(De)constructing health news
Researcher(s) (CIMS)
Supervisors (CIMS)
Co-Supervisors (other)
Piet Bracke (Dept. of Sociology)
Thierry Christiaens (Dept. of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care)
Geert Jacobs (Dept. of Linguistics)
Karin Raeymaeckers (Dept. of Communication Sciences)
Funded by
UGent Research Council (BOF, 2014-18)
Presentation
(De)constructing health news is a major four-year concerted research action, funded by the UGent research council (BOF). The research action draws on a transdisciplinary partnership between communication sciences, sociolinguistics, medical sciences and sociology. The action investigates the impact of the changing mediascape on the news coverage of health issues with a focus on elderly-related issues.
Applying a holistic approach, (De)constructing health news looks at different stakeholders: the pharmaceutical industry, policy-making bodies, news media, special-interest groups and the general public. The action deals with issues of medicalization, health issues, aging, elderly, health news production, consumption and literacy. The project will recruit five researchers, including one postdoc research coordinator. Prof. Daniël Biltereyst is the project's main promoter and spokesperson.
CIMS is responsible for the audience-oriented work package that investigates how elderly perceive, interpret and trust various types of mediated discourses on health-related issues in their everyday lives, brought to them by the news media and other institutional stakeholders.