The Media Is Required for Harmonious Health Communication Practices - Analysis on the Media Function to Reduce Patient-Physician Conflict

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: Recent decades allow the development of health communication theory in an explosive eruption. The theory is currently accepted and proving practical in many fields such as social functions, public relationship developing, personalized marketing, and responsible use of social media including we-media. In this investigation, we hypothesize that the media itself with an uncontrolled manner can cause devastating effects on medical reporters/publishers and the healthcare system. The growing number of we-media raise potential problems. Some voices and tones may cause unexpected damage to the community and society.

Methods: We evaluated the professional knowledges, healthcare experiences, report ethics, public interest-orientation, and positive attitude of media reporters from the US and China. The five-"W" method (Who, say What, in What channel, to Whom, with What effects) by Harold. D. Lasswell was utilized and modified to analyze health communication practices. Comparative and textual analyses were also performed to reveal a public environment-sensitive conformational plasticity of health communication, which may help improve the healthcare systems, and promote the public policy-media-healthcare professional interactions. By summarizing the reports on public health and medicine, we further proposed a potential improvement in health communication practices.

Results: According to our research, there were too many agenda setting in current medical reports. This agenda setting resulted in reader-friendly standards and the media seemed encouraged to have those products of catalysts. Based on the five-"W", we observed: the disseminator did not have professional knowledges, healthcare experiences, media ethics; the content was thus not guaranteed and reliable; the communicating pathway could be selectively activated; the receiver was emotionally divorced or informationally isolated; the effects then seemed to be efficiently exerted but potentially negative in long-term. All these factors/identified problems contributed to the patient-physician conflict and negatively interacted with health communication practices. Our research revealed and supported that these problems are common and underestimated, and that the five Ws exist in most cases.

Conclusions: Overall, the uncontrolled manners amongst disseminator-content-receiver-communicating pathway-effects were identified. These communication practices could produce and accelerate patient-physician conflict. The we-media should be supervised regarding medical professionalisms and journalistic professionalisms.

Implications for research and/or practice: We encouraged that the we-media keep critical thinking, and maintain neutrality in transcripts and information production (e.g. between patient-physician, and between public policy-healthcare professional). Mass media and we-media must develop self-responsibility for the community and society, which are essential for promoting the patient-centered health communications, and for thorough recognition of the value of the medical services, and would significantly benefits the systems. Distinguishing from informationally encapsulated communications is somehow needed. Our investigation may also support the we-media in future supervision practices to deliver a more public opinion.