Spreading the News: Social Determinants of Health Reportage in Canadian Daily Newspapers

Abstract

As part of a research program called CHAMP (Canadian Health and Media Project) devoted to examining health literacy in Canadian daily newspapers, and operating from a theoretical framework that posits journalism as a practice of representation, this article is based on a series of formal interviews with English-language and French-language health reporters. The interviews sought answers to three central questions about health reportage: how do journalists demarcate such a vast topic as health? where do they find their stories? and to what extent are they familiar with research into the social determinants of health? It concludes that in spite of their dependence upon published scholarly research as a source of news stories, Canadian health reporters overemphasize the roles of the health care system and personal health habits in the production of Canadians' health, and they underemphasize the role of social determinants. Keywords Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 32 (2007) 557-574 ©2007 Canadian Journal of Communication CorporationRésumé : Dans le cadre d'un projet de recherche nommé CHAMP (Canadian Health and Media Project) qui examine le niveau de connaissance par rapport à la santé dans les journaux quotidiens du Canada et dans un cadre théorique qui avance le journalisme comme étant une pratique de représentation, cet article est basé sur une série d'entretiens formels avec des journalistes de santé publique dans les milieux anglophones et francophones. Les entretiens avaient pour but de répondre à trois questions centrales à propos du journalisme de santé publique : comment les journalistes cernent-ils un sujet aussi vaste que la santé ? Où trouvent-ils leurs histoires ? À quel point sont-ils familiers avec l'étude des détermi-nants sociaux de la santé ? Il en arrive à conclure que malgré leur dépendance sur les études académiques publiées comme source de nouvelles, les journalistes de santé publique canadiens mettent une accent démesurée sur le rôle du système de santé et des habitudes de santé personnelles sur la santé des Canadiens.Mots clés : santé de la population; déterminants sociaux de la santé; journalisme santé

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