Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the Print News Media - Research Paper Example

QUALITATIVE REVIEW: STDs in the Print News Media By: Hercules Vogiatzidakis Introduction In the old days when a sexually transmitted disease was more popularly known as VD or venereal disease and a cure was yet to be found, it was already a killer disease, silent but efficient. History is in fact replete with stories of famous men who actually succumbed from the disease but whose death was attributed to other less embarrassing causes. Then as now, STD is a taboo subject because of the social stigma attached to it. With the discovery of antibiotics, the so-called wonder drug, STD has remained the silent and efficient killer that it was because of this general attitude of nonchalance and lack of concern which deter infected people from coming out to seek early treatment. Based on a 1997 study by the United States Institute of Medicine, the US has the highest rate of STDs other than HIV among industrialized countries. "Approximately 18.9 million new cases of STDs occur each year in the US. More than half of all people will be infected with an STD at some point in their lifetime." (ASHA) These runaway figures on STD incidence, counting out HIV/AIDS cases, in the US demonstrate the magnitude of the problem and call attention to the need for the disease to be treated as a serious public health menace. The alarming STD problem in the US is brought about by a combination of factors, the primary one being that people are not knowledgeable about the disease - its causes and effects, modes of transfer, dangers and risks. This shows in the lifestyle of most Americans and their condescending attitude toward premarital sex, multiple sex partners, casual and unprotected sex. Such practices erode the moral fabric of American society and, on the health implications of STDs, deprive this country of a healthy and robust citizenry. On the need to address the perceived lack of awareness of Americans on STD, it is agreed that media is a potent medium for that purpose. But the question is, does American media recognize the extent of the problem and the role it is being called upon to play Review of Related Media The media in modern times has served as the primary means people use to gain insight into the various issues that bedevil American society. Media feed people information about current issues ranging from politics, global affairs, economics, and public health and is the information mix with the most extensive reach. The influence of media in people's lives is so vast it can sway public perception and opinion towards one side (Stoughton, 1994). Thus media can promote awareness of important issues such as STDs just as easily as it can prompt awareness regarding violence. This paper will discuss the role of one form of media, newspapers, in increasing public knowledge and awareness of STDs. News articles published in the nationally-circulated newspapers that tackle the issue of STDs will be analyzed to determine the ways in which the issue is presented and discussed. The primary objective is to determine how the print news media informs the public about sexually transmitted diseases. Four daily newspapers representing American mainstream media are herein presented for their views and editorial policies on the subject of STD: the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald. The four newspapers enjoy the widest circulation and readership and carry the potential to sway not only public opinion but also government policies. Methods In this section, past studies will be discussed to determine the scope and intensity of coverage that the print news media devote to the subject of STD. Also, news articles from the nationally circulated newspapers mentioned above will be analyzed to ascertain whether STD is given the ample and substantive news reporting that it deserves. Furthermore, this section will discuss the manner in which the print new media reports STDs and whether such kind of reporting contributes significantly to the much-needed effort of increasing public awareness on the problem A study conducted by Davidson and Wallack (2004) involved a content analysis of articles from the leading American newspapers to determine the type of news coverage print media outlets give to the issue of STDs. The study found that less that one-fourth of the articles the newspapers ran on STDs contained data on the causes, consequences, prevention, signs, or symptoms, screening, transmission, treatment, trends or rates of increase (2004). For the most part, the articles only presented statistical information about STDs. Davidson & Wallack (2004) observed that statistical information may be all that journalists perceive as newsworthy about STDs, since journalists admit that they are pushed to write about STDs once given new or unusual information (i.e., statistics), or information which is dramatic in nature (i.e., consequences). Needless to say, such a reportorial slant in the