Challenges in Covering Cancer Disparities: A Study of Journalists

描述(申请人提供)：新闻媒体不仅是公众信息的重要来源，也影响着他们对重要和应该关注的话题的看法和看法。媒体为社区成员制定问题和制定公共议程的能力在很大程度上受到新闻职业惯例和社区领导人和社区活动家团体的影响。媒体框架反过来又影响观众对问题的概念和他们感知问题的方式。尽管有大量关于记者如何制作新闻的工作，但当涉及到健康差距时，仍存在几个研究差距：1.记者如何看待健康差距和癌症控制问题，以及他们对该问题的重视程度？2.记者在新闻工作中采取的程序是什么，使当地的健康差距得到更突出的报道和适当的框架？3.内部(对媒体组织)和外部(当地社区背景和构成)因素对围绕健康差距和癌症控制的新闻框架的确定有什么影响？4.少数民族媒体的媒体人员对癌症差异问题的看法与主流媒体不同吗？在当前的研究提案中，这些问题将通过对来自媒体的20名记者的深入重点采访来解决，这些媒体针对波士顿、劳伦斯和伍斯特这三个社区的多数群体和少数群体，这三个社区是NCI资助的社区网络项目马萨诸塞州通过教育、研究和培训消除癌症差距的社区网络的重点。这一试点项目的结果将用于：(A)指导媒体和传播宣传工作；(B)制定R01提案，研究记者如何报道健康差距；(C)与社区团体和记者一起制定干预措施，宣传在社区议程中解决健康差距问题的重要性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): News media are not only an important source of information for the public but also influence their opinions and views about topics that are important and that should be attended to. The ability of media to frame the issues for community members and set public agenda is influenced to a large extent by journalistic occupational routines and community leaders and community activist groups. Media frames, in turn influence, audience conception of the issues and the way they perceive them. Despite a body of work on how journalists produce news, several research gaps exist when it comes to health disparities: 1. How do journalists perceive the issue of health disparities and cancer control and what levels of importance do they assign that issue? 2. What are the processes journalists adopt in their news work that allows local health disparities to be covered more prominently and framed appropriately? 3. What internal (to the media organizations) and external (local community context and composition) factors influence the determination of news frames around health disparities and cancer control? 4. Do media personnel from ethnic media perceive the issue of cancer disparities differently from mainstream media? These questions will be addressed in the current research proposal through in-depth focused interviews with 20 journalists from media targeting majority as well as minority groups in three communities that are the focus of NCI-funded Community Networks project Massachusetts Community Networks to Eliminate Cancer Disparities through Education, Research and Training (MASS CONECT): Boston, Lawrence and Worcester. The findings from this pilot project will be used to (a) guide the work of the media and communications outreach core of MASS CONECT, (b) develop a R01 proposal to study how journalists cover health disparities and (c) develop interventions with community groups and journalists to promote the importance of addressing health disparities in the community agenda.