(Con)textualizing Toxic Shock Syndrome: selected media representations of the emergence of a health phenomenon 1979–1995

Abstract

Societal understandings of health risk, and attitudes towards health and illness, are influenced and shaped by the ways in which print-based media, including popular magazines, represent health issues. The study reported here explores the way in which a relatively new health phenomenon, Toxic Shock Syndrome, has been represented in selected articles in Australian print-based media between 1979 and 1995. By exploring the discourses framing the discussion in these articles, changing and different representations of Toxic Shock Syndrome and related women's health issues and risks are uncovered.