Medical Drama Viewing and Medical Trust: A Moderated Mediation Approach

Enhancing the role of mass media in the translation of evidence from health policy and systems research in Nigeria

BACKGROUND

There are massive gaps in communication between health researchers and policy-makers in Nigeria, which constrains the use of research evidence for policy-making. Mass media can help in bridging the gaps, especially since the media has the reach and a reputation for presenting information in ways that elicit actions from the public and policy-makers.

OBJECTIVE

There is a small body of emerging literature from Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa, evidencing the usefulness of the media to encourage evidence translation in the health sector; and even evidence translation theories are light on dissemination. This paper adds to knowledge on how academia and media can be linked for effective dissemination of evidence for policy impact.

METHOD

Data were sourced from group discussions in a communications workshop with 27 participants comprising researchers in health systems and policy and media professionals with several years of experience.

RESULTS

It was found that health research evidence conducted using quality procedures and published in quality academic journals barely make it to public and policy-making conversations because of the restrictiveness that characterizes academic outputs in traditional academic dissemination outlets. On the basis of the cultivation theory, the media was found instrumental in feedback of research results to communities, securing policy-makers' reactions and stimulating policy actions.

CONCLUSIONS

In line with message system analysis, researchers must be strategic in the use of mass media, and our results showed how it can be done. In all, media usage for evidence translation has enormous potential to strengthen the health system.

Medical drama TV series: A semi-systematic literature review

The primary goal of this study is to grasp the evolution of research surrounding medical drama TV series, delineate prevalent research domains along with their evolving approaches, and unearth potential gaps and emerging trends within the field. The research methodology employs a semi-systematic literature review to comprehensively explore the evolving landscape of medical drama TV series research. It follows structured, comprehensive, and transparent principles, including the definition of research questions, the explicit description of research methodology, and a multi-step screening process to classify the literature. Five research areas were defined for literature classification: Narrative Analysis, Pedagogy and Bioethics, Linguistics and Communication, Gender Studies, and Reception Studies. Analyzing 269 papers from 1964 to 2023, the review reveals medical dramas’ significant impact on audiences’ understanding of healthcare and their pedagogical value in teaching medical and ethical concepts to students across disciplines.

Nurses are background actors in medical reality television: A character network analysis and call for authentic action

AIM

The aim of this study was to describe how nurses' dialogue compares with that of doctors in the Australian reality television program Emergency and to explain how this dialogue and the use of narration and direct-to-camera monologues contribute to the portrayal of nurses. The final aim was to outline how these findings can inform the actions of nurses, nursing organizations and writers and journalists.

DESIGN

A descriptive study conducted in 2021 and 2022.

METHODS

Character network analysis was used to describe the verbal interaction of nurses and doctors and identify major, minor and background characters. Narration and direct-to-camera monologues were analysed through frequency counts. Cultivation theory was used to interpret the results.

RESULTS

Fifty-four characters were identified, with 19 of these being nurses. Doctors spoke 87.9% of the dialogue. Most of the dialogue (43%) was monologue by doctors directly to the camera. All major characters were doctors, and only one nurse was a minor character. The mean number of mentions by the narrator of a nurse per episode was 4, and 30 for a doctor.

CONCLUSION

The portrayal of nurses in Emergency is inaccurate and the production methods are used to privilege the role of doctors. This finding comes after decades of research showing inaccurate images of nursing in television. Drawing on recent Australian inquiries and the challenges experienced by mental health and aged care nursing, several approaches for collaborative action to improve these images are suggested.

IMPACT

This is the first study of the portrayal of nursing in reality television. These results suggest that much effort is still required even in contemporary reality television to accurately reflect the work and contribution of nurses. It is the shared responsibility of individual nurses, nursing organizations and writers and journalists to accurately portray nurses in the media.

NO PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

This network analysis of a postproduction television program did not allow patient or public involvement in the design or analysis.

Beyond Personal Experiences: Examining Mediated Vicarious Experiences as an Antecedent of Medical Mistrust

African Americans consistently report higher levels of medical mistrust than their White counterparts. As a result, medical mistrust is considered to be a contributor to racial health disparities. Despite calls to address medical mistrust, few studies have explicitly examined it as a phenomenon of interest; those that have, tended to focus on personal experiences while neglecting vicarious experiences. The current study a) explicitly tests the effects of two types of news story content on reported levels of medical mistrust within an African American adult sample and b) examines two widely used medical mistrust measures. Participants (N = 410) were randomly assigned to view a news story based on a 2 (health care, non-health care) x 2 (racial discrimination, nonracial discrimination) experimental design. Results indicated that individually, both health care content and racial discrimination content increased race-based medical mistrust, but had no effect on general medical mistrust. However, when all four conditions were examined, exposure to health-related racial discrimination stories resulted in higher levels of race-based and general medical mistrust than non-health, nonracial discrimination stories. Findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical and practical implications for health communication scholars.

Interactions between emotional and cognitive engagement with science on YouTube

This study aimed to map and characterize public engagement with science on YouTube. A two-part study was conducted. First, we collected and quantitatively analyzed trending videos on YouTube to evaluate the magnitude of public interaction with science content. Then, we assessed actual, rather than self-reports of, media interactions with science-related YouTube trending videos. We tested associations between behavioral engagement of viewing, liking, disliking or commenting, and emotional and cognitive engagement. Our findings affirm that science content attracts high public interest and that emotional and cognitive engagement with science on social media are distinct, but interrelated. We show that regardless of the valence of emotional engagement, emotion is linked to greater behavioral engagement of posting comments and to greater cognitive engagement of argumentative deliberation. Therefore, our findings suggest that social media interactions, which tend to evoke emotional responses, are a promising means of advancing person-to-person engagement with science.