Avian flu: the creation of expectations in the interplay between science and the media

Nerlich, Brigitte; Halliday, Christopher

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2007.00517.x

Cited by 148 publications

(134 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…In this sense, an imaginary of the future is mobilized to change the present (Brown 2003). However, such expectations are perhaps somewhat low (though not negative; see Nerlich and Halliday 2007): our interviewees did not appear to consider that neuroscience would help to produce radical improvement in the world, but rather that it would help in small ways to improve particular aspects of the lives of some citizens. This may reflect the same ethic of pragmatism that underpinned the will to reduce the complexity of neuroscience that was evident in some of the interviews (see also Fitzgerald 2014;Gardner, Samuel, and Williams 2015;Pickersgill 2011).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Low) Expectations, Legitimization, and the Contingent Uses of Scientific Knowledge: Engagements with Neuroscience in Scottish Social Policy and Services

Broer

Pickersgill

2015

Engaging STS

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Neuroscientific research increasingly sparks the imaginations and hopes of policymakers. Whilst the diversity of assertive statements being made on the basis of neuroscience has been well documented, less frequently explored are more contingent discourses regarding studies of the brain. In this paper, we analyze how social policy and service actors discuss their engagements with neuroscientific terms, concepts and findings. These are mobilized, for one, to substantiate and enlarge the focus of existing policy-for example to attract funding for different target groups (such as babies, people who just retired, etc.)-as well as to help develop (new) policies and services. We show how, in so doing, invocation of the neurosciences can act to align "mutual imagined understandings" among policy actors, practitioners and parents. Tentativeness and ambivalence also figured within our respondents' accounts of the use of the neurosciences. They argued that research had to be simplified in order to make it relevant for wider stakeholders (including politicians), whilst simultaneously considering simplification problematic in some cases. Our analysis foregrounds the different complexities, ambivalences, reductions and instrumentalizations involved in policy and service engagements with the neurosciences, rendering challengeable any notion that (ideas about) neuroscientific research "determines" policy in a linear sense.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Low) Expectations, Legitimization, and the Contingent Uses of Scientific Knowledge: Engagements with Neuroscience in Scottish Social Policy and Services

Broer

Pickersgill

2015

Engaging STS

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“…As we have revealed in earlier work into the WHO global strategy (Brown and Bell, 2007), this is certainly a theoretical frame that is worth pursuing further. Moreover, it is one that allows us to consider critically the "hype and hope" that is embedded within the discourse of international organisations like WHO, concerned as they are with managing individual conduct in ways that replicate the desires of the national bio-political state (Nerlich and Halliday, 2007). Yet, we need to take care when extending this form of analysis.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imperial or postcolonial governance? Dissecting the genealogy of a global public health strategy

Brown

Bell

2008

Social Science & Medicine

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During the last decades of the twentieth century it became increasingly apparent that the inter-relationship between globalisation and health is extremely complex. This complexity is highlighted in debates surrounding the re-emergence of infectious diseases, where it is recognised that the processes of globalisation have combined to create the conditions where once localised, microbial hazards have come to pose a threat to many western nations. By contrast, in an emerging literature relating to the epidemic of non-communicable diseases, and reflected in the WHO 'Global strategy on diet, physical activity and health', it is the so-called 'western lifestyle' that has been cast as the main threat to a population's health. This paper explores critically global responses to this development. Building on our interest in questions of governance and the ethical management of the healthy body, we examine, whether the global strategy, in seeking to contain the influence of a 'western lifestyle', also promotes contemporary 'western-inspired' approaches to public health practices. The paper indicates that a partial reading of the WHO strategy suggests that certain countries, especially those outside the West, are being captured or 'enframed' by the integrative ambitions of a western 'imperial' vision of global health. However, when interpreted critically through a post-colonial lens, we argue that 'integration' is more complex, and that the subtle and dynamic relations of power that exist between countries of the West/non-West, are exposed. IntroductionOn May 22, 2004 the 192-member World Health Assembly, the main decisionmaking body of the World Health Organization (WHO), endorsed a 'Global strategy on diet, physical activity and health'. As Dr Lee Jong-wook, the DirectorGeneral of WHO, announced, "This is a landmark achievement in global public health policy" (WHO, 2004. Emphasis added). Such a reference to the global reach of the strategy is significant as it appears to endorse further the idea that the 'global' has replaced the 'national' in public health discourse. Indeed, the belief that public health has transcended national borders and boundaries is reflected in the current literature. Much of this literature can be organised into three distinct areas: the history of the transformation from national to global public health (see Loughlin and Berridge, 2002;Bashford, 2006;Brown, Cueto and Fee, 2006); the links between globalisation and the (re)emergence of infectious diseases in the West (see Garrett, 1995Garrett, , 1996Heymann and Rodier, 2001;Ali and Keil, 2006); and, the association between westernisation and the global transfer of risks factors for so-called 'diseases of comfort' (see Yach and Bettcher, 1998;McMichael and Beaglehole, 2000;Beaglehole and Yach, 2003).This globalising of public health discourse was the focus of previous research by the authors (see Brown and Bell, 2007). In this work we argued that the WHO Manuscript

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“…Metaphors have been shown to be borrowed from academic publications and be reused and adapted to a variety of audiences and communicative purposes, both by popular authors and journalists (Nerlich & Halliday, 2007, Stelmach & Nerlich, 2015. The examples below show how the scientists adopted the metaphors that the journalists produced to complete their explanatory or framing tasks.…”

Section: Adaptable Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The metaphors that scientists use are often picked-up by journalists from academic papers, commentaries or press releases (Nerlich & Halliday, 2007, Nerlich & Koteyko, 2009, Stelmach & Nerlich, 2015. However, while popular science studies have examined the metaphors that authors use (Semino, 2008, Kapon et al, 2009 analyses of news reports have focused primarily on how journalists, rather than experts, use these metaphors when presenting research or expert advice (Woods et al, 2012, Atanasova & Koteyko, 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Along with live broadcasts, interviews are important tools for news gathering, and are used for eliciting information, quotes and soundbites (Ekström & Lundell, 2011, Verhoeven, 2010. Despite their prominent role in presenting science, metaphors have only been examined in edited reports which show that journalists often borrow the metaphors that experts use to frame their research or their advice that appeared in previous publications or interviews (Nerlich & Halliday, 2007, Stelmach & Nerlich, 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Radio Sensors and Electric Storms: Scientific Metaphors in Media Talks

Armon

2017

Science Communication

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Avian flu: the creation of expectations in the interplay between science and the media

Cited by 148 publications

References 33 publications

(Low) Expectations, Legitimization, and the Contingent Uses of Scientific Knowledge: Engagements with Neuroscience in Scottish Social Policy and Services

(Low) Expectations, Legitimization, and the Contingent Uses of Scientific Knowledge: Engagements with Neuroscience in Scottish Social Policy and Services

Imperial or postcolonial governance? Dissecting the genealogy of a global public health strategy

Radio Sensors and Electric Storms: Scientific Metaphors in Media Talks

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