Health Educ Res. 2022 Jan 22;36(4):456-466. doi: 10.1093/her/cyab019.
This study conducted a content analysis of 639 news articles about e-cigarettes in China from 2004-2019 to examine longitudinal changes in media frames and media tones about e-cigarettes in Chinese newspapers. Results indicated that policy frame was the most frequently used frame, followed by human impact frame, information frame, and uncertainty frame. Dividing the time period of 2004-2019 into four phases (i.e., 2004-2006, 2007-2010, 2011-2017 and 2018-2019), the study found that the frequency of the information frame significantly decreased over time, while the policy frame and uncertainty frame significantly increased, with the policy frame being the dominant frame in recent years. In contrast, the use of the economic frame and morality frame fluctuated, both reaching peaks in the phase of 2007-2010 and decreasing in the most recent phase. Overall, the tone of the large majority of news articles was unfavorable, and the turning point occurred in the phase of 2007-2010 when the percentage of news articles with negative tone exceeded those with positive tone for the first time. Framing of e-cigarette news articles in China demonstrated the pivotal role of policy makers in defining the e-cigarette issue, and the influence of the international public health community, as an important and reliable information source, on defining the health risk of e-cigarettes, which has implication for not only e-cigarette control, but tobacco control in China in general.
本研究对 2004 年至 2019 年期间中国 639 篇关于电子烟的新闻报道进行了内容分析，以考察中国报纸上关于电子烟的媒体框架和媒体基调的纵向变化。结果表明，政策框架是使用最频繁的框架，其次是人为影响框架、信息框架和不确定性框架。将 2004 年至 2019 年的时间段分为四个阶段（即 2004-2006 年、2007-2010 年、2011-2017 年和 2018-2019 年），研究发现，信息框架的频率随着时间的推移显著下降，而政策框架和不确定性框架显著增加，政策框架近年来成为主导框架。相比之下，经济框架和道德框架的使用波动较大，两者在 2007-2010 年阶段达到峰值，在最近阶段下降。总体而言，绝大多数新闻文章的基调都不利，转折点发生在 2007-2010 年阶段，当时首次出现负面基调新闻文章的比例超过正面基调新闻文章。中国电子烟新闻报道的框架表明，政策制定者在定义电子烟问题方面发挥了关键作用，国际公共卫生界作为一个重要和可靠的信息来源，对电子烟健康风险的定义也产生了影响，这不仅对电子烟的控制，而且对中国一般的烟草控制都具有重要意义。
