TY - JOUR
T1 - A year in the public life of superbugs
T2 - news media on antimicrobial resistance and implications for health communications
AU - Davis, Mark
AU - Lyall, Benjamin
AU - Whittaker, Andrea
AU - Lindgren, Mia
AU - Djerf-Pierre, Monika
AU - Flowers, Paul
PY - 2020/7/31
Y1 - 2020/7/31
N2 - News media can be an important source of information about emerging health threats. They are also significant sites for the production of narrative on threats to life that help to condition and reflect the responses of governments and publics. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one such health threat with particular significance because it represents the failure to manage the risks to antibiotics and other antimicrobials, health technologies that have provided the basis for modern medicine. Knowledge of how news media address this situation is an important element for an effective public health response to AMR and helps to extend the social analysis of health and media. Based on an analysis of television, printed and digital news for 2017 in Australia, this paper examines the patterns and meanings of AMR news. It shows that AMR is a fragmented story mainly framed by scientific discovery. These stories reassure audiences that science is seeking out the means of arresting AMR and, therefore, also constructs lay publics as passive witnesses to the AMR story. This pattern of AMR story-telling furthers the social standing of science and scientists, but it also neglects deliberation on collective action, important lacunae in the social response to AMR.
AB - News media can be an important source of information about emerging health threats. They are also significant sites for the production of narrative on threats to life that help to condition and reflect the responses of governments and publics. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one such health threat with particular significance because it represents the failure to manage the risks to antibiotics and other antimicrobials, health technologies that have provided the basis for modern medicine. Knowledge of how news media address this situation is an important element for an effective public health response to AMR and helps to extend the social analysis of health and media. Based on an analysis of television, printed and digital news for 2017 in Australia, this paper examines the patterns and meanings of AMR news. It shows that AMR is a fragmented story mainly framed by scientific discovery. These stories reassure audiences that science is seeking out the means of arresting AMR and, therefore, also constructs lay publics as passive witnesses to the AMR story. This pattern of AMR story-telling furthers the social standing of science and scientists, but it also neglects deliberation on collective action, important lacunae in the social response to AMR.
KW - antimicrobial resistance
KW - Australia
KW - media
KW - superbugs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084841632&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113032
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113032
M3 - Article
C2 - 32447174
AN - SCOPUS:85084841632
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 256
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
M1 - 113032
ER -
