Health and the Media

Analyzing the relationship between medicine and the media from different perspectives, these new essays fill a gap in this emerging field, providing new information on approaches to health communication and important reevaluations of health literacy theories.
The contributors discuss ideas and methodologies across a range of topics, including multifaceted health communication, media coverage of maternal health, the rhetoric of diagnosis in autoimmune illness, media representation of the sick in data-driven healthcare, and health news coverage in print media.

Valentina Marinescu is a professor at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work at Bucharest University in Bucharest, Romania. Her research interests lie in media and communication studies on which she has published several articles and book chapters.
Bianca Mitu is a lecturer at the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom. Her research interests are in television studies, digital culture and media sociology.

Edited by Valentina Marinescu and Bianca Mitu
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 260
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2016
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6302-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2503-4
Imprint: McFarland

Foreword—Mass Media, Health, Communication: Main Issues (Maria ­Marczewska-Rytko) 1

Introduction—Media and Health: Contemporary Approaches (Valentina Marinescu and Bianca Mitu) 7

Part One. Narratives of Health and Illness

Multifaceted Health Communication (Sinikka Torkkola) 17

Narratives of Media Coverage of Maternal Health: Quest for New Dimensions (Alfred Okoth Akwala and Lynete Lusike Mukhongo) 37

Autoimmune Illness and the Rhetoric of Differential Diagnosis: Loss, Suppression and Negation from Patient Narratives and Medical Histories (James A. Wren) 55

Bridging the Medical Divide: Communication as a Metaphor in HIV Cases (Naga Mallika Gudipaty) 96

Part Two. Anthropology of Communicating Health and Illness

The Sick Person Remediated in ­Data-Driven Health Care (Suneel Jethani) 121

Extraterrestrial Pregnancies and Nasal Implants: A Mythologization of Biopower? (Marika Moisseeff) 138

Public Health Care in Private Hospitals: A Critical Analysis of the Aarogyasri Health Insurance Scheme (Sajit M. Mathews and Ravindra Kumar Vemula) 152

Part Three. Media Coverage of Health and Illness

Health News Coverage in Print Media: Is It Healthy? (Sriram Arulchelvan) 171

Media Coverage of Health and Illness in Romania (Valentina Marinescu) 200

Population Health in Interwar Romania Reflected in the Sociological School of Bucharest’s Research and Publications (Bogdan Bucur) 215

Conclusion—Media and Health, Challenges and Opportunities (Valentina Marinescu and Bianca Mitu) 241

About the Contributors 249

Index 251