Productive Readings: The Portrayal of Health “Experts” in Women’s Magazines

Abstract

This article illustrates how health practitioners are portrayed through advice columns, articles, personal accounts, and advertisements in women's magazines. Magazines provide a valuable source of information about health services and also influence lay knowledge about health and illness. A wide variety of health practitioners provide information and advice in women's magazines, ranging from orthodox medical practitioners to alternative practitioners. However, there is a blurring of boundaries between these, with orthodox practitioners sometimes including alternative therapies in their practice and alternative therapists sometimes encompassing a number of orthodox therapies within their practice. The way health practitioners are represented in the media has implications for how their expertise in health issues is evaluated and used by consumers of health care services.

Nutritional Health Messages in Women’s Magazines: A Conflicted Space for Women Readers

“…Together they act to create a moral prescription as to what women should be eating, what they should be feeding their children, and how women should look. Moreover, they suggest that women need external advice, guidance and rules from experts (backed up by scientific facts and evidence) around how to achieve this effectively (see Kirkman, 2001). Although the discourses surrounding food, health and beauty place women readers in uneducated and inexpert subject positions, and render them in need of expert advice about the 'correct' and healthy diet, it would appear that the biomedical and scientific discourses around food, health and beauty may not necessarily enhance women's ability to take up the nutritional health messages that are conveyed in media texts.…”

“…This is evidenced in a number of ways. First, health and healthy eating columns appear regularly in both the national press and in magazines, especially in health and fitness and women's magazines (see Kirkman, 2001). Second, national authorities and the Government are continually developing and publicizing media campaigns and health promotion programmes on nutritional health (e.g.…”

Trusted Information Sources: The Preferred Option for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Users

“…Magazines discuss CAM use and advertise products such as nutritional supplements and magnetic underlays for beds (Kirkman, 2001). Books offer exploration of a multitude of CAM topics.…”

Trick or treat? Australian newspaper portrayal of complementary and alternative medicine for the treatment of cancer

“…Journalists reporting on CAM and cancer in Australia frequently presented personal anecdotes, a typical media feature intended to engage reader attention [101]. Human interest stories are often associated with tabloid newspapers [102] which have been criticised for aiming to entertain rather than accurately and objectively inform their audiences [103].…”