Transcript Media Coverage of Child Trauma: Implications

Media Coverage of Child
Trauma: Implications in Social
Framing Research
Anandhi Narasimhan, MD
Objectives
• Define cognitive frames and understand
the relationship to public thinking
• Understand how media frames may
influence people’s thinking of child trauma
• Recognize how frames can affect public
policy
Outline
1)
2)
3)
4)
Definitions
Historical Background
Description of Framing Research
Our current study- introduction, methods,
data, preliminary findings
5) Future Implications
Definitions
• Communication-process of sharing
information
• Mass Media-section of the media
designed to reach a very large
audience(1920s-newspapers and
magazines)
• Framing-a method of providing category
and structure to thoughts (wikipedia)
Frames
“The way in which the world is imagined
determines a particular moment what men
will do” (Lippman, W. 1921. Public
Opinion. New York: The Free Press.)
- describing the connection between mass
communications to public attitudes and
policy
- Concept of frames based on this
connection
Composition of Frames
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Visuals
Metaphors
Messengers
Narratives
Scripts
Numbers
Index
• In economics, this is a single number
calculated from an array of prices and
quantities
• In terms of framing, indexing is a process
of creating mental shortcuts to make
sense of something
• This allows us to fill in blanks for missing
information, remember certain facts, and
forget those that do not support the frame
News Frames
• Research has shown that types of news
frames influence how the public attributes
responsibility
• Two types- episodic and thematic
• “Episodic tends to elicit individualistic
rather than societal attributions of
responsibility; thematic framing has the
opposite effect.” (Iyengar,1991)
Examples
You believe that the current war was a
mistake, so you are drawn to news stories
that reinforce this notion, and disregard
those that don’t
You believe that public schools in Los
Angeles do not provide adequate
education, so you are drawn to what
reinforces this idea
Public Health and the Media
A systematic review showed that mass
media campaigns helped in increasing
The use of child car seats( Zaza et al,
2001)
Deficits in News Media Coverage
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Inaccuracy in the coverage of scientific
published papers(Schwartz et al, 1999
and Loo et al, 1998)
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Overstating the risks or adverse effects
of an intervention(Brown et al, 1996 and
Lebow et al, 1999) i.e. suicidality and
ssri’s
A retrospective analysis of 207 television (n=37) and
newspaper (n=180) stories from the period 1994-98
about three drugs (pravastatin, a cholesterol-lowering
drug; alendronate, a biphosphonate for the prevention
and treatment of osteoporosis; and aspirin, used to
prevent cardiovascular disease) showed that:
• 83 % of 124 stories used a “relative” frame only when
quantifying benefits of drug, which can be misleading
• 53% of 207 stories didn’t mention possible adverse
effects
• 70% of 207 didn’t mention drug costs
• 60% of 85 stories did not disclose industry relation of
expert or study they cited
Pharmaceutical Influence
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Collective accumulation of
information and past
experiences about a topic is
known as social knowledge.
• Social knowledge influences
development and transmission
of perceptions about
prescriptions of medications,
including psychoactive
medications.
• Social knowledge has a
component of symbolism
meaning of drug described as
images, representation, or
metaphors.
Pharmaceutical Influence
• This imagery and symbolism is remembered and
transmitted through society.
• This is how mass media suggest to patients that
a specific medication promises to solve health
and life problems in magical ways; i.e. Prozachappy pill, feel-good pill, “magic bullets”, “like
insulin for my mind/mood” (Montagne, 2001,
1996). Eli Lilly launched campaign to condemn
media’s exaggeration of the effectiveness of
prozac in response (Listening to Eli Lilly, 1994).
Strategic Frame Analysis
“…Identifies the dominant frame as it exists
in public opinion and is reflected in the
media, demonstrates its impact on public
thinking, and identifies, measures and
tests alternative frames that can change
decision outcomes.”
(Gilliam and Bales, Social
Policy Report, 2001)
Content Analysis
• Identify key concepts, pictures, key words
• Decide how above will be recorded as
data- coding protocol
• From this, recorded communication can be
analyzed, i.e. tv news, newspapers,
magazines, books
• Investigate composition of meaning, and
their linguistic, affective, cognitive, social,
cultural, and historical significance
Examples of Frame Analysis
• News exposure to violent youth “superpredators”
increased adult support of punitive crime policy
(Gilliam and Iyengar, 1998)
• Politicians moved to enforce more restrictive
youth policies such as lowering the age at which
a juvenile can be tried as an adult (Males, 1998),
passing youth curfews, gang injunctions, search
of children’s lockers and placing metal detectors
in schools.
