Health communication

Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »

Aim and research questions

Why it is important to examine the exercise phenomenon in morning news media, the aim of the study and the research questions that will be answered are presented in this chapter.

Problem approach

One part of the Swedish society is becoming increasingly unhealthy and they exercise less and less, other parts of the society are exercising too much, and some are ineffective in orthorexia, an eating- and exercising disease (Johansson, 2006). According to Castells (1998), the majority of symbolic stimuli on which our brains work with is coming from the media. Society is dependent on receiving news from news journalism, and media shapes the society’s perception of reality and that helps media gain power over the minds of the population (Strömbäck, 2014). Overweight and exercise to much is a fact in today’s society and it is therefore important to try to understand the authors behind such a construction. It is therefore motivated to expose the media to a critical examination if we want to get knowledge of what representations of obesity they provide (Sandberg, 2004). That is why it is important to examine what media’s depiction of exercising is and if it is something negative or positive. Since exercise is a popular and discussed topic in today’s society, it is important to examine how the media frames the phenomenon of exercise. This study will fill some voids that are featured in Morning TV research, and also, the topic exercise and media.

Aim

The aim of the study is to enlighten and enhance the understanding of how the phenomenon of exercising is framed in Swedish morning television, as well as to contribute to the theorization of media’s representation of exercise.

Research question

• How are different linguistic choices used to frame exercising and a healthy lifestyle in media?
• How is legitimization of exercise presented?
• Are there any differences in the presentation of exercising between Public service and commercial television, if so, how?

Previous research

In this chapter the fields of research that will be used in this study will be presented. It is two head fields that will be in focus, health communication and morning television journalism, followed by exercise in media, and public service and commercial television.

 Health communication

Health communication is a, from a media perspective, fairly unexplored area and the focus has been on appearance fixation. Exercising and health in the television context is yet another relatively unexplored area (Sandberg, 2005). On the other hand, media is a major information area in terms of health and exercising, especially the internet, which is a major source of information. Internet is the platform where the individual herself takes the initiative to find the information she is looking for. There are also health campaigns targeting different target groups to make them change their lifestyle. In order to influence the recipients and make them want to change their lives, the message should contain something that creates emotional impressions and something that gives specific structures how to go through the changes (Thompson, 2003). Highest attention is given to information that has personal relevance to the recipient, it is usually such information that leads to reflection and can create a change. Another effective strategy for making people conduct a change in behavior is to combine the experience of ordinary people with, for example, a weight loss with expert statement. By reading and hearing about other people’s experiences, it is easier to believe that you are capable of implementing a change. Health campaigns usually have the greatest effect among those who are already aware, such as those who are already exercising or who are already on a diet. These people are usually seen as target group, and they are usually easier to address their message. A disadvantage of the internet and health communication is that the individual is required to look for information, in addition, there is a lot of information, and it can be difficult to find information that suits you, because everyone has different health needs. It is also possible to see this as an advantage in health communication, that there is so much access to it and that it is too easy to access it (Kostenius & Lindqvist, 2006).

 Exercise and printed media

Magazines about exercise and health were among those magazines that were able to increase their range between 2015 and 2016 in Sweden. The one that increased most increased by 17.2 percent (Dagensmedia, 2016). Most often, these magazines are about lifestyle. They try different exercise forms, diets and exercise clothes and there are many different healthy recipes. Some magazines are also trying to get a balance between all these and they want the readers to get inspiration for active choices and healthy choices. But on both « regular » newspapers, or “regular” channels, there are elements of different exercise options. Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest evening newspaper, has its own weight club where you can get help counting calories and losing weight (Aftonbladet, 2016). They also usually have several elements about « getting in shape in X number of weeks » or « this is how you get sugar free » (Viktklubben, 2018).
As mentioned in section 4.1, there is a lot of studies and research on the growth of the exercise culture (Sandberg, 2005 ; Thompson, 2003). Most studies focus on health magazine where masculinity, femininity and the ideal body have been studied. Getting information about health from media is something that still remains, although studies show that the population really has greater confidence in health practitioners and authorities (Sandberg, 2004). Media are important trendsetters in terms of health and exercising, and much of what they write affects the readers’ attitudes and actions (Sandberg, 2005). Health information has increased, which makes it easier to find answers to their questions, but it also means that all information is not correct. Media are required to quickly deliver news and it may have consequences for the credibility of the content (Strömbäck, 2009). This can lead to the fact that incorrect information can be published, and it makes it difficult for readers to know what is correct and what is incorrect (Sandberg, 2005). Hirdman (2002) analyzed the images published in the magazine Veckorevyn, Sweden´s largest magazine for young girls. What has been investigated is sexuality and gender. The result from the study is the same results as Sandberg (2005), that the focus is rather on the appearance and not the health itself, the most important thing is to be beautiful, not to have a good health (Hirdman, 2002).

