Collaboration for Evidence, Research and Impact in Public Health, School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Royal Life Saving Society Western Australia Inc., Floreat Forum, Australia.
Health Promot J Austr. 2020 Apr;31(2):192-198. doi: 10.1002/hpja.267. Epub 2019 Jun 19.
Drowning is a leading cause of death globally. Opportunities to promote drowning prevention in news media may be overlooked for attention-grabbing headlines, imagery and narrative. This study examines news media coverage of fatal drowning events in Western Australia (WA).
Coronial fatal drowning data in WA were extracted for two summer time periods (2014-2016) by date, age, gender, location and description. Corresponding print and online news articles were captured using: (i) Media Alert; (ii) Google News; (iii) Factiva. A content and frame analysis protocol was developed. A qualitative approach was taken to analyse the news angle. A subgroup analysis was undertaken for drowning focused articles.
The final sample (n = 50) news articles matched 17 individual drowning events (T1, n = 9; T2, n = 8). Drowning stories rarely appeared on page 1 (n = 2), but were located in the first 2-10 pages (n = 20) (66.6%). In the subanalysis, one-fifth (22%) of the articles employed a news angle relating to community spirit and celebration of life. There were 32 mentions of "who was responsible for the drowning event." Environmental factors were most cited for "what was responsible" (20.4%). Experts were cited in 66.7% of articles and drowning prevention strategies were mentioned in nine of the 50 articles.
Drowning was considered newsworthy; however, not the front page news. Reporting infrequently prioritised drowning prevention or discussed prevention strategies. SO WHAT?: Working closely with news outlets to embed drowning prevention messages in news stories during high-risk periods such as summer is an imperative.
溺水是全球导致死亡的主要原因之一。新闻媒体在吸引眼球的标题、图像和叙事方面可能会忽略溺水预防的机会。本研究调查了西澳大利亚州（WA）致命溺水事件的新闻媒体报道。
WA 的验尸溺水死亡数据按日期、年龄、性别、地点和描述提取，时间为两个夏季（2014-2016 年）。使用以下方法捕获相应的印刷和在线新闻文章：（i）媒体警报；（ii）Google 新闻；（iii）Factiva。制定了内容和框架分析协议。采用定性方法分析新闻角度。对以溺水为重点的文章进行了亚组分析。
最终样本（n=50）新闻文章与 17 起溺水事件（T1，n=9；T2，n=8）相匹配。溺水故事很少出现在第一页（n=2），但位于前 2-10 页（n=20）（66.6%）。在子分析中，五分之一（22%）的文章采用了与社区精神和生命庆典相关的新闻角度。有 32 次提到“谁对溺水事件负责”。对于“谁负责”，环境因素被引用最多（20.4%）。66.7%的文章中引用了专家，50 篇文章中有 9 篇提到了溺水预防策略。
溺水事件被认为是有新闻价值的，但不是头版新闻。报道很少优先考虑溺水预防或讨论预防策略。那么呢？：在高危时期（如夏季）与新闻媒体密切合作，将溺水预防信息嵌入新闻报道中是当务之急。
