Studying the news as a public health strategy
by: Caity Dekker
posted on Friday, October 09, 2015
Knowing how the news media cover a given health issue can offer advocates critical insights into how the public is likely to understand the issue, and, subsequently, how to shape strategies to address it. At BMSG, we study the news in an attempt to answer two key questions driving our organization’s work: “If the public’s information about a health topic came only from the media, what would they know? What wouldn’t they know?”
By researching trends in how the news reports on health — from which health topics are covered to how these topics are framed — we also begin to understand the sources and messages policymakers are paying attention to: a necessary vantage point for mobilizing successful policy change. As BMSG Media Researcher Laura Nixon puts it, “If you want to understand policy, you need to study the news.” By doing so, public health practitioners and community groups can better leverage media advocacy to shape future news coverage, advocate for policy change and implement other strategies to support the systems and structures that foster health.
New research from BMSG showcases many ways in which media monitoring can inform public health. We will share findings from this new research across five presentations at this year’s American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Chicago from Oct. 31 to Nov. 5, 2015. Read on for more information about each presentation:
Teen dating violence: How is it framed in California newspapers and education news sources?
As a part of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence’s DELTA FOCUS prevention project (funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), BMSG recently approached news monitoring as a tool to educate school administrators about and develop policies around teen dating violence prevention in schools. While middle and high schools are a promising point of intervention for preventing teen dating violence, there are multiple obstacles to implementing effective school policies, including a lack of knowledge about the issue among staff. To craft effective strategies to engage educators, it is important to know how they currently understand teen dating violence and how it appears in the news sources where they are likely to learn about the issues affecting their students.
To this end, BMSG studied how California news and education news sources covered teen dating violence from 2012-2014. As part of a session on dating violence prevention, BMSG will present the results from this research and provide recommendations for how health practitioners, advocates and journalists can increase and improve news coverage of teen dating violence prevention. Join us Monday, Nov. 2, from 3:30-3:50 p.m. to learn more.
Berkeley’s soda tax: What can we learn from the news coverage?
In addition to studying the news as a tool for violence prevention, recent BMSG research approached the news as a lens through which to learn from trends in previous public health campaigns — namely, the soda tax initiatives in Berkeley and San Francisco, California. In 2014, voters in Berkeley passed the nation’s first tax on sugary drinks. The recent soda tax initiative in San Francisco gained support from the majority of voters, but ultimately did not meet the goal of 2/3 pro-tax votes necessary to implement the policy. The soda tax campaigns in both cities inspired vigorous public debate and drew widespread media attention, in part due to the beverage industry’s aggressive anti-tax campaigning.
BMSG studied how local and national news sources, social media platforms, and campaign materials framed the debates in each city, as well as how pro- and anti-tax arguments evolved, to better understand the public discourse around the initiatives. As a part of the APHA session “Eliminating Sugar Sweetened Beverages: Policy, Research, Partnerships and Media,” BMSG will share findings and explain how public health practitioners and policymakers can draw on lessons learned from these campaigns, as policies to limit sugary drink consumption are debated around the country. Our presentation is Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 9:30-9:50 a.m.
Development of a tool to assess the nature and extent of school based digital food and beverage marketing
New work from BMSG will also be featured in three poster presentations. The first highlights a project that BMSG’s research team consulted on, leveraging media monitoring as a strategy to address unhealthy food and beverage advertising to youth.
Marketers target children with ads for unhealthy foods in many settings and through a variety of channels, including in schools and through electronic media. While spending on school food and beverage marketing dropped between 2006 and 2009, spending on digital marketing both on and off school grounds increased by over 50% during the same period. Many students receive school-issued laptops and tablets and have access to smartphones during the school day, through which they are receiving targeted junk food and beverage advertisements.
To address the problem of targeted junk food and beverage marketing to youth head-on, BMSG worked with Michele Polacsek, PhD, MHS, of the School of Community and Population Health at the University of New England, on developing a school digital food and beverage marketing assessment tool to better gauge the scope and volume of the digital marketing messages youth are exposed to. Our researchers created a set of pilot surveys for superintendents, principals and other figures to aid in the development of the tool, which aims to provide information about how to improve policies and environments so that they align with new federal marketing standards. Check out our poster, part of the Child Nutrition session, Sunday, Nov. 1, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. on Board #5.
Community violence across sectors: Findings from an analysis of California newspapers
BMSG’s second poster presentation focuses on how news coverage can put violence prevention on the agenda and advance cross-discipline conversations about how to build strong, safe communities. As part of a project to broaden the conversation around community violence in California, BMSG analyzed news coverage from key California papers published between 2013-2014 that referenced community violence or community safety. Our research team explored questions like: How do these concepts appear in the news? Who speaks, and whose voices are left out of the conversation? How does prevention appear? We also analyzed news articles covering business and education, where community violence typically does not appear, to assess how it could be included in coverage of those sectors.
Our initial findings indicate that stories about community violence and community safety rarely appear in the news — when they do, few speakers other than criminal justice representatives are quoted. We will discuss the implications of these and other findings for practitioners across sectors on Monday, Nov. 2, from 10:30-11:30 a.m., as part of the Using Technology to Improve Community Health session. Find us at Board #3.
Adverse childhood experiences in the news: Implications and challenges for practitioners across sectors
BMSG’s third poster presentation offers another example of news monitoring as a tool for violence prevention, as part of an ongoing project to advance communication around adverse childhood experiences (ACES), and trauma in general. Funded by the California Endowment and in partnership with Jane Stevens of ACESTooHigh/ACESConnection, this research focuses on what advocates can learn from trends in how the news reports on ACEs. ACEs, which include traumatic incidents such as intrafamily violence, sexual violence and substance abuse, can cause devastating physical, mental and social health consequences that affect a broad range of individuals and communities. It is therefore critical that all sectors be engaged in conversations about how to prevent ACEs, and that policies in sectors like education, business, and housing take into account the issue of childhood trauma.
BMSG will discuss trends in news coverage and social media posts on ACEs from 2008-2014 and will share key messages and opportunities that practitioners and advocates across sectors can take away from the data to inform their work to advance health in all policies. This work is particularly timely in light of recent BMSG research that points to an increase in ACEs coverage in the news in 2015. Learn more Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 12:30-1:30 p.m., as part of the Family Violence Prevention Caucus poster session. This presentation will be on Board #5.
We hope you can join us at APHA! For more information on the different sessions, presentations, locations and times, visit http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual/schedule-and-online-program.