Who’s Responsible? Media Framing of Pediatric Environmental Health and Mothers’ Perceptions of Accountability

Abstract

How the media frames issues of environmental health may affect mothers’ views of who is responsible for addressing environmental risks to pediatric health, and ultimately, their protective behaviors. This article describes how information-oriented media sources attribute responsibility for such risks and examines associations between mothers’ routine media exposure, or scanning, and perceptions of responsibility. First, a content analysis was conducted with a sample of 474 media stories (i.e., Associated Press (AP), parenting magazines and websites) about childhood exposures to environmental chemicals over a 6-month period (September 2012 – February 2013). We found that media stories attributed responsibility most frequently to parents, though significant differences were observed across media sources such that websites focused more on parents and general news more on government agencies and manufacturers. Next, we conducted an online survey of mothers (n = 819) and revealed website scanning during the prior 6 months was significantly associated with perceived personal responsibility, even after adjusting for potential confounders. Scanning general news was also significantly associated with perceived government and manufacturer responsibility. Understanding media framing of these issues highlights opportunities for health communicators to offset pressure placed on mothers by encouraging greater social and policy support in and exposure to certain media.

News media stories about cancer on Facebook: How does story framing influence response framing, tone and attributions of responsibility?

“…However, after analysing the data with these comments removed the pattern of findings remained the same. In line with predictions, thematic stories had a greater proportion of thematic than episodic comments, which lends support to previous findings that viewing a thematic story makes individuals more likely to perceive and discuss the issue on a broader, societal-level (Iyengar, 1991;Major, 2009;Mello and Tan, 2016). Alternatively, since the majority of comments were thematic regardless of story frame, individuals may just be less comfortable with sharing personal information on Facebook than they are with contributing their opinion to discussions that emerge in the comments.…”

“…advantages of breast cancer screening) and did not lead to increased understanding of societal-level issues. Further research from Mello and Tan (2016) found that when scanning websites for information about childhood health risks, women perceived more personal responsibility, whereas after scanning general news stories there was a greater perception of the role of the government and health communicators. Therefore, research on news framing and attributions of responsibility in public responses has found mixed findings and notable differences depending on media source and research method.…”

Thinking about engaging North Korea: A study on the framing of the U.S. human rights public discourse in the Washington Post and New York Times between 2001 and 2017

“…Framing refers to the process for constructing an interpretation or set of interpretations from a set of events, which entails interpreting and evaluating a central organizing idea, issue, problem, or phenomenon under investigation (Carlyle, Slater, & Chakroff, ; Evans, ; Mello & Tan, ; Sheehan, ). Reframing refers to the process of reorganizing the frame within a specific discursive framework.…”

Mut zur Lücke. Verantwortungszuschreibungen auf der Ebene sozialer Beziehungen als neuer Bereich der Framing-Forschung zu Gesundheitsthemen

“…( 2015 , S. 212) die Risikofaktoren aus der unmittelbaren sozialen Umwelt, wie Familie, Schule, Arbeitsplatz in der Kategorie der gesellschaftlichen Faktoren für Depression. Dagegen rechneten Mello und Tan ( 2016 , S. 1220) in einer Studie zur Gesundheit von Kindern die Verantwortungszuschreibungen an die Mütter der individuellen Ebene zu. Ebenso haben Kim und Willis ( 2007 , S. 364) in ihrer Studie zum Framing von Übergewicht die negativen Vorbilder im sozialen Umfeld sowie den Besuch einer Selbsthilfegruppe oder von Beratungen als individuelle Ursachen und Lösungen codiert.…”