Abstract
The media are one of the main arenas in which nutrition information is framed and developed. Research has shown a predominantly individualistic framing of diet-related health issues such as obesity, type-2 diabetes and coronary heart disease in international media coverage. These issues are framed as personal, ’lifestyle’ issues rather than requiring policy or structural change. In addition, research has shown a tendency in nutrition research and media coverage of it, to emphasize individual ingredients or components more than overall diet. The media have a tendency to report diet related research simplistically, often without contextualization. Taking a case study approach, this paper analyses UK news media coverage and framing of British Medical Journal (BMJ) published research into dietary fibre and bowel cancer risk. I investigate how the health issue fibre and bowel cancer is framed and dissect the process of mediation (from press release to mass media to local media), analysing the shifting ’geographies of responsibility’ that result. This paper argues that media coverage of research into diet and bowel cancer can be explained by the technologies, conventions and routines of media representation. Key gatekeepers were found to have an important role in framing the information that was reported. Taking a critical approach, this paper argues that like obesity, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, coverage of nutritional means of preventing bowel cancer is set predominantly in the ’lifestyle’ frame, laying responsibility for increasing dietary fibre at the door of the individual rather than looking at broader social, economic, or political drivers of dietary change.
Highlights
Colorectal or bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK and the fourth most common cancer
Health geographers contend that the ‘manifold geographies of public health’ deserve greater attention within a ‘post-‐medical’ geography – that is to say a geography that focuses on health deserves more attention than one that focuses on the ‘medical’ (Parr, 2002, Herrick, 2007)
A key question for this current paper is to further explore the press coverage of bowel cancer by examining how nutrition discourse about bowel cancer is mediated by the UK press. 1.3 Media Ecology as an approach in Health Geography My approach in this case study is to follow the history, or information flow of scientific research into bowel cancer and dietary fibre as it moves from research, to press release, to press agency, to media outlet and onward to social media
Summary
Research has shown a predominantly individualistic framing of diet-‐related health issues such as obesity, type-‐2 diabetes and coronary heart disease in international media coverage. These issues are framed as personal, 'lifestyle' issues rather than requiring policy or structural change. This paper argues that like obesity, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, coverage of nutritional means of preventing bowel cancer is set predominantly in the 'lifestyle' frame, often laying responsibility for increasing dietary fibre at the door of the individual rather than looking at broader social, economic, or political drivers of dietary change
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