Attributing Responsibility for Health Problems: The Effects of Combining News Frames

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: The news media are influential in shaping or framing the way we think about and discuss health. Framing describes the journalistic process of including or excluding information, creating a story, and organizing the discourses. With millions of people relying on news coverage for health information, many public health experts believe the news media’s continuous framing of health problems in terms of individual responsibility is problematic. They propose that if journalists would follow a social determinants of health model and frame health problems more often in terms of environmental causes and public policy solutions, the public would hold governments, institutions, and the electorate accountable for health problems resulting in greater political participation and collective action thereby reducing health inequities among different populations.

In reality, health news stories are not written using one frame but multiple frames (e.g. societal factors in health problems, consequences of health problems or benefits of solutions). To determine the framing effects of health news stories on how audience members assign blame for health problems, scholars must study health stories containing multiple frames. To date, few researchers have done this. This research addresses a critical gap in communication scholarship by measuring the effects of combined news frames on how people assign responsibility for health issues. It is significant because it tests the effects of combining frames health reporters routinely use in their reports with the type of coverage some public health officials advocate will reduce health inequities between population groups.

Episodic frames are specific and concrete emphasizing personal stories that focus on individual responsibility for health problems. More abstract, contextual, and data driven coverage is thematic, presenting a collective – rather than individual – picture of society’s problems. Thematic coverage is consistent with the social determinants of health model. Although health reports commonly combine thematic and episodic coverage with gain (benefit, e.g. lives saved), and loss (consequences, e.g. lives lost) frames and information that is framed as certain or uncertain, scholars have failed to investigate the interaction effects of these frames on responsibility attribution. Gain and loss frames and certain and uncertain frames are derived from prospect theory – a social psychology theory of decision-making.

Methods and Results (informing the conceptual analysis):  Two experiments were conducted with adults that manipulated the context of online health news stories about lung cancer, obesity, and mental depression.  One hundred and forty adults participated in the first experiment, which was a 2 (thematic vs. episodic) X 2 (gain vs. loss) factorial design. Two hundred and eighty adults participated in the second study, which was a 2 (thematic vs. episodic) X 2 (gain vs. loss) X 2 (certain vs. uncertain) factorial design. Significant findings included an interaction between thematic frames and loss frames on societal attribution of responsibility was found.

Conclusions: Frames influence responsibility attribution.

Implications for research and/or practice: This research produced significant findings that have implications for how health practitioners frame health issues and how health reporters cover health issues. Finally, this research broadens our theoretical understanding of the psychological impact of particular media frames.