Representing childhood cancer: accounts from newspapers and parents

Abstract

We present an analysis of newspaper accounts and parents' accounts of childhood cancer. Newspaper accounts construct cancer as a threat to the entitlements and category-bound activities of childhood. Newspaper discourses around children with cancer are predominantly eulogising, constructing children as courageous, stoical and inspirational. Parents are characterised as confederates in the 'battle' against cancer; as fund-raisers; and as guardians of their children's identities. Little attention is given to parents' own needs. Parents' in-depth interview accounts suggest that newspapers are selective and privilege certain types of representations. Parents' accounts, like those in newspapers, construct childhood cancer as an assault on the rights of childhood. Parents also characterise themselves as having a range of obligations founded on dominant discourses about parenting. However, parents' descriptions bear little resemblance to newspaper accounts. Rather than the cheerful, uncomplaining and 'brave' newspaper representations of children, parents report that children can be distressed, anguished and difficult to manage, especially when being encouraged to submit to painful and frightening medical interventions. Parents themselves experience a range of quality of life impairments, including severe role strain, but find it difficult to voice these because they have to negotiate prevailing discourses about the duties of parenthood. Parents' accounts do not allow unproblematic access to some external reality; these accounts are just as constructed as newspaper accounts. Both newspapers and parents may draw on common discourses about parenting, childhood and illness, but newspapers are more likely to represent children in idealised ways and to marginalise parents as resources solely for their child's benefit.144 Mary Dixon-Woods, Clive Seale, Bridget Young et al.

Incertezas diante do cancer infantil: compreendendo as necessidades da mãe

“…O impacto da doença faz com que cada membro da família desenvolva novas habilidades e tarefas no cotidiano familiar para resolver os conflitos em função da hospitalização e das demandas da doença nos aspectos físicos, psicossociais e financeiros. [1][2] Quando uma criança tem o diagnóstico de câncer, é frequente a mãe aprender rapidamente a lidar com os aspectos médicos da doença e com as necessidades e medo dos membros da família. Assim, ela é vista como a principal pessoa no cuidado da criança doente.…”

Survivors on Cancer: The portrayal of survivors in print news

“…This is similar in many ways to the idealized portrayal of childhood cancer survivors in news media [10,11,48]. Researchers have found that the discourse around children with cancer in newspaper articles is primarily "eulogizing, constructing children as courageous, stoical and inspirational" [10].…”

“…In this way, news helps to shape the social and cultural contexts within which illness and disease are both collec-what having it is like and how it might be cured. For example, newspaper accounts of children with cancer have been found to be primarily eulogizing, with children portrayed only as heroic, stoic, and inspirational [10,11]. In this way, news media help to define the boundaries for lay understanding of cancer.…”

Commodification of Body Parts: By Medicine or by Media?

“…Our 22 analysis suggests that it is misleading to imagine that these are the only institutions involved in processes of commodification. In contemporary society, mass media play a significant role in filtering and shaping the reporting of science, health and medicine (Seale, 2003). Media reporting of child organ retention scandals in the UK in recent years has made an independent contribution to the commodification of body parts, recruiting them for use in the manufacture of a media scandal.…”

“…Children in today's society are treated as being of particular social value, and so stories of their mistreatment are unusually attractive to journalists (Franklin and Tutton, 2001), as are stories that appear to violate or spoil the apparent "innocence" of childhood (Dixon-Woods et al, 2005), though idealised media accounts of childhood may be very different from the accounts given by family members to social researchers (Dixon-Woods et al, 2003).…”