whereas other characteristics of the coverage did not change, such as the dominant citation of medical doctors as sources.
The public debate on obesity will turn on the question of who or what is responsible for causing and curing this emerging epidemic. Previous research suggests that public health problems become amenable to broad policy solutions when those problems can be reframed in systemic terms—specifically, in terms of involuntary risk, universal risk, environmental risk, and knowingly created risk. This article assesses the framing of obesity in news coverage since 1985 to determine whether obesity is being reframed in these terms. The data suggest that a vigorous frame contest is currently under way between arguments emphasizing personal responsibility for health and arguments emphasizing the social environment, including corporate and public policy. The evidence suggests that one of these frame dimensions (environmental risk) has moved decisively toward the systemic pole, while two frame dimensions (involuntary and knowingly created risk) have not moved toward the systemic pole, and the movement of the fourth dimension (risk to everyone) is uncertain.
This research examined news frames in coverage of SARS by newspapers in China and the United States. The assumption was that with the adoption of Western news values and practices, the Chinese press would exhibit news frames similar to those found in Western news. The results showed the presence of economic consequences, responsibility, conflict, leadership, and human-interest news frames in both the U.S. and Chinese newspapers. Depending on the newspaper's country of origin, however, the degree and manner of the frame uses varied.
Media discourse and public opinion are treated as two parallel systems of constructing meaning. This paper explores their relationship by analyzing the discourse on nuclear power in four general audience media: television news coverage, newsmagazine accounts, editorial cartoons, and syndicated opinion columns. The analysis traces the careers of different interpretive packages on nuclear power from 1945 to the present. This media discourse, it is argued, is an essential context for understanding the formation of public opinion on nuclear power. More specifically, it helps to account for such survey results as the decline in support for nuclear power before Three Mile Island, a rebound after a burst of media publicity has died out, the gap between general support for nuclear power and support for a plant in one's own community, and the changed relationship of age to support for nuclear power from 1950 to the present.
This article offers a rhetorical understanding of the practices and influences of news media on democratic citizenship during an environmental conflict. I compared two newspapers' ability to foster and suppress the formation and activation potential of citizens to participate in the decision-making process of a solid waste facility siting. One newspaper used language that fostered the formation of community by overcoming apathy and encouraging residents to act collectively. In contrast, the other newspaper's coverage suppressed the formation of community by reinforcing the belief that residents were powerless against the entrenched economic and political power base. This research also establishes a rationale for why it is important to the discipline to expand the definition of mobilizing information in the news media.
We advance the central proposition of agenda-setting theory - that elements prominent in the mass media's picture of the world influence the salience of those elements in the audience's picture - through the explication of a second level of agenda setting: attribute agenda setting. This preliminary research on candidate images during the 1996 Spanish general election simultaneously examined 2 attribute dimensions - substantive and affective descriptions - to test the hypothesis that media attribute agendas influence the voters' attribute agenda. Empirically, a high degree of correspondence was found between the attribute agendas of 7 different mass media and the voters' attribute agenda for each of the 3 candidates. The median correlation from these 21 tests of the hypothesis is +.72. Sixth-order partial correlations in which the influence of the other 6 mass media are removed from the correlation between a medium's agenda and the voters' agenda for a particular candidate have a median value of +.73. Additional analyses of the attribute agendas of each medium's primary audience in comparison with its principal competitor also yielded evidence of second-level agenda setting. Future research should pursue complex longitudinal designs tracing the impact of media content on voters' images at both the aggregate and individual levels as part of the continuing scholarly dialogue on competing approaches to framing research and attribute agenda setting.
In this study, we examine newspaper coverage of mental illness in children and adults taken from 6 weeks during a 1-year period. Articles were coded for (1) type of article; (2) types of disorders named or described; (3) themes related to crime, attributions of the disorder, treatments, and critiques of the mental health system; and (4) "elements of responsible journalism," including inclusion of perspectives from mental health experts, statistics related to mental illness, referrals to additional sources of information, and avoidance of slang terminology. We examine how these variables differ by the age of the group discussed in the article: children/adolescents and adults/older adults. One thousand two hundred fifty-two articles were coded for these four clusters as well as age of group discussed in the article. Inter-rater correlations of two independent judges were satisfactory for 10% of the stories. Age group comparisons revealed that the child articles contained a significantly higher proportion of feature articles; were significantly more likely to discuss behavior and conduct disorders, and alcohol and drug abuse, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety disorders, and eating disorders, and to contain themes of causation, treatment, and critiques of the mental health system. The adult articles contained a significantly higher proportion of episodic news stories and were significantly more likely to present themes of dangerousness and crime. Our analysis found that child articles were significantly more likely to incorporate elements of responsible journalism, while adult articles were significantly more likely to use stigmatizing terminology. Our report encourages journalists to develop contextually comprehensive and informative presentations of mental illness and issues surrounding the mental health system for all population groups in order to provide readers with accurate information within the context of general social trends and relevant expert opinion.
Against the backdrop of the sociology of knowledge as a framework, the purposes of this study are threefold: (1) to examine the discourses surrounding the AIDS news in China; (2) to determine how Chinese people with AIDS and the identification of their social groups are covered at the national level; and (3) to discuss the implications of reporting AIDS as official knowledge for a better understanding of the interplay between the mass media and social structure in China today. Findings indicate that as an epidemic, AIDS in China has not only become invisible in the national news, but also constructed as a nonissue devoid of social consequences in public health communication. It is a disease mostly presented in an "us vs. them" news discourse that helps convey the official knowledge as to how AIDS is to be perceived and understood in the country.
Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational Crime. ENACTAfrica website
- Z Donnenfeld
- J Bello-Schünemann
- L Welborn
Ghana media measurement report: Top TV radio and print outlets in 2017
- Geopoll
The opioid epidemic in the news: Findings form an analysis of Northern California coverage
- L Seklir
- P Mejia
- L Dorfman
Setting the agenda for issues in the 1996 Spanish general elections
- M Mccombs
- E Lopez-Escobar
- J P Llamas
World drug report 2019
Is anyone responsible?: How television frames political issues
- S Iyengar