News Media Framing and Risk Communication: A Content Analysis of British Columbia’s 2014 Measles Outbreak

Abstract

Given their agenda setting function, the news media can play an important role in framing our understanding of health issues. Immunization in particular is considered a public health success story. Nonetheless, growing hesitancy towards immunization for a variety of reasons has resulted in outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases (VPD) across North America. Using British Columbia’s 400-case measles outbreak in 2014, the present research employs a mixed method content analysis to examine news media framing of the outbreak in the Vancouver Sun and The Vancouver Province between March 1st-May 24th 2014. Key quantitative findings from the present study suggest that the dominant attribution of blame for the measles outbreak was religion (41%), medical/science sources were overwhelmingly relied upon in the coverage (80%), a greater degree of diligence was taken to avoid false balance, and finally there was a general lack of mobilizing information provided in the coverage. Key findings from the qualitative analysis suggest that while mandatory vaccination policies were seen as a positive solution to outbreaks, they could have polarizing implications. Thus, this study supports prior research calling for a national immunization registry. The present research concludes by presenting risk communication suggestions for public health authorities and the media.