Читать книгу Contemporary Health Studies - Louise Warwick-Booth - Страница 66

The way that health issues are reported within the media influences how both lay people and policy-makers understand the nature of these threats and interpret their subsequent risk to health. In most countries, there are now many health scares reported in the media. These scares often emphasize both physical and emotional threats that are posed by everyday occurrences such as sunbathing, using a mobile phone and vaccinations like measles, mumps and rubella (the combination of three vaccines into a single injection known as MMR). The media play a key role in this process, headlining stories about health scares despite the lack of science behind many of the claims that are made (Wainwright, 2009a). The availability of information via the media can lead to the social amplification of risk, where risks categorized as minor by scientific experts actually elicit strong public concerns and even reactions, resulting in large-scale impacts. Despite the fact that physical health and general life expectancy have improved massively over the last century, perceptions of threats to our health are increasing. The health scares reported in the media arguably give rise to a heightened sense of public panic, creating more physical and mental vulnerability (Buckingham, 2009). Increasing social media presence may also be contributing to these phenomena.

The media have certainly been influential in enhancing our fear of risk by overreporting health scares and by advising the public to change their behaviour, be vigilant and to take precautions despite the actual risks to us being small. However, the government can also contribute to our fear of illness and disease, when it launches campaigns about looming epidemics. A good example of this was the expected influenza A H1N1 epidemic of 2009. Boseley (2009) argues that the first flu pandemic of the twenty-first century was far less lethal than expected as it only killed 26 out of every 100,000 people who became ill. However, it can be argued that the government had to stock-pile vaccinations (despite the vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry) in case the pandemic did become as lethal as the others have been historically. More recent media reports have similarly focused on other infectious diseases such as ebola and coronavirus.