Exercise and TV

The individual can be influenced by, among other things, information campaigns through the television as it can create a positive change and prevent negative behaviors. Multiple methods of dissemination may be used if health campaigns are part of broader social marketing programs. Campaigns can also help to change laws and regulations as they can create a community discussion and it can lead to politicians making new decisions that concern, in this case, the health. An example may be a campaign that will allow smokers to quit smoking because of the harm it gives to non-smokers. The campaign may not get smokers to quit smoking, but it may increase a public support for a new policy that limits smoking at specific locations, which may have the secondary effect of persuading smokers to quit (Wakefield, Loken & Hornik, 2010). Meis, Kremers and Bouman (2012) also believe that the television can help create new positive behaviors. They have studied an exercise program on television in the Netherlands that the Dutch government decided to introduce to make people exercise more. The result from the study shows that people who were already exercising began to do it more, even those who looked often began to exercise more in their everyday life. The result also shows that it was most women who were watching the program, which led to the fact that most women actually changed their behavior. However, perhaps the program did not reach those who really needed it most, as it was found out that those who usually looked at the show, was exercising more than average, had lower BMI, and were higher educated than those who did not see the program often (Meis, Kremers & Bouman, 2012).
In Sweden, exercising on television is going back to 1973 when « Träna med TV » (Exercise with the TV) had premiere. Before, in the 30’s and 40’s, the Swedish people would be inspired by the radio. When the TV came to Sweden, the population became more sedentary, not only because of the TV, but also because more and more people got sedentary jobs and more cars were driving. “Exercise with the TV” would make the Swedish people to « get more resilient and leaner » over a 16-week period. The program was built up of simple movements that would fit as wide target group as possible, the program’s goal was also to break the populations bad eating habits and make them become healthier. In the 1970s, jogging hade a big impact in Sweden, which was noted on the television programs and in the 1980s came the “Jymping”, inspired by American aerobics. This exercising phenomenon became very popular and was often shown on TV. The workout program continued into the 1990s and there were a lot of new forms of exercising, such as spinning and weight lifting. Through the years, there was a common denominator who remained in the exercise programs, and it was exercise- and dietary advice. Program that only focuses on exercise is not that common today, instead there are inspirational workouts in other programs, such as morning TV (SVT, 2018b).

Exercise and social media

Extensive research on exercising and social media have been conducted over the past years. The focus in these studies has been on how the followers get influenced by exercising and health posts that people are sharing on their social media. Sharing exercising and different kind of diets on social media can be both negative and positive for their followers. Aral and Nicolaides (2016) surveyed 1.1 million people worldwide who used a special app to measure their running exercise and then they shared their results with their friends on social media. The research showed that exercise is socially contagious and that it is influence varies with the relative activity of and gender relations between friends. Less active runners affect more active runners and both men and women affect men, while only women affect other women. Studies show that social media affects the followers and depending on the lifestyle, it can be negative and positive (Aral & Nicolaides, 2016)
Zhang, Brackbill, Yang and Centola (2015) made a 13-weeks study at a university in the United States. The participants were allowed to follow a social media-based exercise program where they anonymously shared which workout they were going to attend, and they could write a daily journal of their class completion. The outcome of the study shows that the participants that were able to see which classes their anonymous contacts participated in at the gym and how many classes they participated in, developed a belief in the community and gained greater involvement in regular exercise. Unlike previous studies, the participants in this study could not communicate in any way, yet the researcher saw a big difference between those who participated in the website and shared their activities with those who were not. Ghaznavi and Taylor (2015) did a study where they randomly collected 300 images from Pinterest and Twitter. The chosen images were published under the hashtag « thinspiration » and « thinspo ». The researchers argue that these images induce an increased unhealthy self-image and a beauty standard that is not healthy. The content of these tags was mainly images of female bodies, which had a great impact on their audience. One conclusion that could be taken is that in combination with images where women’s bodies are objectivized, this exposure indicates increased sexual likelihood among women who can contribute to the mental health risks associated with such exposure, in accordance with the theory.

1. Introduction
2. Background
2.1 Nyhetsmorgon
2.1.1 TV 4
2.2 Morgonstudion
2.2.1 SVT
2.3 Exercise
3. Aim and research questions
3.1 Problem approach
3.2 Aim
3.3 Research question
4. Previous research
4.1 Health communication
4.2 Exercise and printed media
4.3 Exercise and TV
4.4 Exercise and social media
4.5 Morning television journalism
4.6 Comparing public service (SVT) with commercial television (TV4)
4.7 My research gap
5. Theoretical frame and concepts
5.1 Framing theory
5.1.1 Representation
5.2 Legitimization
5.2.1 Healthism
5.3 Public service and commercial television
6. Method
6.1 Qualitative method
6.2 Material
6.3 Selection method
6.4 Reliability and validity
6.5 Analysis method
6.5.1 Lexical choices
6.6 Definition
6.7 Method reflection and criticism
7. Analysis
7.1 Story
7.2 Target Group
7.3 Environment
7.4 Result summary
7.4.1 How are different linguistic choices used to frame exercising and a healthy lifestyle in media?
7.4.2 How is legitimization of exercise presented?
7.4.3 Are there any differences in the presentation of exercising between public service and commercial television?
8. Conclusion
8.1 Discussion
8.2 Conclusion
8.3 Further Study
References
GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT