Mass media plays an important role in the communication industry. It entertains, educates, changes believes, attitudes, behavior and achieving financial gain. It was suggested that media influences human’s behavior under coinciding and specific conditions. Findings obtained after a research by Happer and Philo. 2016, on the role of news on climate changes and how it has shaped the opinions and beliefs of the audiences. Esses and Medianu 2013, it is evident that from the way media portrays immigrants and refugees as enemies at the gates, is the same way the community is viewing and treating them.
Media has a lot of power. It can force, persuade, manipulate, coerce, induce and authoritative its audience. Mass media is able to do all the above because it is a large corporation, its ownership is by a few, it produces news that are integrated with all aspects of our lives, the media is able to get/ access information that is inaccessible to the population in general, the population has a believe that the information given by it is accurate and credible, mass media has government support and lastly it has political influence.
When something is labeled as news the general society takes it as being real and factual. This truth is mostly conveyed with images to support it. Media constructs the meaning of information and makes it more appealing and news worthy. The media determines whether an issue is a social problem or not. It has shaped the problem definition in the public eyes. This has been done through either making the issues so sensitive or extensive coverage of the issue. The media also present a certain aspect of an issue aiming at evoking a particular response. Media presents news that seems worth of attention. The news-worthy.
As mentioned earlier visual information has a large impact on our response. What ones sees seems to have more truth in than what he or she has been told by others. Images passes unspoken information. It has a huge influence on populations’ way of thinking, behavior, cultures and opinions. This can also mean that it has a large effect/ influence in the health sector. A research done in Austria showed that 99% of its population owns a TV set, 72% of the Australian households owns computers and 72% of this households has access to internet and over 70% owned smart phones. This shows that Australians community access mass media and have influenced their living and cultures.
In the health sector it is important for the health care professional to learn about mass media so as to understand how media shapes the knowledge of health and illness in the community and also critically explore and analyze the influence of media on our own understanding of health and illnesses. Health affects us all, each person has their own experiences of illness. Health and illness is highly regarded. That’s why news on health are never taken for granted. Issues about health and illness have been integrated in entertainment.
There are movies that teaches medical staffs. Health information has been narrowed to a point that one does not need to attend medical school to have the knowledge they learn it through media. This has raised questions. Is this knowledge real and all truth? Is there a time that we get mislead? As mentioned earlier the media makes its ‘news’ attractive and newsworthy by agenda setting. It portrays most of the health issues as medical problems rather than social problems. For example, when it comes to live styles associated diseases: diabetes, obesity, hypertension and some cancers. It shows advocacy to treatment and curative measures other than primary care which is prevention. This interferers with the health care professionals’ messages of prevention. No one listens to them. Media focusses on quick fixes and technology in health sector other than spreading prevention.
They also portray illnesses to be as a result of individual experiences. Diseases are portrayed as moral and/or psychological weakness. They assign the individual with the responsibility of either being sick or healthy. For example those who are HIV positive are portrayed as being promiscuous, those who get liver cancer with history of alcoholism are labeled to have caused it to themselves, and those who get lung cancers with history of smoking are labeled to their own cause of death. Why does the media present its news like this when it can relate the root of all these problems with the production of these drugs and not the consumption? It can make information appear more serious and depict each one of them as being on the risk. The media has also shaped the idea of what a healthy body looks like. Who is healthy and who is not. In most cases especially in women the slender ones are considered to be the healthy ones. Dean, 1994, explains that media has exploited the meaning of what beauty is, youth, sexual attractiveness is. It has also come up with ways to transform the objects/ bodies to be in desirable states.
In the health care and cultural safe care, media has influenced the way the population views health and illness. Health definition by World Health Organization (WHO), 1948, it is not only the absence of the disease but it’s ones well-being of the physical, mental and the social state. The National Aboriginal Health Strategy, 1989, describes health as the above description but to the definition it adds that it is not only the physical well-being but it involves the cultural, emotional and social well-being of a society. Harry and Septien, 1995, described health as holistic not in terms of the whole body but in terms of spiritual, physical, mental, environmental, ideological, political, economic and social well-being.
Health care on the other hand is the improvement and maintenance of the health through three ways. Primary care is achieved through prevention of illnesses, secondary is achieved through treatment/curative while tertiary is mostly for the chronic illnesses whereby all the care they receive is usually aimed at making their life more comfortable for example by reducing their symptoms, terminal stages of cancer the patients are in severe pain and so they are given medications to relieve them.
What is cultural safe care? For us to understand what it is, one must understand what cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity is. Cultural awareness is the ability to be able to know and acknowledge that there are different cultures, believes, norms in different societies. Cultural sensitivity is achieved through cultural awareness, one is able to acknowledge the differences and similarities in different cultures and further on, he or she does not judge them as being right or wrong or positive or negative or better or worse. Culture safe care is now achieved through culture sensitivity, Ramsden, 2002, defined it as the outcome of the general and nursing and midwifery education that is enabling the safe service to be defined by the recipients of the care. This is achieved when care meets the receiver’s cultural needs.
Does the media has an influence or/and impact on cultural safe care? Yes it does. Both the patient and the practitioner have a voice. If the professional harasses/ gives poor services to his/her patient because of the cultural difference, age , gender, social class, occupation group, generation, ethnicity or a combination of the above the he or she can be taken to court and jailed. Ones the media gets hold of such information that will be the end of the professional. From this it is evident that cultural safe care is more of health care providers as they are the ones primarily expected to establish trust while the patient on the other hand judges whether the services he or she received were safe.
For one to deliver culture safe care one has to be able to reflect on their own practice. Be able to define what a disease is to them, understand patient’s definition, their cultural identities. The media has a lot of influence on this. For example in a case that a sex worker comes in the hospital with complaints of vaginal discharge, the first diagnosis the provider will arrive to will be STIs because the media portrays them as prostitutes, people who don’t take care or value their bodies. The media has a role in the way they depict the health care providers. They are termed as magicians’ miracle workers, this shows that the society believes that a patient is beneath a professional. This prevent the culture safe care to be achieved as the professionals fails to listen to the patient while the patient does everything he or she is told without question, although a few of the patients questions there care nowadays.
Enhancement of patient – practitioner engagement. Due to the mass media medicine is understandable to many. Most of the patients understands a procedure being done to them. They understand the ‘coded’ medical language. This has made it so easy to practice cultural safe care, as the patient understands what is being done and why. The media has made it known that all human are equal and should be treated as such, humanitarian right. With this practitioners are able to give equal rights to everyone whether rich or poor, male or female, same ethnicity or not. From the above media has largely contributed in delivery of culture safe care.
Disabled indigenous people ‘falling through the cracks,’ Mick Gooda says. These was news on ABC News presented by Nicolas Perpitch in 12th April 2015 which was latter revisited by The World Today by Bridget Brennam on 4th December 2015. The News was in both broadcast and print media in highly placed stations and newspapers. The person who spoke this was the social Justice Commissioner. The informant and the publication makes the issue seem serious, moral panic. It captures the attention of the society. It targets all the Australians. The information is framed. It was announced during the annual social justice and native report. The role of the above information was to make create awareness that the disabled indigenous people have been left out. The title is pictorial, figurative and imaginative. Disabled falling through a crack. There is a whole with a crack where they fall. It’s like a selection or a sieve that filters and the unwanted falls through. It shows the disabled are not regarded. There worth is not seen.
The meaning of disability in the society is usually the physical disability, and that is what the social justice commissioner, Mick Gooda, addresses. This is wrong as disability occurs in so many forms. Can be mentally disabled. Ngarrinjer a woman from South Australia who is on a wheelchair says, ‘disability is not a word and no one’s ever been labelled as a person with a disability.” She continues to say that the society does not understand characteristics of disabilities. For example people with mental issues, cerebral palsy, and autism. Society has never seen it as a disability. Before the release of this information the society should have been taught on what disability. They should also be assured on treatment and help when they come forward as so many are scared of that their children will be taken away.
