Institute for Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Hamburg.
Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST), Stellenbosch University.
Health Commun. 2021 Jun;36(7):891-899. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1723048. Epub 2020 Jan 29.
Over the past decades, research in the fields of both framing and health communication has grown exponentially. However, to date, no systematic review has been conducted about how framing - as a concept - has been used in health communication. The present study provides a systematic review of the current research, applying a quantitative content analysis to the published literature on framing in health communication. Articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals ( = 316) were analyzed in order to describe common characteristics and topics, as well as the degree to which the sociological and psychological tradition of framing, different types of frames, and visual framing have been used. Furthermore, framing effect studies were examined to see whether they contained covariates, competitive frames, and/or gain and loss framing. The results reveal that the most common topics in the literature on framing in health communication were related to cancer, nutrition, and vaccination. Most articles use quantitative research designs, most commonly surveys with experimental designs; the majority of articles are based on the psychological tradition of framing. Thematic and generic frames occur almost equally, while the lack of research on visual frames is clearly noticeable. More than half of the effect studies test the effects of gain and loss framing, whereas competitive frames are under-studied. The results of this systematic review help to identify both current trends and research gaps on framing in health communication, and how it differs from framing in communication science overall - valuable information that can inform future research.
在过去的几十年中，框架和健康传播领域的研究呈指数级增长。然而，迄今为止，尚无关于框架作为一个概念在健康传播中如何使用的系统评价。本研究对当前的研究进行了系统评价，对健康传播中的框架研究进行了定量内容分析。为了描述常见的特征和主题，以及框架的社会学和心理学传统、不同类型的框架以及视觉框架的使用程度，分析了发表在同行评议的科学期刊上的文章（=316）。进一步检查了框架效应研究，以了解它们是否包含协变量、竞争框架和/或收益和损失框架。结果表明，健康传播框架文献中最常见的主题与癌症、营养和疫苗有关。大多数文章采用定量研究设计，最常见的是实验设计的调查；大多数文章基于框架的心理学传统。主题框架和通用框架几乎同样常见，而视觉框架的研究明显缺乏。超过一半的效应研究测试增益和损失框架的效果，而竞争框架的研究较少。本系统评价的结果有助于确定健康传播框架研究中的当前趋势和研究差距，以及它与整个传播科学中的框架研究有何不同——这些信息可为未来的研究提供信息。
