The Power of News Coverage of Health Issues in Shaping Understandings of Health, Disease, and the Body
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La Capital
Researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela are working collaboratively in exploring the profound effects of news coverage of health in newspapers, television, and radio on our most basic understandings of:
- what constitutes health
- what illness means
- what is healthcare and who should receive it
- what constitutes knowledge about health and who has it
They have discovered that:
- health content is a major focus of news coverage and is a major source of information about health issues
- news coverage does not simply reflect scientific knowledge about health and our beliefs about health, disease, healthcare, and the body but plays a profound role in shaping fundamental beliefs and practices
- health coverage is highly political, shaping basic understandings of citizens and states
- how health, health-related institutions, citizens, and states are constructed in health coverage is currently undergoing important changes, particularly in keeping to neoliberal health policies; news coverage can play a key role in making health "reforms" seem natural and necessary
- very different ways of projecting health and citizenship are evident in each country covered in the project
We welcome you to the project and invite you to visit the teams now working in:
Argentina Brazil Cuba Ecuador Mexico
United States Venezuela |
