Abstract
The news media, specifically online newspapers, is one of the powerful transmitters of discourse due to its rapid accessibility that contributes to social beliefs and attitudes that often shape our perceptions on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The media portrayal of dementia is largely heterogeneous, but there is certainly an association between the influence of online news coverage and the social perceptions of dementia that need to be understood more broadly. In this study, we examined the portrayal of dementia in two online newspapers (The New York Times and The Guardian) that might have an influence on dementia discourse by comparing the content and form of the news coverage on dementia across time. This study was guided by three interconnected theoretical understandings: cultivation theory, agenda-setting theory, and spiral of silence theory. A total of 291 published articles featuring dementia from 2014 to 2019 were included in this study and a content analysis of the articles provided insight into the dementia-related news coverage. Our results showed that both newspapers have a decreasing trend in publishing articles related to dementia over time. In addition, dementia-related (modifiable) risk factors as principal news content was significantly associated with the year of publication. Despite a weak association between story categories and newspapers, the majority of articles reported preventive measures as the main story category. Although both newspapers featured more articles with a less negative tone across time when reporting on dementia, derogative wording, as discourse, was commonly used to address the illness. We have provided some insight into understanding how online newspapers potentially affect subjective representations of dementia as well as perpetuate dementia discourse. Finally, we suggest that future study may benefit from establishing a linkage between the depiction of dementia in online newspapers and the contextualization of dementia within cultures.
Highlights
The growing number of people diagnosed with various forms of dementia as a topical news item in the media often widely effects negatively among the general population [1].a range of topics related to dementia has been featured and discussed explicitly in both print and in online newspapers, namely, what it is like to be diagnosed with dementia, the causes of dementia, available treatments and preventions, wording to address dementia, and available care services and how they operate
We investigated the temporal trends of news presentation and discourse concerning dementia in two online newspapers (The New York Times; NYT, and The Guardian; GDN) by comparing the news content: the subject matter or symbolic significance of news, the news story: a written content that informs the public about an event, concern, or idea, and the overall tone: news represents impartial, biased, and/or subjective meanings of the story of news coverage on dementia to consider a five-year period of reporting
Our findings identified that news articles related to dementia have declined in general during the study period, while the proportion of articles in different sections has increased
Summary
The growing number of people diagnosed with various forms of dementia as a topical news item in the media often widely effects negatively among the general population [1]. A range of topics related to dementia has been featured and discussed explicitly in both print and in online newspapers, namely, what it is like to be diagnosed with dementia, the causes of dementia, available treatments and preventions, wording to address dementia, and available care services and how they operate. The online news title ‘Alzheimer vaccine passes crucial test’ [2] somewhat establishes a biomedical discourse and accelerates expectations among the general population. Prioritizing biomedical aspects often obscures the relevance of the social impact of the news [3].
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