A 15-Year Review of ABC, CBS, and NBC News Coverage of Organ Donation: Implications for Organ Donation Campaigns

Abstract

This content analysis represents news coverage of organ donation from January 1990 to December 2005. Specifically, ABC, CBS, and NBC news broadcasts were examined to gain a greater understanding of organ donation coverage on TV. Overall this investigation revealed that organ donation received modest coverage (N = 1,507). Although the majority of coverage was positive, attention to the need for organs and the process of becoming a potential organ donor received modest exposure. In addition, non-living donor and living-donor donations received approximately equal coverage. Results are discussed with a focus on message design for practitioners and advocates of organ donation.

An Examination of Organ Donation in the News: A Content Analysis From 2005-2010 of the Barriers to Becoming an Organ Donor

“…Previous research suggests modest attention is given to educating individuals about the organ shortage in newspapers (Feeley & Vincent, 2007) and television news (Quick et al, 2009). Our report is consistent with these studies in that approximately one in five stories explicitly mentioned the need for more organ donors.…”

“…More and more, communication campaigns promoting organ and tissue donation have become effective mechanisms to enhance organ donor registrations across college campuses (Feeley, Anker, Watkins, Rivera, Tag, & Volpe, 2009), driver's license facilities Harrison, Morgan, King, & Williams, 2011), and in the workplace (Morgan, Harrison, Chewning, Di Corcia, & Davis, 2010). As these efforts have certainly played a pivotal role in educating individuals about the importance of organ donation, individuals still learn much about organ donation from newspapers (Feeley & Vincent, 2007), television dramas (Morgan et al, 2007), and news programs (Quick et al, 2009). The current study sought to reveal how recent news coverage on television depicts organ donation with respect to the organ shortage, the benefits and barriers to donation, the process of registering as an organ donor, and the overall estimate of news industries' endorsement of organ donation.…”

“…The categories investigated in this study emerged from a careful review of literature on the benefits and barriers of organ donation (Feeley, 2007;Feeley & Vincent, 2007;Morgan, et al, 2007;Quick, et al, 2009) and the core assumptions of the HBM (Glanz & Bishop, 2010).…”

“…Despite literature that has examined media coverage of organ donation (Feeley & Vincent, 2007;Morgan, Harrison, Chewning, Davis, & DiCorcia, 2007;Quick, Kim, & Meyer, 2009) no research to the authors' knowledge has accounted for the ability of news media to shape perceptions of organ donation using the HBM as a theoretical lens. As such, the following research questions draw from the HBM to describe the content of news articles.…”

“…Finally, cues to action are the strategies that allow a person to feel that they can act. Research shows that various media such as newspaper (Feeley & Vincent, 2007), television dramas (Morgan, Harrison, Chewning, DiCorcia, & Davis, 2007) and television news (Quick, Kim, & Meyer, 2009) can serve as integral sources of organ donation information for individuals. These sources may provide consumers with cues to action or with inaccurate information.…”