Media Reports (media + report)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


MEDIA REPORTS OF RURAL HEALTH AND SAFETY: A REVIEW OF ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN THE LAND NEWSPAPER

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 5 2001
Robyn Shea
ABSTRACT: The Land is one of the main newspapers that service Australia's rural community. A content analysis of reports on health issues in The Land was undertaken for the period April 1998 to October 1999 (76 editions, 10 336 pages). Fifty-four articles were published, with most being about causes of farm injury. Very few articles concerning non-injury health issues facing rural residents were published. People working in health promotion should consider The Land to be an under-utilised vehicle for news and commentary on rural health and safety issues. [source]


The importance of news media in pharmaceutical risk communication: proceedings of a workshop,,§

PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY, Issue 5 2005
Felicia E. Mebane PhD
Abstract In response to mass media's role in the national and global system of pharmaceutical risk communication, the Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) convened a ,think tank' session on the ,Importance of Media in Pharmaceutical Risk Communication'. Prominent journalists and experts from the pharmaceutical industry, academia, medical practice and government were invited to consider the benefits and challenges of improving the way we communicate the benefits and risks of therapeutics via mass media, especially news media. Workshop discussions revealed a paucity of systematic research directed towards understanding how and why news media report on therapeutic risk, the impact of this coverage and how coverage can be improved. Consequently, participants produced a research agenda capturing the key aspects of the flow of information around this topic, including the meaning of risk, how news audiences process and use therapeutic risk information in the news, how and why news organizations report on therapeutic risk, and the role and impact of the pharmaceutical industry, government officials and academic researchers as sources of therapeutic risk information. The workshop ended with a discussion on action items addressing what news professionals, representatives of regulatory agencies and the medical products industry, and academic researchers can and should do to enable news media to effectively report therapeutic risk information. In sum, this proceedings report provides an outline for developing mass media risk communication research, influencing the practices of journalists and expert sources and ultimately, improving the quality of the public's life. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Efficacy, Safety, and Cost of Office-Based Surgery: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

DERMATOLOGIC SURGERY, Issue 1 2003
Rajesh Balkrishnan PhD
An increasing number of media reports on patient safety risks arising from office-based surgery procedures, as well as growing concerns about patient safety issues in general, have brought office-based surgery as well as its practitioners into focus and placed this very cost-effective medical practice in the eye of the media and regulators. Concerted efforts are now being made to understand the causes and true incidence of patient safety risk associated with office-based surgery and to find ways to minimize this risk. [source]


Public opinion on needle and syringe programmes: avoiding assumptions for policy and practice

DRUG AND ALCOHOL REVIEW, Issue 4 2007
CARLA TRELOAR
Abstract Despite evidence for their effectiveness, harm reduction services such as needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) are highly vulnerable to perceptions of community disapproval. This paper reviews Australian research on community attitudes to harm reduction services and its impact on research, policy and practice. The literature on community attitudes to NSPs in Australia comprises a small number of representative national samples and surveys of local communities affected by specific services. Despite these extremely limited data, negative community attitudes are often cited by policy-makers and health professionals as a primary constraint on policy-making. The main finding of this literature review is that community perceptions of NSPs are largely positive. Also, support for NSPs was not synonymous with condoning drug use. The failure of policy-makers and politicians to recognise positive community attitudes to NSPs has led in some instances to hasty political responses to adverse media reports, including the closure of services. This literature review showing positive community attitudes to harm reduction services should embolden researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to challenge such reactionary responses. Further, this evidence should be used in countering negative publicity surrounding these services. [Treloar C, Fraser S. Public opinion on needle and syringe programmes: avoiding assumptions for policy and practice. Drug Alcohol Rev 2007;26:355,361] [source]


Picture this: emotional and political responses to photographs of the Kenneth Bigley kidnapping,

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2006
Aarti Iyer
The use of photographs to augment media reports of kidnapping victims in Iraq has sparked debates over the effects of such images on the public and, ultimately, the politics surrounding the event. We considered the effects of such images in a sample of British university students during the 2004 kidnapping of British citizen Kenneth Bigley. Drawing on emotions theory, we examined the effects of graphic images on emotional reactions and attitudes towards negotiations. Half of the participants were exposed to photographs of the victim that had recently been published in a national newspaper. The other half were not shown any images. As predicted, the photographs increased fear reactions amongst participants compared to no photograph controls. Fear and sympathy, but not anger, predicted attitudes towards negotiation. The photographs used in this study thus indirectly increased participants' support for negotiating with and submitting to the demands of the captors. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Changing Views of Serpent Handling: A Quasi-Experimental Study

JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 3 2000
Ralph W. Hood
Knowledge about serpent handling sects (SHS) even among social scientists and legislators has been largely influenced by biased media reports. Our own field research suggests that factual knowledge about SHS is effective in changing stereotypes about serpent handling and in altering views as to the rights of believers to handle serpents in church. In a quasi-experimental study, participants were pretested with respect to both prejudicial and reasoned evaluative views about SHS. Participants saw either a video of contemporary SHS in which handlers demonstrated and explained their faith, or a control tape in which contemporary SHS were shown but serpent handling was neither demonstrated nor defended. As predicted, viewing the serpent handling video was effective in reducing stereotyping of SHS and in changing attitudes regarding the sincerity of the believers and the right of SHS to practice their faith without legal constraints. Appropriate controls indicated that changes were not simply a function of a pretest by treatment interaction. The relevance of these data for altering laws against the practice of serpent handling is discussed. [source]


,Came hell and high water': the intersection of Hurricane Katrina, the news media, race and poverty

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 6 2007
Courte C. W. Voorhees
Abstract The mass devastation and suffering left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in the US Gulf Coast brought the intersection of media and community into sharp focus. The news media played a pivotal role in almost every aspect of the disaster and its aftermath, and was harshly criticized for its depiction of minorities and for sensationalizing a human and environmental disaster. The literature suggests that media often represents minorities in a negative light, ultimately reinforcing existing social inequalities. This paper examines the portrayal of minority groups in the media during and after the storm. Data were coded from news media broadcasts to determine the nature of minority representation. Interviews were conducted with individuals from New Orleans who survived the disaster to understand issues related to media trust, the accuracy of media reports and perception of the media's portrayal of minorities. The results indicate that minorities are disproportionately shown in a passive or ,victim' role and are rarely shown in positions of expertize. Further, storm survivors indicated a misrepresentation of minorities in media coverage of the disaster, as well as reporting low levels of media trust and accuracy. The broader implications of these findings in relation to media reinforcement of social inequities and media responsibility are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Pasifika in the news: the portrayal of Pacific peoples in the New Zealand press

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2006
Robert Loto
Abstract Pacific Islanders have faced discrimination in New Zealand particularly since the 1960s when communities began to be transplanted from their home nations to Aotearoa as cheap immigrant labour. Subsequently, the New Zealand vernacular has contained references to Pacific Islanders as ,overstayers', ,coconuts', ,bungas' and ,fresh off the boat' [FOB]. However, the legacy of a domineering relationship between the Palagi1 majority group and Pacific minorities2 that is captured by such derogatory terms is still evident in public forums such as the media. Using a quantitative content and qualitative narrative analysis, this paper documents portrayals of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand print media reports (n,=,65) published over a 3 month period. Findings reveal that Pacific people are predominantly portrayed as unmotivated, unhealthy and criminal others who are overly dependent on Palagi support. We consider this offered pacific identity formation with that implied for Palagi, which is active, independent, competent and caring. Issues in coverage are discussed in relation to how Pacific Islanders are encouraged to see themselves, and the health and social consequences of dominant practices in press coverage. We offer some suggestions as to how more equitable representations of Pacific people could be fostered in news media. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Developing an optimal approach to global drug safety

JOURNAL OF INTERNAL MEDICINE, Issue 4 2001
R. Balkrishnan
Abstract.,Balkrishnan R, Furberg CD (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, USA). Developing an optimal approach to global drug safety (Review). J Intern Med 2001: 250; 271,279. An increasing number of media reports on a number of marketed drugs withdrawn because of harmful effects, a scientific report on epidemic proportions of serious adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients, and a disturbing report on medical mistakes that includes medication errors have recently all brought drug safety into intense focus and placed it under greater scrutiny. Concerted efforts are now being made to understand the causes of drug safety problems and to find ways to reduce their frequency. An international symposium, ,Developing an Optimal Approach to Drug Safety' was held at Wake Forest University in the Fall of 2000 to identify the issues and solutions to extant problems in this area. This report summarizes the resulting discussions of global postmarketing surveillance initiatives and describes efforts to reduce medication errors, and improve global communication about drug safety. [source]


