a qualitative analysis, this chapter discusses the ways these articles tackle the issues of journalists, policy, and recommendations for future studies. Although none of the 45 studies interviewed journalists, many of the studies talk about the roles and responsibilities of journalists as they consider the ways these attributes may or may not influence ←3 | 4→framing. Considering the factors proposed in Chapter 5, this chapter also analyzes the ways current research has used elements of stigma, psychological reactance, emotions, civic behavior, and interaction effects.
Chapters 7 and 8 involve a discussion of the most used health issues in the studies that operationalized thematic and episodic frames: obesity and mental health. In Chapter 7, we examine the studies that involve obesity. In Chapter 8, we found mental illness to be one of the most used health issues in the studies that operationalized thematic and episodic frames. More specifically, several of these studies examined depression. In both chapters, we use the findings of these studies as a primer for our own work on thematic and episodic frames in depression studies. These chapters present the findings of five experiments, three on obesity and two on depression. These experiments examine the ways framing impacts or interacts with civic engagement, emotions, psychological reactance, and stigma.
While we are interested in the effects of episodic and thematic news frames on behavior change to improve individual health, our larger mission in this study is examining how these frames influence support for health policy benefiting population health.
In this book, we present a way to organize and evaluate existing research on these frames as a whole process—beginning with the journalists who develop and create the health news stories to the framing effects leading to public action and everything in between. We combine an existing process model of framing with our original work to achieve this goal. As we will explain, this is the first step in our process. We present significant findings and offer insight into what we know so far about thematic and episodic frames and how they influence support for policy. We conclude with our ideas on the direction of future research based on what we have learned and some initial findings of investigations following that direction.
We appreciate and understand the time and effort scholars put forth to conduct the research we analyzed for this project. Both of us know the challenges involved in developing and undertaking scholarly research. By examining the whole, research on thematic and episodic frames in health news, we offer a clear view of what might be missing in the framing process of increasing public support for health policy. We understand how lack of resources and certain aspects university tenure and promotion might prohibit what we are suggesting researchers could pursue to move research on episodic and thematic frames forward. We realize as thorough as we tried to be in collecting scholarly research articles for this project, we are bound to have missed some journal articles.
Also, having worked as reporters at the local level, both of us know what it is like to have deadlines to meet when covering stories. We understand being a one-man-band when reporting, the idea that sometimes the source you get is the source ←4 | 5→available due to time constraints. Journalists face incredible obstacles in terms of labor force cuts and hostile working environments in the U.S. and more so around the world. A 2017 survey Gallup and the Knight Foundation found Americans strongly believe news media have an important role in democracy—providing the public with information they need and holding the powerful accountable. As we write this text, the need for accurate reporting has never been more dire.
In the midst of these turbulent times, gaining a better understanding of how to effectively communicate information about health policy may not seem as important as other topics. We believe the appetite for this information exists. Around the globe, we all face significant challenges to our health and well-being, and there has never been a more important time for scholars from multiple disciplines, journalists, and the public to join together to deal with these serious threats. We hope the work we present in this text will be used to address risks to our public health like gun violence and climate change along with other significant health issues that require policy solutions.
References
Ardèvol-Abreu, A. (2015). Framing theory in communication research in Spain. Origins, development and current situation. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 70, 423–450. http://www.revistalatinacs.org/070/paper/1053/23en.html doi:10.4185/RLCS-2015-1053 accessed May 20 2019.
Fletcher, P. (2018, January). Americans see news media as vital, but failing to live up to the role. Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulfletcher/2018/01/16/report-americans-see-news-media-as-vital-but-failing-to-live-up-to-role/#cdd768ef8354 accessed on March 25, 2018.
Iyengar, S. (1991). Is Anyone Responsible: How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/Chicago/9780226388533.001.000.
Major, L.H. (2018). Health news coverage and policy: The effects of combining news frames. In P. D’Angelo (Ed.), Doing News Framing Analysis 2: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Rose, G. (1992). The Strategy of Preventive Medicine. Oxford University Press.
Walsh-Childers, K., Braddock, J., Rabaza, C., & Schwitzer, G. (2018). One step forward, one step back: Changes in news coverage of medical interventions. Health Communication, 33(2), 174–187. https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1080/10410236.2016.1250706
←5 | 6→←6 | 7→
Good Pictures vs. Talking Heads: Iyengar’s Episodic and Thematic Frames
Although those who are reading this volume may be familiar with Shanto Iyengar’s book Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues, we would like to provide a quick overview of the work for those who need a primer or review.
Iyengar’s (1991) book proposed the way journalists frames stories matters for the ways audiences attribute responsibility for the causes and solutions of political issues. Iyengar specifically examined two types of storytelling frames—episodic and thematic. Iyengar argues news generally takes either an episodic or thematic frame. “The episodic news frame focuses on specific events or particular issues, while the thematic news frame places political issues and events in some general context” (Iyengar, 1991, p. 2). Episodic frames might detail the journey of an individual experiencing a health issue, focusing on their personal experience, while thematic frames might provide background about the health issue at large, with statistics explaining things like the national rate and cost of the issue. Iyengar said, “Visually, episodic reports make ‘good pictures,’ while thematic reports feature ‘talking heads’” (1991, p. 14).
Iyengar’s two types of frames—thematic and episodic—are attractive for journalists and for journalism researchers. Journalists use these frames. For example, one way we, the authors of this book, learned how to write trend stories in our own journalism education was through deliberately pairing these frames—while we were taught to explain the statistics, research, predominance etc. about an issue, we ←7 | 8→were told to create a more compelling story about the issue by adding to the more thematic writing
