terms
This is the notion that a person's health is entirely their own responsibility and the ultimate marker of their morality. It frames poor health as a choice or 'failure' and good health as personal achievement.
What is: healthism
This theory examines how we learn from observing others in media contexts
What is: social cognitive theory
This concept refers to the process by which certain behaviors or experiences are labeled and treated as medical issues (i.e. labeling something as a problem and an argument that this problem can and should be solved by medical intervention)
What is: medicalization
Legitimacy, sense-making, and collective identity
What are: the social functions of diagnosis
This theory examines how trauma and long term exposure to stress/high levels of stress hormones in the body wears down cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune systems, and speeds up aging
This theory outlines why people seek health information in some situations and not others. They seek information about an issue when the knowledge they have is less than the knowledge that they want. The theory involves Outcome Expectancy (will this info be positive or negative), and an Efficacy Assessment (do i have the skills to successfully collect, understand, and cope with the info)
What is: Theory of Motivated Information Management
This theory focuses on the ways media coverage make some issues more prominent by covering them more than others (what to think about not how to think about)
What is: agenda setting theory
This behavior doe not align with dominant ideologies or ideals
What is: deviance
The concept of diagnosis being represented as fact, but excluding the role of communication, the differences between the diagnostic category (a human label) and a disease entity (a biological state), and if a diagnosis can be 'purely scientific'
What is: functionalism
The goal for this interpersonal theory is to create a framework for understanding the process people use to manage disclosure and privacy, and predicts future disclosure processes.
What is: Communication Privacy Management Theory
This theory is about how issues are presented in media and how those presentations influence viewer understandings of those issues
What is: framing theory
This gives attention to illness that aren't talked about as much, but also forces treatment among those who might not need it
What are: pros and cons of medicalization
This field (based on 4 assumptions: universality, effectiveness, innovation, and criteria) aims to inform healthcare policy and practice, yet falls short by promoting a top-down approach, viewing audiences as apathetic, and favoring government-funded research that aligns with political beliefs while ignoring cultural dimensions
What is: why health communication took a 'critical turn'
This theory defines health, not just as physical and emotional wellbeing, but also measures the access one has to resources that sustain and promote life satisfaction. It suggests that the institution of medicine exists to ensure that the population remains healthy and contributing to society. Through this lens, medicine tends not exclude those perceived as unable to contribute to the labor market
What is: political economy
This paradigm has these premises, goals, and methods:
• Objective reality can be discovered through research (Truth)
• Researcher subjectivity must be neutralized (bias)
• Generalizability, predicting future outcomes by creating theories, testing hypotheses
• Primarily quantitative, lots of data (i.e. Surveys, experiments, conversation analysis, content analysis)
What is: the empirical paradigm
This theory argues that repeated exposure to health-related information in media activates concepts and associations in viewers’ minds
What is: priming theory
This concept framed homosexuality as something to be 'cured' by treatments like aversion and talk therapy, and then removed it as a deviation through law
These frameworks aim to explain society and communication, often emphasizing prediction or interpretation, focusing on individuals, and maintaining a value-neutral stance
What are: social science theories
According to Parsons, this concept refers to the fact that sick people are temporarily exempt from normal social obligations if their condition is confirmed by a doctor (i.e. it is their duty to seek medial help so they can get back to contributing to society as fast as possible)
What is: the sick role
This paradigm uses these premises, goals, and methods:
• Objective reality does not exist; subjectivity and context are key to understanding phenomena (truths)
• Theories can offer research direction, but should not override participant voices
• Researcher subjectivity is inherent, but bias should be minimized
• Gain a deep understanding of social phenomena, describe complex issues, interpret specific certain groups’ truths and experiences
• Primarily qualitative, smaller data pools (i.e. Interviews, arts-based research, ethnography, narrative analysis, case
studies)
What is: interpretive paradigm
This theory argues that stories told by TV shape how we view the world
What is: cultivation theory
This concept originated in sociology, where sociologists critically analyzed the rapid growth of medical jurisdiction and psychiatric power
What is: the origins of medicalization
Unlike individualistic and value-neutral approaches, these theories seek to challenge oppressive systems, examine power structures, and embrace explicit political biases to transform society
What are: critical cultural theories
This philosophical theory suggests that states of disease or illness are inevitably known and interpreted through social activity, and therefore should be examined using cultural and social analysis. Based on its main tenets, truth is never neutral, it always acts in the interests of someone, and that all knowledge is the product of social relations (i.e. it is ever-changing and deeply contextual)
What is: social constructionism