Abstract
Battle terminology such as “fight,” “conquer,” and “hero” and imagery that compares doctors and patients to superheroes, soldiers and athletes have become increasingly prevalent in hospital foundation communications. The use of these metaphors has been highly controversial. While some audiences have praised foundation campaigns that use this type of messaging for emphasizing the strength of patients and hospital staff, encouraging patient families, and motivating patients to be resilient, others argue that these campaigns marginalize those who are unable to overcome their health conditions, positioning them as failures or losers. While the use of battle metaphors in hospital communications has been a heated topic in online discussion, little is known about the impact of this language on the media coverage and financial support that they generate for hospitals. This paper presents a multimodal discourse analysis of the communications of six hospital foundations in Toronto, Canada followed by a quantitative and sentiment analysis of the media coverage each foundation has received within the last fiscal year. The aim of this paper is to determine if there is a relationship between the use of battle metaphors in hospital foundation communications and the amount and sentiment of media coverage. According to agenda setting theory, media coverage has a palpable impact on public action. Therefore, the findings of this research may assist hospital foundations in developing useful communications practices they can employ to increase media exposure and, consequently, attract more donations to support their institutions.
Highlights
The number of charitable organizations registered in Canada has been steadily increasing over the years; In 2005, there were 8,852 charitable organizations in Canada, which grew to 9,987 by 2010 and has since increased to 10,808 (Canada Revenue Agency, 2018)
The following is a summary of the findings of a text analysis of the blog posts each hospital foundation published between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018
The term VS came up many times throughout the SickKids Foundation blog posts as it is the name of the current SickKids brand platform
Summary
The number of charitable organizations registered in Canada has been steadily increasing over the years; In 2005, there were 8,852 charitable organizations in Canada, which grew to 9,987 by 2010 and has since increased to 10,808 (Canada Revenue Agency, 2018). As sadvertisements have grown increasingly popular, a few charities have tried to break out of the charity clutter by publishing communications materials and advertisements that prompt a different audience reaction by adopting battle metaphors, embedding them in their communications materials to portray patients and hospital staff as strong, courageous fighters, as opposed to weak victims. These metaphors compare patients with soldiers, superheroes, and athletes. These campaigns attempt to evoke empowerment, hope, and optimism in viewers, while conveying a sense of urgency
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