Biomedicalization and the public sphere: Newspaper coverage of health and medicine, 1960s–2000s

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) 2013-11, Vol.96, p.121-128
• Main Authors: Hallin, Daniel C., Brandt, Marisa, Briggs, Charles L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Biomedical research; Biomedicalization; Biomedicine; Chicago; Citizens; Consumers; Content analysis; Health; Health care; Humans; Journalism; Journalism, Medical; Journalists; Knowledge; Mass media; Media; Media studies; Medical sciences; Medicalization; Medicine; Methodology (Data Collection); Miscellaneous; New York; Newspapers as Topic - trends; Patients; Physicians; Politics; Press; Public health; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Public Opinion; Public sphere; U.S.A; USA
• ISSN: 0277-9536; 1873-5347
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.07.030

This article examines historical trends in the reporting of health and medicine in The New York Times and Chicago Tribune from the 1960s to the 2000s. It focuses on the extent to which health reporting can be said to have become increasingly politicized, or to have shifted from treating the production of medical knowledge as something belonging to a restricted, specialized sphere, to treating it as a part of the general arena of public debate. We coded a sample of 400 stories from the two newspapers for four different Implied Audiences which health stories can address: Scientific/Professional, Patient/Consumer, Investor and Citizen/Policymaker. Stories were also coded for the origin of the story, the sources cited, the presence of controversy, and the positive or negative representation of biomedical institutions and actors. The data show that through all five decades, news reporting on health and medicine addressed readers as Citizen/Policymakers most often, though Patient/Consumer and Investor-oriented stories increased over time. Biomedical researchers eclipsed individual physicians and public health officials as sources of news, and the sources diversified to include more business sources, civil society organizations and patients and other lay people. The reporting of controversy increased, and portrayals of biomedicine shifted from lopsidedly positive to more mixed. We use these data in pinpointing how media play a constitutive role in the process of “biomedicalization,” through which biomedicine has both extended its reach into and become entangled with other spheres of society and of knowledge production. •Documents historical trends in newspaper coverage of health and medicine.•Reports content analysis of newspaper health coverage over five decades.•Proposes method for coding implied audience of health stories.•Assesses the integration of health discourse into the public sphere.•Explores the role of news media in the process of biomedicalization.