Uses of news narratives to enhance health knowledge of the audience: An analysis of the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccination coverage.

摘要

In this paper, the author examines how newspapers represent the controversial issue about the H1N1 flu vaccination and its relation to the public's perception toward the health threat. It includes a survey analysis on the public's perceptions toward the H1N1 flu vaccine and a narrative analysis of the newspaper coverage of it. The author focuses on how narratives of the novel H1N1 flu vaccine are designed by reporters as narrators, and how people think about the H1N1 flu vaccine based on some key variables that are thought to be the factors of influencing people's perception and attitude toward the H1N1 flu vaccine. By analyzing the results and examining the relation between the two analyses, the conclusion suggests a narrative framework that helps health communicators to better convey health information and enhance the public's health knowledge, and inform the public without causing panic.