Department of Communication, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Health Commun. 2011 Oct;26(7):635-48. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2011.561833. Epub 2011 Jun 24.
In the last 10 years, rising rates of obesity in the United States have drawn significant and increasing public attention from various quarters, which has led to commensurately increased news coverage of the issue. A handful of scholars to date have examined how obesity has been "framed" in the news, given that news framing of issues has proven effects on cultural and political attitudes, practices, and policies as regards the subject of coverage. Consistent with these studies, this qualitative framing analysis assesses how obesity is framed in more recent mainstream news coverage. Framing patterns identified in this analysis represent a notable departure from those identified in earlier studies, specifically as relevant to troubling the individual/environmental attribution binary that historically has characterized public discourse around obesity, in particular, and health more broadly. These findings signal important shifts for contemporary cultural attitudes toward obesity and, accordingly, public health policies designed to redress the issue. Further, the findings suggest a reconsideration and elaboration of established tenets of framing theory.
在过去的 10 年中，美国肥胖率的上升引起了来自各方的高度关注，这也导致了对该问题的新闻报道相应增加。迄今为止，少数几位学者研究了肥胖问题是如何在新闻中“呈现”的，因为对问题的新闻报道框架已被证明对有关报道主题的文化和政治态度、实践和政策具有影响。与这些研究一致，这项定性框架分析评估了肥胖问题在最近的主流新闻报道中是如何呈现的。本分析中确定的框架模式与早期研究中确定的模式明显不同，特别是在困扰个人/环境归因二元性方面，这在历史上一直是肥胖问题以及更广泛的健康问题公共话语的特征。这些发现标志着当代文化对肥胖的态度发生了重要转变，因此，旨在解决这一问题的公共卫生政策也需要进行调整。此外，这些发现表明需要重新考虑和阐述既定的框架理论原则。