coverage of STDs does not raise people's awareness of the problem one bit. This kind of news slant informs but does not educate. What the situation needs are news reports that delve into the causes, risks and all the important aspects of the issue. Statistical data may help prove that the problem is indeed a major social and public health issue but without the bottom-line concerns it could not move the public out of their general attitude of apathy and indifference. In another study the Henry Kaiser Foundation in 1997 found that there is little substance and meaningful discourse in the coverage of issues related to sex by the women's, men's and teen magazines in the US. These glossies emphasize different sexual health topics based on the perceived interests of their specialized readers. The women's magazines deal primarily with topics related to pregnancy and assign little coverage to STDs, while the issue of STDs occupies most of the pages in men's magazines no doubt because of the notion that men exhibit more sexual indiscretions than women and are therefore more susceptible to the disease. As for teen magazines, according to the Foundation, STDs are taken up mostly to warn teenagers of the dire consequences of engaging too soon in sexual activity, such as unwanted pregnancy. In effect, very little substantive and meaningful coverage is given to STDs by these specialized magazines which are part of mainstream media in the US. Thus, the foundation's study suggested that these periodicals place more in-depth articles on the issue of STD. Analysis The Chicago Tribune, in an article titled "Sex Education should be about more than AIDS" by Dawn Turner Trice, cited the need for students to face the STD menace squarely, describing it as dangerous as AIDS. "Other STDs can ravage the body if not treated, disfigure genitals and cause infertility and a host of other health problems." To jolt its readers, the article cited a report from the state's Department of Public Health that raised the alarm on the unusual increase in the incidence of chlamydia, a new STD strain: a 59 per cent increase between 1994 and 2004 for 15 to19 years-old teeners, a 142 per cent increase for 20-24-year-olds. Other STD cases said to have been treated in the state during the period were trichomoniasis in a 13-year-old girl and gonorhea in a 15-year-old boy. The Tribune story with the byline Dawn Turner Trice then gave a thumb-up gesture to the opening in the state of a health clinic that provides free diagnosis and treatment of STDs on the spot. It also gives counseling on safer sex practices, including ways to encourage partners to come in for testing and to use latex condoms - the best method of protection against STDs. At the clinic, patients are shown a slide show of body parts mangled by untreated STDs which, the newspaper article advised, should be required reading for any high school student who thinks he or she is indestructible. As for the LA Times, it ran a Feb. 25, 2006 feature ("HIV's Hidden Victims" by Anna Gorman) deploring the fact that Americans stricken by HIV, the most fearful form of STD, "keep the disease a secret even from their families." In our culture, the report said, "this is like a taboo disease and even if you have it, you don't talk about it." . On the part of the Miami Herald, the newspaper on two successive days ran articles about STD. On March 25, 2006, it took up the phenomenon of senior citizens becoming sexually active in the article "Sex After 60: Just do it" by Rachel Breitman. As adults stay healthy longer and surgery and drugs improve sexual drive and performance, the risk of STD has extended to seniors, which make up a sizable portion of the American population. The following day, the same newspaper came up with an opinion column titled "Parents, Don't Dodge Talk about Sex." After reporting that 3 million teens in the US get an STD every year, the column by Meline Kevorkian proposed that parents "respond to the needs and curiosity level of their children, not just rely on the other purveyors of sexual messages - TV, radio, the Internet, even malls." In short, children must be taught at home that unwanted pregnancies, STDs, some of which are fatal, and the emotional feelings and involvement that accompany sex can have life-changing consequences. Observations It is worth mentioning that most of the above newspaper articles about STDs were written by women, the distaff side that traditionally handles the leisure and lighter sections of newspapers. This speaks volumes about the attitude and set of priorities of the American press regarding the problem of STD. Also, the STD-related articles are rarely given page-one treatment and relegated to less conspicuous pages of the newspaper. Most important, not one of the more influential news organizations in the US demonstrates a desire and willingness to undertake a sustaining and continuing campaign to educate the public on the perils of STD. What we seem to have here is a journalistic knee-jerk reaction to