This document summarizes a research project analyzing health news coverage in Portuguese newspapers from 2008-2010. The analysis found that coverage focused on political themes, risks/alarms, and cancer. Sources were predominantly male officials and researchers. Coverage lacked identification of place and information. While cancer research was highlighted positively, there were errors, ambiguous titles, and incomplete identification of sources. Overall, the analysis revealed gaps in coverage of women, patients, and ordinary citizens' perspectives.

1. News in the making: features and
changes in health coverage in
Portugal
Felisbela Lopes
Teresa Ruão
Sandra Marinho
Rita Araújo
University of Minho
Communication and Society Research Centre

2. Research Project
‘Disease in the News’, FCT 2010
Communication and Society Research Center
University of Minho
PROBLEM
Portuguese media coverage on Health/Disease issues
Content level of analysis
• Themes, news angle, news genre, newsworthiness, news
sources, intertextuality
Production level of analysis
• Journalists: perceptions, routines, values and rules related to health
issues
• News sources: their organization, perceptions, expectations on health
news coverage

3. METHODOLOGY
News analysis of three national newspapers (different
periodicity and editorial criteria):
Weekly broadsheet:
Expresso
Daily broadsheet:
Público
Daily popular:
Jornal de Notícias

4. Analysis of 7 variables:
Presence/absence of news sources
Number of quoted sources
Geographical location
Gender
Identification
Status
Medical area of expertise

5. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Health Communication
Health Journalism
Health Media Relations

6. Health Communication
“Is concerned with the powerful roles performed
by human and mediated communication in
health care delivery and health promotion”
(Kreps et al., 1998).

7. Health Communication
Its primary levels of analysis:
intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational
and social communication;
In our work, we emphasize social
analysis, concerned with the health information
dissemination process, including investigations that
seek to understand the social construction of health
in news texts.
This level of analysis also looks into understanding
media impact on health, providing a background for
social interventions in the field (Kreps &
Maibach, 2008).

8. THE RESEARCH
2008 to 2010: an overview

9. 2008 to 2010:
4415 news articles analyzed
“Público”
• 1914 news articles
JN
• 2177 news articles
“Expresso”
• 324 news articles

10. 2008 to 2010
2nd level of
1st level of analysis analysis/disease
coverage/variables
Periodicity of
Sources newspapers: daily vs
weekly
Diseases
Editorial line:
broasheet vs popular
Location of
Newsworthiness newsrooms:
geographical
Newsframing

11. RESULTS

12. 2008 to 2010: Themes
1261 news texts • Health Politics
1135 news texts • General Overview
727 news texts • Risk/Alarm situations
402 news texts • Research
346 news texts • Clinical acts
333 news texts • Health Economics
159 news texts • Prevention
50 news texts • Others

13. 2008: Dominant Themes
Health Politics
Different communication strategies used by the
Portuguese Health Ministry
• Health Minister Correia de Campos (until 29.01.08)
„The steward‟ (van Ruler, 2003)
Constant presence in the media, through direct
contact with journalists
• Health Minister Ana Jorge (from 01.02.08
onwards)
„The facilitator‟ (van Ruler, 2003)
Presence in the media through indirect contact
(public relations, events…)

14. 2009: Dominant Themes
2009/ THEMES
Influenza A
• 655 news articles
• Half of the news is on „Risk/Alarm situations‟
and „General Overviews‟
• High media coverage
• December/ 69 deaths by Influenza A in Portugal
• A media pandemics

15. 2010: Dominant Themes
• Various Themes
• Diversity of topics is low
General
Overview
Oncology
services
Health
Economics

16. 2008 to 2010: Diseases
236 news texts
• 1/3 of news articles • Cancer
is about diseases 671 news texts
• Influenza A
110 news texts
• HIV-aids
• Diseases media pay
68 news texts
more attention to • Ophtalmological diseases
61 news texts
• Obesity
55 news texts
• Transplants
38 news texts
• Diabetes
36 news texts
• Mental diseases

17. 2008 to 2010: Diseases
2008 2009 2010
• Cancer • Influenza • Cancer
• 81 news A • 78 news
articles • 588 news articles
articles

18. 2008 to 2010: Cancer in the news
• Priority given to Research topics
• News genre is the most used one
• „Direct‟ and „straight forward‟ tone

19. 2008 to 2010: News sources
Sources Specialized
Sources Status
Characteristics Sources
Identified Oficial Doctors
Specialized
Male and Researchers
institutional
National

20. 2008 to 2010: Place of the news
• National news
• When they don‟t refer to a particular place
within „National‟:
- No place
- News depends on the newsrooms location
• International news:
- Mostly european and american continents
- Southern hemisphere is invisible

21. 2008 to 2010: News Genre
1st • News
2nd • Report
3rd • Interview

22. 2008 to 2010: Problems
a) Texts contain errors of precision
(health/science topics)
b) Ambiguous titles
c) Sources identification often incomplete
d) Place of news often non-existent
e) News articles often give little information

23. 2008 to 2010: Conclusions
On health news coverage in Portugal:
1. Predominance of political sources and themes
2. Interest in risk and alarm themes
3. Most highlighted disease is cancer
4. News tone is usually positive
5. Preference for organized news sources
6. Some silent margins: women, patients and their
families, common citizen

24. Thank you
Felisbela Lopes, felisbela@ics.uminho.pt
Teresa Ruão, truao@ics.uminho.pt
Sandra Marinho, marinho@ics.uminho.pt
Rita Araújo, rita.manso.araujo@gmail.com