Joffe Hélène, Haarhoff Georgina
Department of Psychology, University College London, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2002 Mar;54(6):955-69. doi: 10.1016/s0277-9536(01)00068-5.
In western cultures lay people are faced with a plethora of far-flung illnesses, relayed to them by the mass media. A number of social scientists have called for scrutiny of the link between people's patterns of thinking concerning such events, and the messages to which they are exposed. Using the outbreaks of Ebola in Africa in the mid-1990s as a vehicle, the study examines how British broadsheets and their readers, and British tabloids and their readers, make sense of this far-flung illness. Existing work on early representations of HIV/AIDS in the west is utilised to inform the research questions. In particular, this study investigates whether Ebola is constructed as a threat, how media and lay representations of Ebola interact, and whether there are different pockets of shared thinking, or a more uniform representation, in relation to Ebola in Britain. An analysis of the themes in 48 broadsheet and tabloid articles, and 50 interviews with their readers, reveals a common picture in which Ebola is represented as African. associated with African practices, and seen as posing little threat to Britain. However, group differences exist, and are characterised by a more essentialised vision of Ebola in the tabloids and their readers, in contrast to a focus on structural features linked to Ebola's escalation in the broadsheets and their readers. In terms of the media-mind relationship, beyond the similarities found between media type and their respective readers' ideas, certain key differences exist: While the newspapers make Ebola 'real' by referring to its potential to globalise. as well as to how it can be contained, lay thinkers feel detached from it, and draw an analogy between Ebola and science fiction. This is discussed as a method of symbolic coping on the part of the readers, as well as in terms of the power exerted by media imagery on lay representations of Ebola.
在西方文化中，普通民众面临着大量由大众媒体传播的各种遥远地区的疾病。一些社会科学家呼吁仔细研究人们关于此类事件的思维模式与他们所接触到的信息之间的联系。该研究以20世纪90年代中期非洲埃博拉疫情的爆发为契机，考察了英国的大报及其读者，以及英国小报及其读者是如何理解这种遥远地区的疾病的。利用西方关于艾滋病毒/艾滋病早期报道的现有研究成果来为研究问题提供参考。具体而言，本研究调查了埃博拉是否被建构为一种威胁，媒体和普通民众对埃博拉的表述是如何相互作用的，以及在英国，对于埃博拉是否存在不同的共同思维群体，或者是否存在更统一的表述。对48篇大报和小报文章的主题分析以及对50名读者的访谈揭示了一个共同的情况，即埃博拉被描绘为与非洲相关，与非洲的习俗有关，并且被视为对英国几乎没有威胁。然而，群体差异是存在的，其特点是小报及其读者对埃博拉的看法更加本质化，而大报及其读者则更关注与埃博拉疫情升级相关的结构特征。在媒体与思维的关系方面，除了发现媒体类型与其各自读者观点之间的相似之处外，还存在某些关键差异：虽然报纸通过提及埃博拉全球化的可能性以及如何控制它来使埃博拉“真实化”，但普通民众却感觉与之脱节，并将埃博拉与科幻小说相类比。这既被视为读者的一种象征性应对方式，也从媒体形象对普通民众关于埃博拉的表述所施加的影响力方面进行了讨论。
