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Healthcare in the news media: The privileging of private over public

Lewis, S., Collyer, F., Willis, K., Harley, K., Marcus, K., Calnan, Michael .W., Gabe, J. (2017) Healthcare in the news media: The privileging of private over public. Journal of Sociology, 54 (4). pp. 574-590. ISSN 1440-7833. E-ISSN 1741-2978. (doi:10.1177/1440783317733324) (KAR id:63474)

Abstract

This article reports on a discourse analysis of the representation of healthcare in the print news media, and the way this representation shapes perspectives of healthcare. We analysed news items from six major Australian newspapers over a three-year time period. We show how various framing devices promote ideas about a crisis in the current public healthcare system, the existence of a precarious balance between the public and private health sectors, and the benefits of private healthcare. We employ Bourdieu’s concepts of field and capital to demonstrate the processes through which these devices are employed to conceal the power relations operating in the healthcare sector, to obscure the identity of those who gain the most from the expansion of private sector medicine, and to indirectly increase health inequalities.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1177/1440783317733324
Uncontrolled keywords: News media, healthcare, Bourdieu, framing theory, field, capital
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Michael Calnan
Date Deposited: 19 Sep 2017 08:47 UTC
Last Modified: 28 Jul 2022 22:08 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/63474 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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