Australia and the DPRK: A Sixty-Year Relationship

PACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 3 2008
Leonid A. Petrov
The record of relations between Australia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is one of the oddest and most checkered in diplomatic history. A short period of recognition and cultural cooperation was followed by the resurgent nuclear crisis and the drug-smuggling ship incident, which proved to be hard tests for this shaky relationship. The closure of the DPRK embassy to Australia in January 2008 once again left the public confused and the pundits guessing about the true reasons behind this quiet démarche. This paper examines the major ups and downs in the history of Australia,DPRK bilateral relations and offers some clues as to what might have been wrong in Australian policy and attitudes toward the isolated communist nation. Australian involvement in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative and the ban on the supply of "luxury goods" to North Korea will be discussed. Interviews with serving and veteran diplomats, declassified Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade archival material and international media reports provided the basis for this research. [source]


Lessons from the Past: The First Wave of Developmental Assistance to North Korea and the German Reconstruction of Hamhůng

PACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 1 2008
Rüdiger Frank
North Korea is currently a receiver of substantial international economic support, but not for the first time in its history. This article seeks to shed some light on a largely unknown instance of multilateral aid and assistance to North Korea provided by the socialist camp in the 1950s. Based on research in archives and the analysis of trade data and contemporary media reports, the focus is mainly on the contribution of East Germany to the reconstruction of the North Korean city of Hamhůng. It is argued that this relatively well documented and completed case provides a number of highly relevant conclusions for the current, ongoing debate on engagement with North Korea. Comparing two historically distinct "waves" of assistance to the same country provides new analytical insights if contrasted with the usual approach of using assistance to a third country as the point of reference. There is evidence that North Korea might be applying the same tactics as five decades ago, while the international community faces the danger of repeating old mistakes. Moreover, history provides a hitherto underestimated rationale for the nuclear program, one that might require the international community to develop very different strategies from the ones applied so far. [source]


Reconciliation in Londonderry: The Challenges and Constraints Experienced by Protestant Clergy

PEACE & CHANGE, Issue 4 2006
Neil Southern
Northern Ireland is a place that is more peaceful due principally to the cessation (although imperfect) of republican and loyalist paramilitary violence in 1994. While the violent excesses of ethnic dispute in Northern Ireland no longer saturate media reports, there remains much fear, distrust, and insecurity between Protestant and Catholic communities. This article conducts a microexamination of church-led attempts at cross-community reconciliation by Protestant clergy in the city of Londonderry. These attempts are often hampered because of factors that affect both the clergy and the wider Protestant community within which the clergy discharge their pastoral duties. The constraints in their ecumenical activity and interfaith contacts that Protestant clergy experience highlight other factors that hinder the evolution of a more peaceful society. It also causes one to reflect carefully upon the effectiveness of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue as a model for advancing society towards peace and reconciliation. The findings of this paper are based upon a qualitative methodology that involved eight semistructured interviews with clergy of the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, and Methodist traditions. [source]


Would you adopt Second Life as a training and development tool?

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT, Issue 8 2008
Kevin C. Taylor
A survey of perceptions of Second Life as a training and development tool indicates that its use is still in the early stages of the adoption curve. Moreover, professionals who are familiar with it do not typically express the same enthusiasm for it as media reports seem to indicate. [source]


Gauging Public Opinion in the Hoover White House: Understanding the Roots of Presidential Polling

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2000
ROBERT M. EISINGER
Contemporary research often ignores early presidential attempts to measure public opinion, focusing instead on the use of polls by modern presidents. The Hoover presidency precedes the invention of modern surveys and provides a rich theoretical and empirical context for analyzing the early institutionalization of political polling. President Herbert Hoover sought to assess public opinion independent of his party and Congress, in large part because of the contentious relations these institutions shared with his administration. He did so under the guise of scientific legitimacy,quantifying newspaper editorials and undertaking a scholarly survey of American life. Although he was not the first president to use media reports to measure public opinion, Hoover's systematic quantification marks a significant change in how presidents assessed citizens' views and used those assessments to gain power and independence with respect to Congress and political parties. [source]


Front and Back Covers, Volume 22, Number 3.

