Information Flow and Health Policy Literacy: The Role of the Media

Abstract

People increasingly can and want to obtain and generate health information themselves. With the increasing do-it-yourself sentiment comes also the desire to be more involved in one’s health care decisions. Patient driven health-care and health research models are emerging; terms such as participatory medicine and quantified-self are visible increasingly. Given the health consumer’s desire to be more involved in health data generation and health care decision making processes the authors submit that it is important to be health policy literate, to understanding how health policies are developed, what themes are discussed among health policy researchers and policy makers, to understand how ones demands would be discussed within health policy discourses. The public increasingly obtains their knowledge through the internet by searching web browsers for keywords. Question is whether the “health consumer” to come has knowledge of key terms defining key health policy discourses which would enable them to perform targeted searches for health policy literature relevant to their situation. The authors found that key health policy terms are virtually absent from printed and online news media which begs the question how the “health consumer” might learn about key health policy terms needed for web based searches that would allow the “health consumer” to access health policy discourses relevant to them

Regional media coverage influences the public's negative attitudes to policy implementation success in Sweden

“…Social marketing implies a more systematic approach based on theories of behaviour change and the use of demographic, epidemiological and social data to tailor messengers to target audiences . A more active role also includes efforts to understand the ‘health consumer’ and health information seeking patterns among different types of individuals in trying to bridge health literacy inequalities, resulting in actual differences in health.…”

“…The media landscape is continuously changing and the public increasingly obtains its knowledge through the Internet . Print and broadcast media today also have an online presence, and they reach both an old audience and the new; they are thus part of the online media landscape.…”

“…But the influence of media can be both benign and malign. The media often choose narrow scope angles and concentrate on conflicts, while news stories are dependent on political interest in specific issues, as well as being governed by the ideological position of, for example, newspapers …”

Employment, Disabled People and Robots: What Is the Narrative in the Academic Literature and Canadian Newspapers?

“…This study analyses the framing of the impact of robots on the employment situation of disabled people evident in Canadian newspapers and international academic articles. Newspapers are chosen as a source of data because newspapers have a "vital role to play in generating keyword recognition" for the general public [31] and they can increase the interest in a topic [32]. Furthermore, newspapers are both a source and indicator of public opinion and have the power to inform or not inform the public about an event, and to construct reality from a particular perspective [33].…”

The Portrayal of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science in Canadian Newspapers: A Content Analysis

“…Newspapers are known to shape public opinion [15] and to set agendas of how something is covered [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. Newspapers have a "vital role to play in generating keyword recognition" for the general public [49] and play a role in increasing interest in a topic [50]. The role of media is significant in society as it presents groups of people in a certain way and shapes the way the public thinks about certain groups of people [51].…”