Medicalization in the Media: News Coverage of a New and Uncertain Diagnosis

Arguedas, Amy A. Ross

doi:10.1080/17512786.2019.1684832

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Orthorexia is an unofficial diagnosis, not currently in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM), although it has in recent years drawn growing interest from scholars and clinicians, and its inclusion in the DSM is under review by a special task force (Cena et al 2019 ). However, even prior to this, it received considerable attention from the news media (Ross Arguedas 2020a , b ) and had been adopted by a community of Instagram users who identify with the diagnosis and use the platform to address their recovery (Santarossa et al 2019 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Diagnosis as Subculture: Subversions of Health and Medical Knowledges in the Orthorexia Recovery Community on Instagram

Arguedas

2022

Qual Sociol

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Diagnoses are powerful tools that fulfill various practical and symbolic functions. In this paper, I examine how a contested diagnosis called orthorexia nervosa has been taken up by users on Instagram, where tens of thousands of posts engage with the topic, many of them from individuals who identify with the condition. I put scholarship on medicalization and diagnosis in conversation with literature on subcultures to foreground the subversive work that is enabled through this diagnosis. Drawing on more than 350 hours of online ethnographic fieldwork and 34 in-depth interviews, I examine how participants construct a shared identity, draw on common language and norms, and undertake collective practices, as they negotiate dominant understandings of health. I show how they draw on the legitimacy endowed by the diagnostic label to validate and make sense of experiences of suffering but also to counter dominant health-seeking discourses, practices, and aesthetics in an online space where these are highly visible and valued. I also discuss some ways Instagram as a digital platform shapes its uptake by this community in meaningful ways. On the one hand, participants draw heavily on the language and framing of medicine to make sense of their fraught experiences with food and their bodies, effectively advocating for the medicalization of their own suffering while also creating a sense of community and shared identity. However, on the other hand, they actively use the diagnosis and the recovery process enabled through it to effectively resignify dominant beliefs, values, and practices that are experienced as injurious, including some that are particularly prevalent on Instagram.

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confidence: 99%

Diagnosis as Subculture: Subversions of Health and Medical Knowledges in the Orthorexia Recovery Community on Instagram

Arguedas

2022

Qual Sociol

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“…These advantages matter. Recent research has demonstrated how reporters unintentionally spread misinformation about science issues due to their unfamiliarity with salient scientific issues (Arguedas, 2020) and their inability to understand the scientific articles they may be tasked to write about (Bogomoletc et al, 2021). Indeed, recent research has traced how several science falsehoods have made it to publication at prominent news outlets (Garibi et al, 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A View From the Trenches: Interviews With Journalists About Reporting Science News

Anderson

Dudo

2023

Science Communication

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In the United States and many other large media markets, science journalism has experienced major structural shifts that have resulted in the profession largely being conducted by nonspecialists and freelancers who cope with an abundance of misinformation and a loss of public confidence. In this qualitative work, we present the results of in-depth interviews with science journalists to understand current struggles and motivations for producing science news. Despite structural challenges and occupational burnout, journalists are motivated to produce science news for their perceived social benefits. However, many of the ways they are left to cope with these issues are personal strategies (e.g., resilience) that are unsustainable and ignore systemic inequities.

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“…Contemporary (bio)medicalization frameworks adopt a social constructivist perspective in studying the penetration of medical knowledge into everyday life (Busfield 2017; Clarke et al 2003; Conrad 2005; Williams, Martin, and Gabe 2011). Recent (bio)medicalization studies explain how an expanding reservoir of medical concepts turns social conditions into medical problems (Conrad and Bergey 2014; Epstein and Mamo 2017), particularly through the media (Arguedas 2020; Harwood et al 2017). Contemporary studies on the drug problem follow this trend and explore how drug use is medicalized as medical concepts are spread from the medical community to the media and the wider society.…”

Section: (Bio)medicalization (De)criminalization and The Penal-medica...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel Development: Medicalization and Decriminalization in the Changing Media Framing of the Opioid Overdose Crisis

2023

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

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Drawing on content analysis of 517 New York Times news reports published between 1995 and 2016, the author examines the institutionalization of opioid responses in terms of changing media framing of opioid use. The findings indicate that news frames were situated between the lenses of medicalization and decriminalization. Modes of penal social control shifted as early as the 1990s because of budgetary concerns. Drug reform efforts pushed law enforcement agencies to criminalize doctors and big pharma. Consequently, medical professionals and social activists advocated for new cultural frameworks about opioid use. However, the expansion of medical concepts alone did not medicalize opioid use, as evidenced by persistent news frames opposing opioid maintenance treatments. Instead, medicalization materialized as part of the public health solution when law enforcement agencies adopted new modes of medical social control. This article illustrates the making of a new penal-medical nexus regulating drug use.

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Medicalization in the Media: News Coverage of a New and Uncertain Diagnosis

Cited by 6 publications

References 33 publications

Diagnosis as Subculture: Subversions of Health and Medical Knowledges in the Orthorexia Recovery Community on Instagram

Diagnosis as Subculture: Subversions of Health and Medical Knowledges in the Orthorexia Recovery Community on Instagram

A View From the Trenches: Interviews With Journalists About Reporting Science News

Parallel Development: Medicalization and Decriminalization in the Changing Media Framing of the Opioid Overdose Crisis

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