Changes in the Framing of Antimicrobial Resistance in Print Media in Australia and the United Kingdom (2011-2020): A Comparative Qualitative Content and Trends Analysis.

Chris Degeling,Victoria Brookes,Olivia Hawkins,Cassandra Tull,Julie Hall,Tarant Hill,Mitchell Byrne,Anastacia Rowles,Judy Mullan,Nina Reynolds

doi:10.3390/antibiotics10121432

Abstract

Educating the public about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is considered a key part of an optimal public health response. In both media depictions and policy discourses around health risks, how a problem is framed underpins public awareness and understanding, while also guiding opinions on what actions can and should be taken. Using a mixed methods approach we analyse newspaper content in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) from 2011 to 2020 to track how causes, consequences and solutions to AMR are represented in countries with different policy approaches. Analyses demonstrate greater variability in the frames used in UK newspapers reflecting large hospital and community outbreaks and a sustained period of policy reform mid-decade. Newspapers in Australia focus more on AMR causes and consequences, highlighting the importance of scientific discovery, whereas UK coverage has greater discussion of the social and economic drivers of AMR and their associated solutions. Variations in the trends of different frames around AMR in UK newspapers indicate greater levels of public deliberation and debate around immediate and actionable solutions; whereas AMR has not had the same health and political impacts in Australia resulting in a media framing that potentially encourages greater public complacency about the issue.

Highlights

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an existential threat to modern medicine and broader society [1,2,3]
The 594 articles in the Australian sample were from 24 different mastheads—three with national circulation, seven major provincial newspapers and 14 regional papers from all eight States and Territories
Widespread experience of the real world consequences of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) have prompted government, health authority and stakeholder actions, which is reflected in and amplified by news media coverage. These media representations do have a possible role in changing how the public respond to specific issues such as AMR, especially where these are linked to structural support and changes in procedures [18,66]

Summary

Introduction

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an existential threat to modern medicine and broader society [1,2,3]. AMR increases the economic cost of effective healthcare because of the need for more expensive drugs and longer hospital stays [4] Responding to this critical and emerging public health problem became of great importance to governments, transnational organisations, and policy-makers at the turn of the century [5]. National differences in antibiotic consumption rates do not clearly correspond to the prevalence of bacterial infections [12,13] They are related to national and local policies, accepted modes of treatment, the types of health-care and agricultural systems, and a number of cultural factors such as public trust in governments and institutions and risk aversion [14,15,16,17]. The complexity of AMR and the extent to which antibiotics and other antimicrobials have become embedded into the systems and structures that support our societies over the last 80 years mean that AMR is a problem for which there is no simple or cost-free solution [18,19,20]

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