| Special Issue: Communicating Health: People, Culture and Context |
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| Guest Editors: Shuang Liu & Guo-Ming Chen |
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Editor Introduction
Communicating Health: People, Culture and Context
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Author(s): Shuang Liu and Guo-Ming Chen |
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Full Text (PDF, Free) |
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[China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):1-2]
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Stigmatizing HIV/AIDS in the 21st Century? Newspaper Coverage of HIV/AIDS in
China |
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Author(s): Chunbo Ren, Stacey J.T. Hust, and Peng Zhang |
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According to plans released by the State Council of China, the
government intends to use the mass
media to deliver information about HIV/AIDS in hopes of increasing awareness and promoting
HIV/AIDS
prevention. Despite these proactive efforts, over the past three decades, HIV/AIDS has
become one of the most
stigmatized diseases in China. The current study analyzes Chinese newspaper articles about
HIV/AIDS to determine
in what ways the coverage discusses anti-stigmas or stigmas associated with HIV/AIDS. The
content of these
articles indicate that the Chinese media frame HIV/AIDS in stigmatizing terms, even when
they discuss anti-stigma
efforts. The journalists’ selection of metaphors, photos, and terminology serves to further
demonize the disease
rather than disseminating current medical knowledge about the transmission and treatment of
the disease. This is
particularly salient given that most scholars agree that China is at great risk for an AIDS
epidemic. [China Media
Research. 2010; 6(4):3-14] |
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Television Viewing and Taiwanese Adolescent Girls’
Perceptions of Body Image |
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Author(s): Yan Bing Zhang and Shu-Chin Lien |
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This study examined the influences of adolescent girls’ (N = 301)
television viewing, self-esteem,
internalizations of societal ideals, and body weight on their perceptions of body
dissatisfaction and drive for thinness.
Supporting our hypotheses, analysis of variance results indicated that high school girls’
internalizations of the
societal thin ideals influenced their body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness regardless
of their television viewing
behaviors and self-esteem. That said, television viewing influenced high school girls’ body
dissatisfaction in
important ways. For those who had low self-esteem and heavy body weight, heavy television
viewing was a double
dosage to their body dissatisfaction. Similarly, for those heavy viewers, low self-esteem
contributed negatively to
their body satisfaction. Results are discussed in light of cultivation theory and prior
literature on body images and
health of adolescents. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):15-23] |
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Press Coverage of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria and
the Socio-cultural Barriers That Inhibit Media Coverage |
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Author(s): Levi Obijiofor |
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Ever since the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS, a culture of apathy has developed in
the media and in the
Nigerian public over this public health problem. The initial attitude is that HIV/AIDS is
not an “African disease”
and therefore does not warrant serious attention. What emerged in the early years of the
virus was that the Nigerian
public space did not seem to accommodate discussions on the causes, treatment and prevention
of HIV/AIDS
infection. This paper analyses the Nigerian press coverage of HIV/AIDS between December 2009
and May 2010 in
order to understand how the press framed HIV/AIDS. The paper also examines socio-cultural
factors that inform
press reports and the public attitude to HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. [China Media Research. 2010;
6(4):24-31].
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Media Coverage of Health Issues:
A Study of Advertorials in the Slovene Daily Newspapers
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Author(s): Melita Poler Kovačič, Zala Volčič, and Karmen Erjavec, |
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This paper studies commercial messages about health-related issues which are
published in the form
of news, yet they are not labeled as advertising. The authors combine a textual analysis of
unlabeled health-related
advertorials published by three most-read Slovene quality daily newspapers with in-depth
interviews with
advertorials’ main producers. They uncover textual characteristics of advertorials, their
production practice and the
producers’ explanations and justifications for participating in this unethical/illegal
practice. Advertorials privilege
the pharmaceutical-commercial view on health, preventing any critical/negative information
to be published about
advertisers. Thus, newspapers renounce their role of accurately and impartially informing
their readers about matters
in public interest. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):32-42]
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A Content Analysis of Online Social Support Behaviors of
Overseas Chinese Prenatal and Postnatal Women
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Author(s): Yuxia Qian and Yuping Mao |
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This study addresses the health concerns and online social
support behaviors of overseas Chinese
prenatal and postnatal women. A content analysis was conducted on 429 posts of an online
maternity message board,
created and moderated mainly by overseas Chinese. The results indicate that the majority of
the online posts are
related to giving informational support in the form of personal experiences. The first-hand
experiences provide the
online community members with personalized information to supplement physicians’ advice. The
major topics
include baby pictures/videos, personal narratives, and medical issues. The major types of
social support are
informational support, followed by emotional support. The study answers the call to take
into account marginalized
cultural voices in health communication. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):43-54] |
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Effects of News Representations on Attitudes
toward People Living with HIV/AIDS:
A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Taiwan and Hong Kong
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Author(s): Mei-Ling Hsu and Hao-Chieh Chang |
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This study examines how news representations and individuals’
inherent and cultural differences
affect their attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). A 4 (news framing of the
transmission route)
X 2 (gender) X 2 (place of residence) experimental design was used with 968 young adults
from Taiwan and Hong
Kong. Four dependent variables were examined under two general dimensions: individual views
on PLWHA’s
rights, and attitudes toward PLWHA. The results show that the participants tended to express
positive attitudes
toward all dependent variables except PLWHA’s rights to marriage and birth-giving.
