Making an expert: Sources and their contributions in news coverage of orthorexia nervosa

Abstract

In 1997, Steven Bratman, a physician specializing in alternative medicine, proposed he had identified a new eating disorder, a pathological fixation with healthy eating. Soon after, orthorexia nervosa, as he called it, began appearing in newspapers – long before it did in scientific venues. Using a mixed-methods analysis of 492 articles published between 1998 and 2016, I examine the various actors who have participated in orthorexia coverage, including those who were assigned expertise on the unofficial diagnosis. The findings demonstrate a variety of credentialed and non-credentialed sources contributed to media coverage in different ways. Experts in mental illness appeared less often than other healthcare providers, including Bratman and dietitians. Based on the findings, I argue for a more nuanced understanding of expertise to better evaluate source selection in medical journalism and propose a typology that considers both the nature of the claims and the qualifications of the person making them. I conclude with several hypotheses about news coverage of novel conditions undergoing biomedicalization.

When scientific experts come to be media stars: An evolutionary model tested by analysing coronavirus media coverage across Italian newspapers

“…The fact that only a few scientists become reputable, acquiring great visibility in the media arena, can be better understood by considering two specific pieces of evidence: on the one hand, “scientists’ success in their field is a poor predictor of being cited by media, as the press tends to favour ‘science celebrities’ over specialists” [ 34 , p. 2224]. The result is that a good scientist does not necessarily receive more attention from the media than a mediocre one, while a ‘visible scientist’ does not always hold a great reputation within the scientific community.…”

“…Media, as socio-technical environments, thus have the power of a) configuring the frame in which relevant issues are treated and b) assigning experts authority even in areas outside their professional competences [48][49][50] lending credibility to maverick scientists [51]. At the same time, it has to be considered that expertise and credibility are associated with the communicators' credentials, which are a mix of institutional affiliations, leadership positions, and academic recognition [52]; moreover, this results in the public becoming more influenced by visibility than expertise when the experts' credibility must be evaluated [34]. Given these premises, and with the aim of addressing the RQs, we propose an evolutionary model for analysing how experts can gain access to the media scene.…”