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Journalistic Conceptualisation of Science and Health: An Overview

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Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of research on health and science journalists. First, the chapter establishes the push and pull that journalists have with scientific culture, focusing mainly on the differing values and norms between science and journalism. Second, this chapter reviews the history and sociology of health and science journalism work, including some of the global challenges that journalists share, and then pivoting to specific findings in various parts of the world. Lastly, this chapter analyses what “health” means to health journalists and what “science” means to science journalists, particularly through research on framing and role conceptions. Overall, the chapter provides a thorough overview of communication research about health and science journalists.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Health and science journalism as sites of scholarly study exist at the fringe of both science and health strategic communication and journalism studies (Briggs & Hallin, 2016 and others). Within health communication, health reporting is treated as an untrained afterthought and mostly unsuccessful as an agent of public health education (which is not the goal of health journalism) and as a potential site of distortion. Within journalism studies, health reporting’s proximity to soft news topics and its history as woman-centric (both the producers and consumers) has relegated it to the margins, separate from political journalism. There is also the issue of persuasion. Health and science communication are scholarly fields dominated by the study of strategic persuasion measured through message effects, often for the sake of the public good. Journalism studies, however, is focused on the sociology and history of journalistic work. Health communication as a field of research began in the 1980s to influence people’s health knowledge, attitude, and behaviour (Kreps et al., 2003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Amanda Hinnant

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  1. College of Journalism & Communication, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Kim Walsh-Childers

  2. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Merryn McKinnon

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Hinnant, A. (2024). Journalistic Conceptualisation of Science and Health: An Overview. In: Walsh-Childers, K., McKinnon, M. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of Science and Health Journalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49084-2_2

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