Significant main effects of all
three independent variables were observed on the combined dependent variables. Subsequent
univariate analyses
were conducted to shed more light on the supportive attitudes of individuals toward PLWHA’s
rights. In addition,
participants’ attitudes toward homosexuality better predicted their support for PLWHA than
their fear of infection.
The implications of these findings were discussed. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):55-68]
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Public Risk Perceptions, Communications, and Trust:
a Comparison of the SARS and the Novel Influenza H1N1
Outbreaks in Taiwan |
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Author(s): Ying Ying Tsai |
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This article compares the perceptions of risk, fear, and the
level of trust in sources of information
held by the public about the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the novel H1N1
influenza. Two data sets
were gathered through telephone investigations representing a sample of the population of
Taiwan over the age of 15
in 2004 and 2009. The results indicate that the SARS was the leading fear risk during both
epidemics. This article
suggests that there is diversity surrounding the trustworthiness of health risk information
sources for various
emerging infectious diseases and the need to investigate further. [China Media Research.
2010; 6(4):69-79] |
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Social Media and Participatory Risk Communication
during the H1N1 Flu Epidemic:
A Comparative Study of the United States and China
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Author(s): Huiling Ding, Jingwen Zhang |
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Despite the wide applaud about social media’s capacity to allow
public participation in content
creation and circulation, they do not automatically ensure open and transparent
communication because of
institutional and cultural constraints. Our study of the use of social media during the H1N1
flu epidemic in the U.S.
and China demonstrates that governmental apparatuses may use social media tools for one-way
dissemination of risk
decisions and policies or limited two-way risk communication. In contrast, the general
public may circumvent the
institutional control of risk information through extra-institutional participatory risk
communication to find out
truths about the emerging risks. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4): 80-91] |
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An Inoculation-Based Approach for Developing Efficacious Strategies
for Resisting Cigarette Initiation among Chinese Male Youth
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Author(s): Hao-Chieh Chang and Vivian C Sheer |
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Tobacco-related deaths are increasingly becoming a public health
challenge in China. Chinese men,
67% of them smoke, rarely quit tobacco use successfully. The priority of reducing smoking
prevalence reasonably
shifts to smoking prevention among Chinese male youth. As social smoking is a top reason for
future addictive tobacco
consumption, an inoculation-based intervention program is outlined to specifically enhance
male teenagers’ selfefficacy
in resisting cigarette initiation. Systematic research procedures are detailed to generate
culturally appropriate
interpersonal strategies to resist cigarette initiation effectively. [China Media Research.
2010; 6(4):92-99]
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Communication in Rural Trauma Medicine:
A Practice/Art unto Itself |
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Author(s):
Theodore A. Avtgis and E. Phillips Polack
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This article traces a longitudinal multidisciplinary effort on integrating effective
information
exchange and competent communication among rural trauma medical team members working within
an entire statewide
rural trauma network system. Curricula for both concise exchange of patient information and
competent
communication were developed and tested. Results indicate the longitudinal knowledge
retention of both the
medical and communication curricula. Further, trauma facilities receiving both medical
information exchange and
communication training had significant decreases in the time it takes to effectively treat
and transfer rural trauma
patients. The medical and communication groups showed the greatest time decrease.
Implications for the crosscultural
applications of both curricula are discussed. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):100-108]
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Got Juice? A Test of Health-Related Information Processing
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Author(s): Chia-Hsin Pan |
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The present study investigated the conjoint effects of individual thinking styles, Web-based
health
message sources, and strategies on participants’ information processing and subsequent
attitude and behavior
changes. A 2 × 2 (rationality × discounting cue) factorial design was employed to examine
immediate and delayed
treatment effects. Results revealed a short-term interaction effect on attitude change
toward healthy diets. However,
neither long-term effect on attitude change nor effect on behavior change emerged.
Applications on health
promotions were suggested. [China Media Research. 2010; 6(4):109-116]
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China Media Research