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 3 2006
June 200
Front and back cover caption, volume 22 issue 3 Front & back cover ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEMORY The front cover shows a statue Of General Francisco Franco In the exhibition 'Franco, Listen!', held at the Museum of Vilafranca del Penedčs, Barcelona. The statue was displayed with the aim of stimulating comment, dialogue and action among museum visitors around the time of the 30th anniversary of the dictator's death on 20 November 1975. It was attacked by a group of Catalan pro-independence activists, who poured red paint over Franco's head, invested him with a crown, and hung a sign around his neck reading: 'The Spanish Monarchy is a direct inheritance from Franco - end the hypocrisy.' The back cover shows a formerly unmarked mass grave strewn with floral tributes after a spontaneous ceremony led by relatives of the 46 people killed near Villamayor de los Montes (Burgos), following the exhumation of the bodies in July 2004. In this issue, Francisco Ferrándiz describes the debates taking place in Spain around the exhumation of mass graves from the Civil War (1936-1939). In the last few years the strength of the 'movement for the recovery of historical memory' linked to the exhumations has been such that some on the political right are denouncing the advent of a 'new hegemony of the defeated' that is taking the place of the 'agreement of all' which many believe was the trademark of the Spanish transition to democracy. Proposing that anthropologists visit and address the sites of memory - exhumations, cemeteries, political discourses, laws and commemorations, claims of victimhood, media reports, artistic performances, forensic laboratories, academic meetings and summer schools, historiographical debates, civil associations, historical archives, public and private rituals, narratives of the defeat and old photo albums, to name a few - Ferrándiz encourages anthropology to engage in 'rapid response' research, to diversify fieldwork locations, to modulate research strategies in order to address rapidly evolving problems, to continue visiting the sites of violence, past and present, and to produce the type of knowledge that allows us to participate in substantive ways in social and political debates well beyond our discipline and beyond our academic setting. [source]


Public health metaphors in Australian policy on asylum seekers

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 1 2009
Glenda Koutroulis
Abstract Objective: To analyse the way in which a public health metaphor has been incorporated into Australian political practice to justify the exclusion or mistreatment of unwelcome non-citizens, giving particular attention to recent asylum seekers. Approach: Starting with a personal experience of working in an immigration detention centre and then drawing on media reports and published scholarship, I critique political rhetoric and policy on asylum seekers, arguing that the significance of a public health metaphor lies in its effectiveness in persuading the public that refugees and asylum seekers are a moral contaminant that threatens the nation and has to be contained. Conclusion: Acceptance of the metaphor sanctions humanly degrading inferences, policies and actions. Public health professionals therefore have a responsibility to challenge the political use of public health and associated metaphors. Implications: Substituting the existing metaphor for one that is more morally acceptable could help to redefine refugees and asylum seekers more positively and promote compassion in political leaders and the community. [source]


Does One Trust Judgement Fit All?

BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2010
Empirics, Linking Theory
Few questions in political science have received more attention in recent times than the role of trust in democracy, democratic government and political participation. In Britain this has become a particular concern as levels of democratic engagement in traditional politics have declined, exacerbated by media reports of politicians' untrustworthy behaviour. A common feature of previous empirical work on political trust is that trust is treated as a single theoretical concept. Scholars have assumed that trust operates in a similar fashion across different political institutions,that citizens' trust mechanisms are the same for trusting parliament, the prime minister or the European Union. As a consequence, the operationalisation of trust has generally been through a single measure. In this article we draw on recent research from political theory, where different forms of judgements whether to trust,strategic, moral and deliberative,have been conceptualised, to argue that trust judgements may vary in application and significance depending upon the institution under examination. Using specially designed data sets generated from YouGov's weekly omnibus and the British Election Study's Continuous Monitoring Panel, we operationalise these three forms of trust judgements to examine trust in two British institutions,political parties and politicians. We find, as hypothesised, that different forms of trust judgements are of differing significance depending upon the institution under consideration. [source]


Framing Rape: An Examination of Public Relations Strategies in the Duke University Lacrosse Case

COMMUNICATION, CULTURE & CRITIQUE, Issue 2 2008
Barbara Barnett
In Spring 2006, three White Duke University lacrosse players were charged with raping a Black female student from nearby North Carolina Central University at an off-campus party. Reports of the alleged crime captured news media attention, prompting a public relations campaign by Duke to maintain its image as an elite educational institution and an academic powerhouse. During the 15 months the charges were pending, the university framed its discussion in terms of reason versus emotion, with the university positioning itself as a calm voice amid diatribe and as a victim of unfair and untrue media reports. The charges ultimately were dropped. Although Duke was adept at speaking about its own integrity, it did little to discuss larger issues at play, such as sexual objectification of women, the risks of sexual violence on college campuses, and the perceptions of privilege in U.S. college athletics. In sum, Duke faced a public relations challenge that involved allegations of rape but spent little time actually discussing rape. [source]