Australian Newsprint Media Research Articles

An examination of Australian newspaper coverage of the link between alcohol and cancer 2005 to 2013

BackgroundAlcohol is a Class-1 carcinogen but public awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer is low. The news media is a popular, readily-accessible source of health information and plays a key role in shaping public opinion and influencing policy-makers. Examination of how the link between alcohol and cancer is presented in Australian print media could inform public health advocacy efforts to raise awareness of this modifiable cancer risk factor.MethodThis study provides a summative qualitative content analysis of 1502 articles that included information about a link between alcohol and cancer, as reported within Australian newspaper media (2005–2013). We use descriptive statistics to examine the prominence of reports, the nature and content of claims regarding the link between alcohol and cancer, and the source of information noted in each article.ResultsArticles were distributed throughout newspapers, most appearing within the main (first) section. The link between alcohol and cancer tended not to appear early in articles, and rarely featured in headlines. 95% of articles included a claim that alcohol causes cancer, 5% that alcohol prevented or did not cause cancer, 1% included both. Generally, the amount of alcohol that would cause or prevent cancer was unspecified or open to subjective interpretation. Coverage increased over time, primarily within community/free papers. The claim that alcohol causes cancer often named a specific cancer, did not name a specific alcohol, was infrequently the focus of articles (typically subsumed within an article on general health issues), and cited various health-promoting (including advocacy) organisations as information sources. Articles that included the converse also tended not to focus on that point, often named a specific type of alcohol, and most cited research institutions or generic ‘research’ as sources. Half of all articles involved repetition of materials, and most confirmed that alcohol caused cancer.ConclusionsInformation about a link between alcohol and cancer is available in the Australian newsprint media, but may be hidden within and thus overshadowed by other health-related stories. Strategic collaboration between health promoting organisations, and exploitation of ‘churnalism’ and journalists’ preferences for ready-made ‘copy’ may facilitate increased presence and accuracy of the alcohol-cancer message.

Elite athletes and retirement: Identity, choice, and agency

Retirement from elite sport can be highly distressing for athletes, and many report experiencing depression and anxiety in adjusting to this transition. In this article, a discursive psychological approach is employed to explore constructions of choice and identity around elite athletes’ retirements within Australian newsprint media. Within these accounts, three ‘types’ of retirements were identified: retirements occurring in relation to age, injury, or active choice. Retiring with individual agency and at an appropriate time was repeatedly privileged, whereas retiring in different ways was routinely problematised. In privileging particular ways of retiring, certain identity positions were made more accessible than others. Consequently, certain actions and choices are deemed appropriate (or not) for athletes, ultimately constraining decision‐making around retirement. The implications of such limited identity positions and choices are explored in relation to the psychological distress and clinical concerns that emerge among many athletes in the transition out of elite sport.

Representations of childhood obesity in Australian newsprint media and academic literature

To examine how the issue of childhood obesity is represented in Australian newsprint media and academic literature. Australian newsprint media coverage and academic literature on childhood obesity during the first three months of 2009 was analysed using Bacchi's method of problem representation. The two types of literature examined offered two dominant paradigms for childhood obesity treatment and prevention solutions: the individual and the social-structural. The individual behaviour change account emphasises the role of parents in providing children with healthy food and physical activity, placing them at fault for their obese children. The account focusing on the circumstances within which people live--such as the physical environment, lifestyle, socio-economic status, access to services and advertising/marketing of food aimed at children--places responsibility on the government to respond with policy change. While both the individual and social-structural paradigms are found in each source, newsprint media favours the individual responsibility account while the academic literature favours the social-structural account. Public health professionals may need to be more media savvy to shift this focus.

Representations of Parental Responsibility in the Media

This article presents the results of a study that investigated how the Australian media represents the issue of parental responsibility, specifically when a child is accused of breaking the law. A sample of 95 news articles from a total of 116 articles that appeared in the Australian newsprint media from January 2001 to December 2005 was qualitatively analysed. Using a content/thematic analytical approach, the findings indicated that a pervasive representation in the newspaper articles was the notion that parents are responsible for their children and consequently for their children's delinquent activities. There is a taken-for-granted notion throughout the articles that parents do influence their children's behaviour, and are therefore responsible for their children's delinquent actions. The ramifications of the findings for legal and psychological realms are discussed.

‘You’ll never hear them say “you’re cured”’: the language of tragedy in cancer care

Young women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer live with an illness that currently cannot be cured. There are many discourses, or ways of seeing and speaking about the world, that these young women draw upon as they try and make sense of their illness. This article explores several of these discourses, in particular the discourse of tragedy, as it weaves its way through the professional and lay press and through interview accounts of young women living with advanced disease. Using a critical form of textual analysis, I trace the discourse of tragedy through the Australian newsprint media in the period between 1996 and 2000, through interviews with 12 young women with advanced breast cancer and into the ‘expert’ literature. I argue that the ‘expert’ discourse of tragedy positions these young women in unhelpful ways making it very difficult for them to talk of suffering and survival in the midst of living with the real possibility of dying before their time, often leaving children to grow up without them.

Social construction of work stress: Australian newsprint media portrayal of stress at work, 1997–98

Public understanding of health issues is influenced by the social and political interests of those who gather the information and by the media which disseminates it. This has implications for lay people's beliefs about work stress and has potentially serious personal implications in terms of recognizing, reacting to, and reporting stress in the workplace (Furnham, 1997). The somewhat ambiguous nature of work stress renders it vulnerable to political, social and economic manipulation. This study explores how the issue of work stress is represented in the Australian newsprint media. Fifty-one work-related articles from all major Australian newspapers from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1997 were selected if 'stress' appeared in the headline. The articles were examined for dominant ideologies and themes. Attention was given to the language used to describe stress, the intended audience, and the voices represented in the articles. Results showed that work stress is represented in the media as an economically costly epidemic, as an outcome of unfavourable work conditions but with individual remedies, and as primarily situated within the public sector. The main voice represented in the media was that of the unions. The reproduction of work stress as a public sector phenomenon serves the interests of public sector unions, the newspapers, and the managers of private sector workers and is not consistent with available workers' compensation data (which is itself problematic).