The News Tells Us What is the Most Urgent Health Problem, But That is Not Reality: A Longitudinal Agenda-Setting Study 2001 to 2010

• In Event: Health News: Autism, Hep B, HIV

Abstract

Based on agenda-setting theory, the study examines whether the news can transfer the relative salience of different health problems and issues to the public’s mind. It also investigates the extent to which the news media correspond to the real world health problems and issues. As a longitudinal study in the U.S. context, the study analyzes and compares news indexes, public opinion polls and reality indicators based on a ten-year time frame from 2001 to 2010. Overall, the results show that the news media especially the newspapers had a certain degree of agenda-setting effects on the public opinion regarding the most urgent health problems and issues. But the news coverage had little to do with the reality indicators. These findings call into question the responsibility of journalists in providing a complete and proportional representation of health concerns. The study also narrows the gap of agenda-setting research on health.

Authors

• Lei Guo, Boston U

• Hong Tien Vu, U of Texas - Austin