Mass Media and Health

Dr. Kim Walsh-Childers is a former newspaper health reporter who teaches courses in mass media and health, along with courses in journalism and media ethics, at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. Her research focuses on news coverage of health issues, the effects of health news coverage on individual health and health policy, cancer communication, and individuals’ use of online health information. Her work has been published in Health Communication, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, Science Communication, Communication Research, Pediatrics, AIDS Education and Prevention, and the Journal of Adolescent Health Care, among others. Her research has been supported by grants from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, and the Department of Defense. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Ireland during the 2004-2005 academic year, studying the impact of news coverage on Irish health policy.

• Preface Chapter 1: The media environment, U.S. health and the media-health effects matrixSection 1 IntroductionChapter 2: Health information online – Building a web to improve health behaviorChapter 3: Tobacco advertising – The paradox of marketing to shorten customers’ livesChapter 4: Predictable negative effects – Marketing alcohol misuse and abuseChapter 5: Take a pill for "better health" – Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisingChapter 6: Fun and glamour through smoking, drinking and drugs – Entertainment media portrayals of substance useChapter 7: Do the media make us fat? Advertising and entertainment portrayals of food, nutrition and exerciseChapter 8: Showing us what we should (and cannot) be – The mass media mirror and body imageChapter 9: Lust, love and romance with few consequences – Media portrayals of sex Chapter 10: The mean and scary media world – The impact of media violenceChapter 11: Reporting on health for better or worse – News media effects on knowledge, beliefs and behaviorsChapter 12: Peer-to-peer health – The good and bad news about Facebook, Instagram, blogs and other social mediaSection 2: Policy-level effects introductionChapter 13: How health news can affect non-news consumers – News media and health policy Chapter 14: Focusing the spotlight on problems upstream – Media advocacy to influence policyChapter 15: Big spenders in the marketplace of ideas – Political issue advertising effects on health policyChapter 16: Media effects on health – What we still need to know

Select Guide Rating