The silent killer in media stories: Representations of hypertension as health risk factor in French-language Canadian newspapers

Abstract

The media is recognised as an increasingly important source of information about health risk and disease for non-professionals. The issue for public health actors is the accuracy and objectivity of such information. But the media do not neutrally transmit expert information on health risk; they also contribute to shaping it. Media studies show that the media have their own modus operandi and produce content that satisfies the criteria of newsworthiness and media-value. The objective of our research was to analyse how newspapers represent hypertension as a health risk factor, to examine how these representations relate to media-value characteristics, and to reveal differences between serious, popular, and tabloid newspapers. Our findings show that, in their coverage of hypertension, the newspapers we analysed accentuate features that come closest to media-value characteristics of health risk. The magnitude and undetectable nature of hypertension, and the severity and unpredictability of its consequences, are accentuated in media discourse through various rhetorical devices. Exacerbation of fear is most prevalent in the tabloid newspapers, with more use of scary metaphors and personifications.

Keywords:

• hypertension
• risk
• health risk
• newspaper
• media
• media-value
• newsworthiness

Acknowledgements

We thank the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR/IRSC) for the financial support of this study.

Notes

1. T = tabloid; P = serious-popular; S = semi-serious.

2. All excerpts are directly related to hypertension in the original article. For example, if the reference is to stroke, the original article presented hypertension as a risk factor of stroke.