Making headlines: an analysis of US government-funded cancer research mentioned in online media

Abstract

ObjectiveTo characterise how online media coverage of journal articles on cancer funded by the US government varies by cancer type and stage of the cancer control continuum and to compare the disease prevalence rates with the amount of funded research published for each cancer type and with the amount of media attention each receives.DesignA cross-sectional study.SettingThe United States.ParticipantsThe subject of analysis was 11 436 journal articles on cancer funded by the US government published in 2016. These articles were identified via PubMed and characterised as receiving online media attention based on data provided by Altmetric.Results16.8% (n=1925) of articles published on US government-funded research were covered in the media. Published journal articles addressed all common cancers. Frequency of journal articles differed substantially across the common cancers, with breast cancer (n=1284), lung cancer (n=630) and prostate cancer (n=586) being the subject of the most journal articles. Roughly one-fifth to one-fourth of journal articles within each cancer category received online media attention. Media mentions were disproportionate to actual burden of each cancer type (ie, incidence and mortality), with breast cancer articles receiving the most media mentions. Scientific articles also covered the stages of the cancer continuum to varying degrees. Across the 13 most common cancer types, 4.4% (n=206) of articles focused on prevention and control, 11.7% (n=550) on diagnosis and 10.7% (n=502) on therapy.ConclusionsFindings revealed a mismatch between prevalent cancers and cancers highlighted in online media. Further, journal articles on cancer control and prevention received less media attention than other cancer continuum stages. Media mentions were not proportional to actual public cancer burden nor volume of scientific publications in each cancer category. Results highlight a need for continued research on the role of media, especially online media, in research dissemination.

What cancer research makes the news? A quantitative analysis of online news stories that mention cancer studies

“…The study extends the work of Maggio et al that identified patterns and frequencies of how 200264 scholarly studies about cancer circulated through mass media (e.g., press releases from news wires, non-profit and governmental media organisations, news aggregators and journalistic news organisations) [30]. Maggio et al found that the frequency of journal articles about specific cancer types was misaligned with US rates of cancer burden (i.e., incidence and mortality) [30]. However, the researchers did not examine the alignment of journal articles specifically with journalistic news coverage, a popular [12][13][14]80] and more direct way the public accesses health information.…”

“…It explores the intertwining hierarchy among an online collection of 86 traditional and digitalnative news publications and their role in disseminating cancer research funded by the US government to the public. The study extends the work of Maggio et al that identified patterns and frequencies of how 200264 scholarly studies about cancer circulated through mass media (e.g., press releases from news wires, non-profit and governmental media organisations, news aggregators and journalistic news organisations) [30]. Maggio et al found that the frequency of journal articles about specific cancer types was misaligned with US rates of cancer burden (i.e., incidence and mortality) [30].…”

“…This cross-sectional exploratory study builds on methods established by Maggio et al [30], as a sub-analysis of the larger study, which examined scientific journal articles about cancer published in 2016 with US government funding sources. The present study 1) identifies, examines and characterizes how the number of mentions of research in online journalistic news sources varies by cancer type and publication; and 2) compares the disease incidence and mortality rates with the amount of research published for each cancer type and with the amount of news media attention each receives.…”

“…Research has generally focused on health news coverage [19][20][21] in relation to what information people seek [22,23], disease mongering [24][25][26], scientific uncertainty [26,27] and exaggeration [26][27][28][29] or inaccuracy [24] of information. Typically, studies include either a broad mix of mass media (e.g., press releases, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet) [30] or a narrow focus on legacy media, typically top-tier traditional print news publications with a national online presence (e.g., Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post) [31]. Neither media type adequately reflects the growing landscape of digital-native news organizations (e.g., Breitbart News Network, Buzzfeed, Politico, Vox) that publish only online and remain largely outside the attention of researchers [3,27,32,33].…”

‘There were some clues’: a qualitative study of heuristics used by parents of adolescents to make credibility judgements of online health news articles citing research

“…These stories were identified based on a listing of 2016 news stories that featured links to cancer research that was compiled by the author team for an earlier study. 20 From this listing, we focused on news stories reporting on e-cigarettes and the HPV vaccine as these two topics have been previously identified as relevant areas of cancer prevention among parents of adolescents. 21 The two specific stories were selected for their inclusion because they contained links to journal articles, were published in two online news sources with national readership and were both less than 1000 words in length.…”