Print media coverage of environmental causation of breast cancer

Abstract

Given the growing concern with breast cancer as a largely unexplained and common illness of our time, we would expect considerable print media coverage. An accurate portrayal of breast cancer would also include a good amount of attention to the potential environmental factors since many women with breast cancer and activists are pointing to such potential causes. Our examination of daily newspapers, newsweeklies, science periodicals, and women's magazines showed that there was little coverage of possible environmental causation. There was also scant attention paid to corporate and governmental responsibility. Articles often focused on individual responsibility for diet, age at birth of first child, and other personal behaviours. Articles also emphasised genetic causation, even though this explained only a small fraction of breast cancer incidence. These factors combine to place personal responsibility on women for preventing the disease. Despite gains in understanding possible environmental causation and much scientific dialogue about it, especially in light of the endocrine disrupter hypothesis, and despite growing social activism, the print media have not paid much attention to environmental causation of breast cancer. Because the media have significant influence over public understanding and social action, this lack of attention may hold back scientific and activist pursuit of environmental causes of breast cancer.

Portrayal of Childhood Cancer in English Language Magazines in North America: 1970–2001

“…Mass media, including magazines, however, are directed toward audiences that differ in a number of respects such as gender, age, ethnicity, education, and so on. In this analysis, the broad spectrum of magazines was included but divided into three different magazine markets: (1) science, (2) news=special interest, and (3) women=teen=parenting=health magazines (called other; Brogan, 2004). This division was based on the following considerations.…”

The meaning of the survivor identity for women with breast cancer

“…In fact, the breast cancer culture implies that women with the disease readily embrace the identity of survivor. However, while studies have examined the changing cultural representations of breast cancer (Block, 1995;Brown, Zavestoski, McCormick, Mandelbaum, & Luebke, 2001;Fosket, Karran & LaFia, 2000;King, 2006;Klawiter, 1999;Leopold, 1999;Patterson, 1987;Sontag, 1979;Thorne & Murray, 2000), researchers have not empirically considered how the new survivor identity shapes the disease experiences of women with breast cancer.…”

How do the media report cancer research? A study of the UK's BBC website

“…There is now a substantial corpus of literature demonstrating the impact of media on shaping public opinion towards countries' health-care systems (Benelli, 2003;Collins et al, 2006), and how newspapers targeted at particular ethnic groups can vary in their approach (Hoffman-Goetz and Friedman, 2005). In addition, there have been studies of how health-related issues have been portrayed in the media around particular diseases (Brown et al, 2001), the uptake of health care and screening for cancer (Jones, 2004;Schroy et al, 2008), and pharmaceutical coverage (Cassels et al, 2003), particularly in certain media-conscious countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the mass media have also given misleading information about the supposedly beneficial effects of complementary and alternative therapies (Milazzo and Ernst, 2006;Weeks et al, 2007).…”