STD cases that come up from health clinics and treatment centers from time to time. The Chicago Tribune story, for example, was obviously spurred by an update from the Illinois Department of Public Health on a worrisome increase in STD cases in the state. Another spur-of-the-moment item was the Miami Herald piece on senior citizens which used as news peg a Center for Disease Control and Prevention report that STD cases among Americans over 50 have quintupled since 1995. With this apparent mindset in the print media, it is not news when people sleep around, having one-night stands or engaging in casual, unprotected sex. This should not be the case, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh III observed in his book "The Way Things Ought To Be" published sometime ago. "There have always been consequences to having sex. Always. Now, however, some of these consequences are severe: debilitating venereal diseases and AIDS. It is that simple." Such scare stories should be pounded into the head of every American, but the print media seems loathe to do it on a vigorous, continuing basis. Obviously, the print media is wary of taking up the call for STD prevention as a personal crusade for fear of being accused of engaging in cause-oriented journalism. The long-held doctrine in journalism is that the media's function is only to report events in as objective a manner as possible, not to pick up causes. Some media organizations in the past tried to run against this tenet and paid dearly for it. Time magazine, for example, is said to have suffered a circulation drop on two occasions because of this. Once, when its management announced that the news magazine was no longer going to just report the news but would "interpret" it. The other time was when the news magazine declared that it was enlisting in the environmental movement. Environmental issues merit as much newspaper space and attention as the STD problem, both not given the urgency that they deserve. The thinking appears to be that environmental and STD problems are not breaking stories and can wait the full editorial treatment warranted by other burning issues of the day such as politics and crime. Environmental concerns such as global warming may be far into the future but the havoc being wrought by STD is happening here and now. Results The evidence shows that nobody in the print media cares that much about STD and if anybody does, it does not show. This confirms the view that despite the problem caused by STDs throughout the world, people carry on as if nothing is happening. For the most part, the STD control strategy in the US and elsewhere remains at best unstructured, without determination and clear directions. The lack of substantive coverage in media outfits is confirmed by various studies. Lowry and Towles (1989) mentioned that although popular forms of media are filled with depictions of sexuality, very little is shown to discuss the potential risks of sexual activity including STDs. This result supports the findings of the two studies discussed earlier. Heart-tugging newspaper articles on the plight of STD sufferers are few and far between and on the rare occasions that they see print, they are invariably edged out by breaking stories about politics, corruption, terrorism, wars and street violence. It will be the day when newspapers banner a story about STDs. It has been argued that putting out newspapers is a business, not a public service. To stay in business and run profitably, therefore, they have to please their own customers, their readers. So they have to highlight and play up politics, corruption, terrorism, wars and street violence which are the topics newspaper readers go gaga over. In that sense, a reordering of priorities and change in orientation are called for not only among media practitioners but also the public. Conclusions Looking at articles from newspapers that discuss the topic of sexually transmitted diseases will help determine whether ample news coverage is given to the topic. In one article in the New York Times, the official national rates of STDs in the United States were reported. Since the article dealt with the publishing of reports on the status of STDs in the country by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it contained mostly statistical information. However, there were certain lines that discussed the possible consequences of STDs such as pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility among women and difficulty urinating among men (Altman, 2005). In general, the article provided evidence to support the impending problem posed by the rising rates of STDs. However, it failed to discuss information that the public may use in order to increase their awareness on the topic. In another news article from USA Today, a newly discovered rare strain of the STD Chlamydia was reported. The article concentrated on reporting the slow spread of the said strain of STD in the country. However, it failed to elaborate on the possible ways by which