Goals of Our Study
1) Perform a content analysis of media
coverage of child trauma
2) Understand how child trauma is
portrayed in the media
3) Use this information to help develop
effective public health campaigns to
promote increased willingness to access
care for victims of child trauma
Methods
• We chose 16 major newspapers representing different
demographic regions, ethnic and cultural diversity,
political and religious affilations, small and large market
sizes
• New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Atlanta
Constitution Journal, Christian Science Monitor, El Paso
Times, Topeka Capital Journal, Des Moines Register,
Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Cleveland Plain
Dealer, Miami Herald, Washington Post, Pittsburgh PostGazette, Salt Lake City Tribune, Minneapolis Star
Tribune
Trigger Words
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Child Abuse, also physical or sexual abuse
Child Trauma
Child Kidnapping
Child Hostages
Youth Violence
War related violence involving children
Trigger Words cont’d
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Genocide involving children
Dog bite or animal bite involving child
Burns involving child
Shaken baby
Adolescent suicide
Child witnessing suicide
School shootings
Trigger Words cont’d
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Child Amputation
Child hit by a car
Cancer in child
War orphans
Violence in Darfur
involving children
• Child Trafficking
• Child Prostitution
• Abd al-Rahman, Age 13
“I am looking at the sheep in the wadi [riverbed, or
oasis]. I see Janjaweed coming—quickly, on horses and
camels, with Kalashnikovs—shooting and yelling, ‘kill the
slaves, kill the blacks.’ They killed many of the men with
the animals. I saw people falling on the ground and
bleeding. They chased after children. Some of us were
taken, some we didn’t see again. All our animals were
taken: camels, cows, sheep, and goats. Then the planes
came and bombed the village.”
Methods Cont’d
• Articles were divided and distributed to three
coders
• One coding packet filled out for every article
• Coders rated articles for trigger words,
attribution of responsibility, recommendations,
tone, type- thematic or episodic, government
source, education source, industry source, nonprofit agency source, primary or secondary topic
Methods cont’d
• Access World News Bank was the search
engine used to locate articles from
newspapers
• Time frame July 1, 2006 to July 31, 2006
• Trigger words entered into search engine
and articles from the sixteen newspapers
were identified
Methods cont’d
• Reliability checked by randomly selecting
articles by independent reviewers and
comparing coding data
• Data Analysis- descriptive study verses
prescriptive study such as in clinical trials,
so no hypothesis being validated or
rejected
Results
• First Trigger Word- Child Abuse
First 60 articles out of 472 cited
reviewed
13 removed because they were repeats
or unrelated to children
Leaving 47 articles
Results Cont’d
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Story Type Code
Episodic- 40%
Thematic- 17%
Episodic/Some Thematic- 28%
Thematic/Some Episodic- 15%
Results Cont’d
Tone
• Problem Frame-30%
• Problem Frame/Some Benefit-21%
• Benefit Frame-2%
• Benefit Frame/Some Problem- 4%
• Neutral Frame- 43%
Results Cont’d
Reccommendations - 36%; 17 out 47
• Mental Health Services- 11%
• Medical Care- 18%
• Community Programs- 9%
• Child Protective Services- 30%
• Other Recs included shelters, parents
speaking to children, Non-profit agencies,
crisis assistance, clergy
Results Cont’d
Attribution of Responsibility-36%
• Family/Parent-59%
• Policy and Legislation- 18%
• Law Enforcement- 6%
• Child Protective Services-6%
• Other Attributions-war, resistance to
change, racism, drugs, affected population
Results Cont’d
• Government Source Cited- 66%
• Industry Source Cited- 23%
• Education Source- 2%
Conclusions
• Attribution of Responsibility was
predominantly linked to parents/family
• More of the stories tended to be episodic
in nature as opposed to thematic
• About one-third of stories had recs, even
fewer for Mental Health Services
• Education source is not a component of
most stories
Questions
• How much does the public know about the
effects of trauma on children?
• Do people think that treatment is
necessary and are they familiar with
available treatment?
• How will their knowledge influence their
support for public health campaigns to
increase willingness to access care?
Future Steps
• Expand research to include other media
outlets, television news, radio
• Conduct Focus groups to see how public
discourse is influenced by messages from
the media regarding child trauma
• Simplify Models developed to correct
misunderstandings and false beliefs
• Conduct Priming Surveys
Acknowledgements
Mentors
Robert Pynoos, MD, MPH
Alessia Gottlieb, MD
Frank Gilliam, PHD,Vice Chancellor, UCLA
Department of Communications
Bonnie Zima MD, MPH
Margaret Stuber, MD
Sheryl Katoaka, MD
Coders
Julia Newbold
Eden Fairweather
Lorena Chavea
Collaborators
Technical Support
National Center for Child Traumatic Stress- UCLA
And Duke
Alan M. Steinberg, PHD, Associate Director
Joan R Kaplowitz, PhD
UCLA Library
Vanderbilt TV NewsArchive
“You must be the change you want to see
in the world.”
(Mahatma Gandhi, (1869-1948)