De-legitimising complementary medicine: framings of the Friends of Science in Medicine-CAM debate in Australian media reports

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Author(s)
Lewis, M
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2019
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Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has developed into a complex and formidable commercial, sociocultural and political force in Australia, and given its influence, it is a relevant subject for scholars, health practitioners, health communicators, journalists, policy-makers, and consumers of healthcare products and services. This research will consider a relative newcomer to the claims-making space about CAM in the Australian health media-scape; the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM), an activist group of medical practitioners, researchers, and scientists, founded in late 2011. Using content analysis supported by ...
View more >Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has developed into a complex and formidable commercial, sociocultural and political force in Australia, and given its influence, it is a relevant subject for scholars, health practitioners, health communicators, journalists, policy-makers, and consumers of healthcare products and services. This research will consider a relative newcomer to the claims-making space about CAM in the Australian health media-scape; the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM), an activist group of medical practitioners, researchers, and scientists, founded in late 2011. Using content analysis supported by NVivo, I searched for articles specifically referring to FSM and measured the patterns and frequencies of media frames, intonation and sources that are featured in Australian mainstream news reports between December 2011 and April 2017. The negative headlining and intonation of reports predominated, along with framing CAM as part of a lucrative, undisciplined and unethical industry as well as an illegitimate healthcare approach, more broadly. The findings offer insight into how journalists respond, replicate or reconstruct the framings that are provided by an influential and elite group of medical practitioners and scientists, and readdresses issues surrounding the need for more critical health reporting in Australia.
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View more >Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has developed into a complex and formidable commercial, sociocultural and political force in Australia, and given its influence, it is a relevant subject for scholars, health practitioners, health communicators, journalists, policy-makers, and consumers of healthcare products and services. This research will consider a relative newcomer to the claims-making space about CAM in the Australian health media-scape; the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM), an activist group of medical practitioners, researchers, and scientists, founded in late 2011. Using content analysis supported by NVivo, I searched for articles specifically referring to FSM and measured the patterns and frequencies of media frames, intonation and sources that are featured in Australian mainstream news reports between December 2011 and April 2017. The negative headlining and intonation of reports predominated, along with framing CAM as part of a lucrative, undisciplined and unethical industry as well as an illegitimate healthcare approach, more broadly. The findings offer insight into how journalists respond, replicate or reconstruct the framings that are provided by an influential and elite group of medical practitioners and scientists, and readdresses issues surrounding the need for more critical health reporting in Australia.
View less >
Journal Title
Sociology of Health and Illness
Volume
41
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: De-legitimising complementary medicine: framings of the Friends of Science in Medicine-CAM debate in Australian media reports, Sociology of Health and Illness, Volume 41, Issue 5, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12865. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving (http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-828039.html)
Subject
Health services and systems
Public health
Sociology
History and philosophy of specific fields