Metaphors for illness in contemporary media

Abstract

Essayist Susan Sontag alerted us more than 20 years ago to the way in which clusters of metaphors attach themselves to our discussion of certain diseases, and the influence these metaphors exert on public attitudes to the diseases themselves and to those who experience them. This study of feature articles on five diseases—avian flu, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS—published recently in the New York Times reveals distinct patterns of metaphor usage around each. While the metaphors used in relation to the diseases Sontag studied—cancer and HIV/AIDS—have become less emotive and more positively informative, the sensationalist connotations of the metaphor clusters that have formed around two diseases that were not on the agenda for wide public debate in her time—avian flu and diabetes—are hardly congruent with the serious intent of the articles in which they appeared. By contrast, discussion of heart disease involved very limited use of metaphor. The article ends with a call for journalists and medical professionals to become more aware of the impact of the metaphors they use and to collaborate in developing sets of metaphors that are factually informative and enhance communication between doctors and their patients.

Illness identity as an important component of candidacy: Contrasting experiences of help-seeking and access to care in cancer and heart disease

“…Cancer metaphors, we would argue, continue to shape the experience of the illness, but the positive personal fight now dominates the cancer rhetoric. The heroism apparent in the description of cancer patients noted by Seale (Seale, 2001(Seale, , 2002 has become the norm in the cultural representation of cancer (Hanne & Hawken, 2007) and has influenced the way in which both patients and professionals react to a cancer diagnosis.…”

“…Now the emphasis is firmly on the positive fight against cancer, and both the lay public and health professionals adhere to this discourse (Hanne & Hawken, 2007). Conversely, coronary heart disease attracts little fear or dread in the public psyche and is more often seen to represent a good, and crucially, quick death (Emslie et al, 2001).…”

Media and the Israeli disability rights legislation: progress or mixed and contradictory images?

“…For example, contemporary research shows usage of military metaphors to describe severe diseases (such as cancer) in various media (cf. Clark and Everest 2006;Hanne and Hawken 2007;Ungar 2008). In addition, studies indicate that persons with disabilities are portrayed as victims or pitiful (see e.g.…”

The silent killer in media stories: Representations of hypertension as health risk factor in French-language Canadian newspapers

“…Indeed, there are many studies on media coverage of cancer (Clarke 1991, Lupton 1994b, Kilgore 1996, Brown et al 2001, Seale 2001a, 2001b, 2002b, Driedger and Eyles 2003, Clarke and Everest 2006, Hanne and Hawken 2007, Musso and Wakefield 2009. However, to our knowledge, only four studies have been partly devoted to coverage of cardiovascular disease (Clarke 1991, Clarke and Binns 2006, Hanne and Hawken 2007.…”

“…However, according to Hoel and Howard (1997), 'hypertension was never a glamorous disease.' This lack of attractiveness is also reflected by low media interest in cardiovascular diseases, particularly when compared to cancer (Hanne and Hawken 2007, Le´veille´et al 2007, Trumbo et al 2007). …”