The explanation of a complex problem: A content analysis of causality in cancer news-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

The explanation of a complex problem: A content analysis of causality in cancer news

Published:2021-04-08 Issue:1 Volume:31 Page:53-69
ISSN:0963-6625
Container-title:Public Understanding of Science
language:en
Short-container-title:Public Underst Sci

Author:

Peng Wei¹^ORCID,de Tuya Gabriel Alexander²,Eduardo Andrea Alexandra²,Vishny Jessica Allison³,Huang Qian⁴^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Washington State University, USA

2. University of Miami, USA

3. DePaul University, USA

4. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Abstract

Understanding causality is a critical part of developing preventive and treatment actions against cancer. Three main causality models—necessary, sufficient-component, and probabilistic causality have been commonly used to explain the causation between causal factors and risks in health science. However, news media do not usually follow a strict protocol to report the causality of health risks. The purpose of this study was to describe and understand how the causation of cancer was articulated on news media. A content analysis of 471 newspaper articles published in the United States during two time-frames (2007–2008 and 2017–2018) was conducted. The analysis showed that probabilistic causality was most frequently used to explain the causal relationship between risk factors and cancer. The findings also uncovered other important details of news framing, including types and characteristics of risk factors, intervention measures, and sources of evidence. The results provided theoretical and practical implications for public understanding and assessment of cancer risks.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous),Developmental and Educational Psychology,Communication

Link

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/09636625211005249

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