Coverage of health-related articles in major local newspapers of Manipur

Abstract

Background:Newspapers have immense potential for generating health awareness on diverse issues such as hygiene, immunization, environmental pollution, and communicable disease. The present study was conducted to determine the frequency of coverage and types of health-related articles published in local newspapers of Manipur.Materials and Methods:This was a cross-sectional study conducted among the most regularly published 10 local newspapers (4 English and 6 Manipuri) of Manipur from February 2011 to January 2012. Health-related articles published in everyday local newspapers were collected after careful search and finally entered into a design Proforma under different categories. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.Results:Total health-related articles published were 10,874 and maximum articles were published during February (12.8%). Maximum health-related articles were published on Wednesday (16.1%). Among all the health-related articles, almost half were related with injury followed by public health articles. Maximum public health and injury-related articles were published on Monday, but medical topics were published more on Wednesday. Newspapers of both the languages were publishing public health articles more compared to medical topics. Public health (72.9%) and injury-related articles (95.9%) were published maximum in the news items section, but medical topics (45.8%) were published maximum in the health section of the newspaper. Newspapers of both the languages published maximum small size articles.Conclusions:There is a room for improvement for newspapers of both the languages regarding number of health-related articles’ publication, section of publication, and size of the health articles.

The Potential of Specialized Media in Public Health: Analysis of Health-Related Content in Sports Newspapers

“…Barcelona) suffers cancer; (4) The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal (winner of 17 Grand Slam tournaments) suffers from health problems (knee and shoulder); (5) Physical and mental fatigue of soccer players due to the significant number of matches played both in the Spanish league and international competitions. However, there are several similarities between our findings and those of similar studies [8,12,18,31], which may suggest the validation of the results.…”

“…These findings are in line with those of two previous studies [8,36], which also reported that public health issues received more coverage than diseases. However, it contrasts with another study that reported greater coverage of medical diseases [12].…”

“…This, combined with the fact that it is the most read category of print journalism in Spain [11], makes it the best-placed print media for the delivery of health information, at least in relation to the readership impact. In addition, the mean size of HC units per page published in sports newspapers is lower (0%–35%) than those analyzed in the general press (40%–60%) [8,12,32,36,39]. Although the space is minor, the health-related materials are given more visibility in the sports newspapers in terms of the number of pages and HC units published.…”

“…Previous studies have analyzed all health-related materials in general newspapers [8,12]. Others have analyzed specific sports [13,14,15,16], organic diseases [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24] and/or psychological illness [25,26,27,28,29,30].…”

The Relationship between Media Advertising and Attitudinal Changes during COVID-19

“…Similarly, (Paul and Singh 2016) assessed the role of Public Service Advertisements for social well-being in general. The researchers used review approach and selected a sample of 'n=24' peer-reviewed research studies.…”