When pictures waste a thousand words: analysis of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic on television news.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Effective communication by public health agencies during a pandemic promotes the adoption of recommended health behaviours. However, more information is not always the solution. Rather, attention must be paid to how information is communicated. Our study examines the television news, which combines video and audio content. We analyse (1) the content of television news about the H1N1 pandemic and vaccination campaign in Alberta, Canada; (2) the extent to which television news content conveyed key public health agency messages; (3) the extent of discrepancies in audio versus visual content.

Methods

We searched for "swine flu" and "H1N1" in local English news broadcasts from the CTV online video archive. We coded the audio and visual content of 47 news clips during t

SUBMITTER: Luth W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3656930 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature