Selin Jani, Nyrhinen Riku
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
Nordisk Alkohol Nark. 2022 Dec;39(6):605-622. doi: 10.1177/14550725221083438. Epub 2022 Aug 11.
The media can influence gambling policy formation and public opinion. Previous research has established that the tension between political or public interest in gambling revenue and gambling harm is fundamental for understanding gambling policy. There are two opposing gambling policy positions: (1) gambling revenue or the economic benefits of gambling, and (2) the harmful impacts of gambling. This study is the first study to estimate these gambling policy positions of newspapers on a common scale. The objective is to estimate how the gambling policy positions of major Finnish daily newspapers evolved between 2004 and 2020. This knowledge deepens our understanding about the changes in the relative balance between harm and revenue in gambling policy. The data consisted of newspaper editorials ( = 58) on gambling policy from five major Finnish daily newspapers between 2004 and 2020. The data were analysed with the automated content analysis algorithm Wordfish. The results show that there has been a clear shift in the gambling policy positions of the major Finnish newspapers towards increased acknowledgement of the importance of prevention and reduction of gambling harm. Due to the interplay between the media, politics, and the public, it is likely that the importance of prevention and reduction of gambling harm will be recognised and addressed to a larger extent when gambling policy is formulated in Finland in the future. More generally, if the gambling policy positions of media and other stakeholders change, this can facilitate a promotion of harm prevention policies.
媒体能够影响赌博政策的形成和公众舆论。先前的研究表明，在赌博收益方面的政治或公共利益与赌博危害之间的矛盾，是理解赌博政策的根本所在。存在两种对立的赌博政策立场：（1）赌博收益或赌博的经济效益，以及（2）赌博的有害影响。本研究是第一项在统一尺度上评估报纸的这些赌博政策立场的研究。其目的是评估芬兰主要日报的赌博政策立场在2004年至2020年期间是如何演变的。这一认识加深了我们对赌博政策中危害与收益相对平衡变化的理解。数据包括2004年至2020年期间芬兰五家主要日报上关于赌博政策的报纸社论（=58篇）。使用自动内容分析算法Wordfish对数据进行了分析。结果表明，芬兰主要报纸的赌博政策立场发生了明显转变，更加认可预防和减少赌博危害的重要性。由于媒体、政治和公众之间的相互作用，未来芬兰在制定赌博政策时，预防和减少赌博危害的重要性可能会在更大程度上得到认可和关注。更一般地说，如果媒体和其他利益相关者的赌博政策立场发生变化，这可以促进预防危害政策的推行。