such strain may be contracted and on the ways that one can prevent such from occurring. Although it discussed the symptoms of the new strain, it provided no information as to the causes and effects of the new strain. It only mentioned that acquiring such disease was more common for gay and bi-sexual men. In Nick Madigan's article in the New York Times (2004), he reported on the discovery of a new HIV infection in the sex-film industry. This article contained little, if any, substantial information on the topic of HIV or STDs. The basic purpose of the article was to entertain the reader. It was not substantive reporting and lacked any of the necessary information for it to be considered significant. An analysis of the journal articles previous studied only proves that substantial and insightful reporting about STDs is lacking in the print media. Although numerous articles have been written about STDs, there is only a handful that can significantly increase public awareness on the problem at hand. The academic community needs to look into the apparent reluctance of media outfits to take up worthy causes such as the fight against STD to determine whether such an attitude is justified or not in the face of a problem that gets worse every minute, the social magnitude of. the disease getting out of bounds by the hour. As things stand, the public has to rely on pamphlets put out by government agencies and cause-oriented organizations for valuable information about STDs. Another non-governmental organization that shows proper commitment and concern on the problem of STD is the World Health Organization (WHO), which distributes periodic reports on the progress of the fight against STDs, including HIV/AIDS. WHO reports on STDs discuss both the global picture and the country-to-country situation and do it in a comprehensive and analytical manner found lacking in newspapers. Unfortunately the WHO information campaign does not reach as wide an audience as newspapers do. These WHO reports are wonderful news pegs for American journalists to write about the STD problem, to which they can add their own investigations from their own backyard. The reporters, especially those covering health and education, need to include STD diagnostic and treatment clinics in their regular beats. As it were, journalists appear to rely on press handouts from health authorities and take up the subject only when there is some alarming data in the said handouts. What we would like to see is mainstream media running with stories on STDs and blasting these all over the front pages and in editorials. If it's not possible to the give this particular issue the same size of fonts as, say, a terrorist attack on American soil or the discovery of massive graft in government, it should at least get a more regular coverage in terms of frequency. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Altman, Lawrence. "Officials Report Mixed Picture on S.T.D. Rates." New York Times, 9 Nov. 2005, Retrieved 1 Mar. 2006 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09disease.htmlei=5070&en=ad315c4afa2ee040&ex=1141275600&pagewanted=print. 2. American Social Health Association. Sexually Transmitted Diseases. ASHA. 1998. Retrieved 2 Mar. 2006 from: http://www.ashastd.org. 3. Associated Press. "Rare Chlamydia strain infecting gay men." USA Today, 7 Feb. 2006, Retrieved 1 Mar. 2006 from: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-02-07-chlamydia_x.htm. 4.. Breitman, Rachel. "'Just do it' Takes on New Meaning at the Senior Center." Miami Herald, 25 March 2006. 5. Davidson, Anna, & Lawrence Wallack. "A Content Analysis of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the Print News Media." Journal of Health Communications, 2004, Vol. 9: 111-117. 6. Gorman, Anna. "HIV's Hidden Victims." Los Angeles Times, 25 February 2006. Column One. 7. Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Sexual Health Coverage in Women's, Men's, Teen, And Other Specialty Magazines, A Current-Year and Ten-Year Retrospective Content Analysis: A Summary of Findings. 1997 Retrieved Feb. 28, 2006, from http://www.kff.org/. 8. Institute of Medicine. The Hidden Epidemic: Confronting Sexually Transmitted Diseases. 1997. Washington, D.C. 9. Kerorkian, Meline. "Parents Don't Dodge Talk About Sex." Miami Herald, 26 March 2006. 10. Lowry, D. & Towles, D. "Prime Time TV Portrayals of Sex, Contraception and Venereal Diseases." Journalism Quarterly, 1989, 66(2), 347-352. 11. Madigan, Nick. "New H.I.V. Infection Found in Sex-Film Industry." New York Times. 30 Apr. 2004. Retrieved 28 Feb. 2006 from: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.htmlsec=health&res=9506E4DD143DF933A05757C0A9629C8B63&n=Top%2fNews%2fHealth%2fDiseases%2c%20Conditions%2c%20and%20Health%20Topics%2fVenereal%20Diseases. 12. Stoughton, Keri. The Influence of Media. 1994. Retrieved 1 Mar. 2006 from: http://www.teenink.com/Past/1994/4612.html. 13. Trice, Dawn. "Sex Education Should be About More Than AIDS." Chicago Tribune, 5 December 2005. Read More