Abstract
Nearly 30 years ago, Shanto Iyengar demonstrated that the way journalists cover policy issues impacts the beliefs people have about who is responsible for causing and solving problems associated with those issues. Lesa Hatley Major, an Associate Professor in the Media School at Indiana University in Bloomington, and Stacie Meihaus Jankowski, an Assistant Professor of Journalism in the College of Informatics at Northern Kentucky University, have written an insightful book that advances our understanding of the contexts and mechanisms of such attribution-based framing effects. Health News and Responsibility entails a detailed content analysis of the available literature on episodic and thematic frames and reports on original research on the effects of these frames in the topical settings of obesity and depression.
This book is suitable both for research newbies at the intersection of framing scholarship and health communication research, as well as for seasoned scholars. The former will appreciate the detailed review of key concepts and the engaging writing style, especially at the beginning of the book. The latter will value the original research presented, the theoretical discussions, and the use of both qualitative and quantitative measures.
The main take-away from the examination of published research seems to be that content analyses predominate, while effects studies are very scarce (n = 9). For an area of inquiry that is sometimes criticized for its perceived infatuation with media effects, this finding is intriguing. So, yes, there appears to be a dearth of experimental work on episodic and thematic frames—at least when considering health-related research published in journal articles, which was examined here. But, no, the way forward is not by conducting more stand-alone experiments—or so the authors’ argument goes. Rather, they recommend thinking of content analytical studies only as a “place to begin” research (p. 218), which “lends itself to pulling back from the content to examine message creation or to push forward through the content to examine media effects” (p. 115). Worth noting are also the findings that episodic frames still dominate news coverage; that nearly 80% of the available studies analyzed news in the U.S. setting; and that visuals were routinely neglected (73%).
Findings from the original experiments reported in the book are very informative. Put simply, they show that, by comparison to episodically framed stories, news reports with thematic frames are more successful in facilitating macrolevel attributions. But, of course, things are a bit more complicated than that. Health News and Responsibility adds nuance to what was known before this book saw the light of print. Major and Jankowski report more complex effects, including the superiority of a thematic-loss mix and the mediated nature of effects (e.g., through emotions).
On a more philosophical note, scholars of journalism could take issue with the way the authors conceptualize the role of news media in public health, such as it can be inferred here: “News can be a powerful ally in gaining the public’s support for policy” (p. 131). By contrast, scholars and practitioners of public health are likely to embrace claims such as these. In the concluding chapter of Health News and Responsibility, Major and Jankowski set the record straight by toning down earlier contentions: We do not think journalists will just fall in line and report on policy without doing their jobs as reporters. . . . However, . . . when reporters are given sound information about the beneficial effects of policy on health, this is not a simple case of public relations. Providing audience members with accurate information about health policy and explaining the benefits to them [. . .] is giving them all the information they need to make an informed decision and take action. (p. 217)
Thoughts such as these make this book a valuable read to scholars interested in news framing as it occurs in select areas of public health and health communication. In fact, by confirming and expanding the mechanisms and findings reported by Iyengar 30 years ago, Health News and Responsibility provides an omnibus approach to studying an array of health communication issues and problems that permeate our public sphere. In that light, the research agenda this book illuminates a promising way forward for this vital area of news framing research.
