Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease
In an age of increasing globalization and discussion of the possibility of global pandemics, increasing rates of reporting of these events may influence public perception of risk. The present studies investigate the impact of high levels of media reporting on the perceptions of disease. Undergraduat...
Published in: | PLoS ONE |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science
2008
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569209 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958167 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:2569209 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:2569209 2023-05-15T15:34:24+02:00 Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease Young, Meredith E. Norman, Geoffrey R. Humphreys, Karin R. 2008-10-29 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569209 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958167 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569209 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958167 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 Young et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2008 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 2013-09-02T07:04:30Z In an age of increasing globalization and discussion of the possibility of global pandemics, increasing rates of reporting of these events may influence public perception of risk. The present studies investigate the impact of high levels of media reporting on the perceptions of disease. Undergraduate psychology and medical students were asked to rate the severity, future prevalence and disease status of both frequently reported diseases (e.g. avian flu) and infrequently reported diseases (e.g. yellow fever). Participants considered diseases that occur frequently in the media to be more serious, and have higher disease status than those that infrequently occur in the media, even when the low media frequency conditions were considered objectively ‘worse’ by a separate group of participants. Estimates of severity also positively correlated with popular print media frequency in both student populations. However, we also see that the concurrent presentation of objective information about the diseases can mitigate this effect. It is clear from these data that the media can bias our perceptions of disease. Text Avian flu PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 3 10 e3552 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Research Article |
spellingShingle |
Research Article Young, Meredith E. Norman, Geoffrey R. Humphreys, Karin R. Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
In an age of increasing globalization and discussion of the possibility of global pandemics, increasing rates of reporting of these events may influence public perception of risk. The present studies investigate the impact of high levels of media reporting on the perceptions of disease. Undergraduate psychology and medical students were asked to rate the severity, future prevalence and disease status of both frequently reported diseases (e.g. avian flu) and infrequently reported diseases (e.g. yellow fever). Participants considered diseases that occur frequently in the media to be more serious, and have higher disease status than those that infrequently occur in the media, even when the low media frequency conditions were considered objectively ‘worse’ by a separate group of participants. Estimates of severity also positively correlated with popular print media frequency in both student populations. However, we also see that the concurrent presentation of objective information about the diseases can mitigate this effect. It is clear from these data that the media can bias our perceptions of disease. |
format |
Text |
author |
Young, Meredith E. Norman, Geoffrey R. Humphreys, Karin R. |
author_facet |
Young, Meredith E. Norman, Geoffrey R. Humphreys, Karin R. |
author_sort |
Young, Meredith E. |
title |
Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease |
title_short |
Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease |
title_full |
Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease |
title_fullStr |
Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease |
title_full_unstemmed |
Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease |
title_sort |
medicine in the popular press: the influence of the media on perceptions of disease |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2008 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569209 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958167 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 |
genre |
Avian flu |
genre_facet |
Avian flu |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569209 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18958167 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 |
op_rights |
Young et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003552 |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
3 |
container_issue |
10 |
container_start_page |
e3552 |
_version_ |
1766364812620595200 |