Following what the community believes and sees right, the disabled are the ones with physical anomalies/ abnormalities. The information given by the social justice commissioner was right as it’s true, disability is not forefront, in most peoples’ mind. The society and the health sector has forgotten the disabled. Cultural safe care was earlier defined as giving equal/ right treatment to all the patients regardless the type of illness, from this article it’s clear that this is not practiced as it is quoted that, “the health sector is busy tackling the most import work around health and so the issue on disabled fall through the gaps.’ The article shows some biasness as it focuses on disability of the indigenous people, so the question arises, are there no other disabled people in the community who are not from the indigenous community? Are they also getting lost?
Reports compares loneliness to obesity, smoking. This was a piece of news on ABC News on Thursday April 14, 2016. It was presented by Tom nightingale. The news was in both the broadcast and the print form. The informant was commissioner for senior Victorians and the government state. From the title of the article it is attention seeking as obesity and smoking are critical problems in the society. It targets the aged as loneliness is higher in retired persons, the over 50s. The news coming from the government makes it appealing and believable to the community.
The aged community in the retirement houses is watch television. They never chat. This is evident that they get lonely. Research shows that over 100,000 aged persons who are over 60 are chronically isolated. The government together with the council of the aged, came up with the solution that getting elderly or senior population online will cub this and probably reduce the mortality.
This is refuted by an elderly man in one of the retirement houses as he claims that internet is not the solution, as one cannot detect the other persons tone, mood or attitude. He says the traditional mode is still the best. He says through an email you will not detect tension unless the person communicates it through writing unlike in a phone call. This information improves culture safe care as it shows the health care provider that communicating and getting the elderly patient to participate in his or her own treatment are important so as to achieve satisfaction of their needs.
From the above essay we were able to understand what media was, its roles, its power. The influence of media on health and illness. What culture safe care is? How it is enhanced and how it is influenced by the media. How news is passed in media, the way it is passed, by which channel and by who? Matter a lot.it. From the essay it so clear that the believes and opinions on the society are greatly influenced by the media and that media has played a big role in improving and enhancing culture safe care by teaching equality and humanization.
References
Willis, K., Elmer, S., 2011, Society, culture and health, introduction to sociology for nurses, Vol 2 pg. 45-65
Germov, J., Freij, M., 2013, media and health: moral panics, miracles, and medicalization, introduction to health sociology, Vol 5, pg. 337-355
Happer, C., Philo, G., 2016, New approaches to understanding the role of the news media in formation of public attitudes and behaviors, European communication, vol 31(2), pg. 136-151
Possamai, A., Turner, B., Roose, J., 2013. Defining the conversation about sharia: Representations in Australian newspaper, Current Sociology, vol 61, pg. 626-645
Esses, V., Medianum, S., 2013. Uncertainty, threat and the role of the media in promoting the dehumanization of immigrants and refugees, Journal of Social Issues, vol 69(3), pg. 518-536
Ebert, J., Kline, K., 2014. The role of media and the internet on vaccine adverse event report, a case study on HPV, Journal of Adolescent Health, vol 54, pg. 289-295
Janneh, G., Donovan, R., 2008. Changing perception of cancer risk: the role of media, Medical Journal of Australia, vol 188, pg. 735
Feely, T., Vincent, D., 2007. How organ donation is represented in the newspaper articles, Health communication, by Taylor and Francis
Niederkrotenthaler, T., Reidenberg, D., 2014. Increasing help seeking and referrals for individuals at risk of suicide by decreasing stigma: the role of mass media, American journal, vol 47, pg. 5235-5243
Sammer, C., Lykens, K., 2010. What is patient safety? A journal of nursing, Wiley online library
Polaschek, N., 2007. Cultural safety: a new concept in nursing people of different ethnicities, Journal of advanced Nursing, Wiley online library
Leininger, C., McFarland, 2006. Cultural care diversity and universality: A worldwide nursing theory,
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