scholarly journals Commercialising public health during the 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic in Britain

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Alex O’ Hagan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Public Health Information ◽  
Spanish Flu ◽  
Analytical Tools

Purpose This paper aims to use the advertisements of three major brands – Chymol, Formamint and Lifebuoy Soap – to examine how advertisers responded to the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in Great Britain influenza pandemic. It looks particularly at the ways in which marketing strategies changed and how these strategies were enacted in the lexical and semiotic choices (e.g. language, image, colour, typography, texture, materiality, composition and layout) of advertisements. Design/methodology/approach A total of 120 advertisements for the three brands were collected from the British Newspaper Archive and analysed using the theory and analytical tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis. The general themes and semiotic structures of the advertisements were identified, with the aim of deconstructing the meaning potentials of verbal and visual resources used to convey ideas about the pandemic, and how they work to shape public understanding of the products and make them appear as effective and credible. Findings Each brand rapidly changed their marketing strategy in response to the influenza pandemic, using such techniques as testimonials, hyperbole, scaremongering and pseudoscientific claims to persuade consumers that their products offered protection. Whilst these strategies may appear manipulative, they also had the function of fostering reassurance and sympathy amongst the general public in a moment of turmoil, indicating the important role of brands in building consumer trust and promoting a sense of authority in early twentieth-century Britain. Originality/value Exploring the way in which advertisers responded to the 1918‐1919 influenza pandemic reminds us of the challenges of distinguishing legitimate and illegitimate medical advice in a fast-moving pandemic and highlights the need to cast a critical eye to the public health information, particularly when it comes from unofficial sources with vested interests.

scholarly journals The Role of the Public Health Official in Communicating Public Health Information

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S93-S97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Regidor ◽  
Luis de la Fuente ◽  
Juan L. Gutiérrez-Fisac ◽  
Salvador de Mateo ◽  
Cruz Pascual ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Public Health Official ◽  
Health Official ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Information

scholarly journals Julkinen kaivoskeskustelu diskursiivisena välienselvittelynä

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veera Kangaspunta
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Online News ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
Unique Part

The aim of this article is to approach one specific environmental topic and the public debate around this topic from a user-oriented perspective – through online news comments. The article analyses online news and comments sections from three Finnish online newspapers concerning the mining accident of Talvivaara company in November 2012. Discourse and discursive legitimation strategies are used as analytical tools with the focus of critical discourse analysis. The study aims to solve what kind of discourses the public debate contains and how these discourses are connected to certain legitimation strategies. In addition, the article also continues the conceptual deliberation about the concept of the public as a group of people participating in public discussion. The study shows that Talvivaara news and news comments consist four main strategies, authorization, rationalization, moral evaluations and mythopoiesis, used for legitimation, relegitimation and delegitimation. However, the parties differ in the way they utilize these strategies and different discourses. Consequently, online news commenting appears as a unique part of the public debate about the topic, rather than remaining marginal flaming. The users tend to absorb the role of the public as a part of the public showdown about the shared issue.

scholarly journals Public engagement and dialogic accounting through social media during COVID-19 crisis: a missed opportunity?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Landi ◽  
Antonio Costantini ◽  
Marco Fasan ◽  
Michele Bonazzi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Agencies

PurposeThe purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate why and how public health agencies employed social media during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak to foster public engagement and dialogic accounting.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analysed the official Facebook pages of the leading public agencies for health crisis in Italy, United Kingdom and New Zealand and they collected data on the number of posts, popularity, commitment and followers before and during the outbreak. The authors also performed a content analysis to identify the topics covered by the posts.FindingsEmpirical results suggest that social media has been extensively used as a public engagement tool in all three countries under analysis but – because of legitimacy threats and resource scarcity – it has also been used as a dialogic accounting tool only in New Zealand. Findings suggest that fake news developed more extensively in contexts where the public body did not foster dialogic accounting.Practical implicationsPublic agencies may be interested in knowing the pros and cons of using social media as a public engagement and dialogic accounting tool. They may also leverage on dialogic accounting to limit fake news.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to look at the nature and role of social media as an accountability tool during public health crises. In many contexts, COVID-19 forced for the first time public health agencies to heavily engage with the public and to develop new skills, so this study paves the way for numerous future research ideas.

Immaterial labour, public librarians, and third-generation public libraries

2016 ◽  
Vol 117 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 186-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhan A Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
Public Librarians ◽  
Policy Arena ◽  
Blind Spots

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to draw attention to one specific upper-level government policy document in which a discourse of perpetual innovation and customer service is promoted, and the kinds of questions such discursive interventions raise for the future of work in public libraries; and second, to demonstrate the explanatory potential of the concept of immaterial labour for questions relating to emerging labour processes in libraries. The concepts of “prosumer” and Web 2.0 are included as discursive resources of relevance to any discussion of immaterial labour. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of a public policy visioning document for public libraries in Ontario, Canada, with reflections on related literatures. Findings – The concept of immaterial labour provides an additional analytic tool suitable for questions of relevance to public librarians and library scholars. Within the government text under review which deals specifically with the future of the public library to 2020, the identity of the public librarian is alarmingly absent. Conversely, the library patron as a producer and consumer is privileged. Research limitations/implications – Failure to attend to the broader policy arena within which the public library resides creates dangerous blind spots for public library professionals, educators and researchers. Practical implications – This paper demonstrates the value of a discourse analysis for uncovering the ideological dimensions of policy documents, while simultaneously modelling the method using the kind of policy text commonly produced in governments around the world. Social implications – This paper shows how failure to attend to the broader policy arena within which the public library resides creates dangerous blind spots for the public library community. Originality/value – This paper contextualizes the immaterial and volunteer labour of the public library user as producer/consumer in the context of the future of the frontline professional and waged librarian.

Transforming The Public Health Information Infrastructure

2002 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Lumpkin ◽  
Margaret S. Richards
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Infrastructure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Information

Fighting the virus, “hunting the witches” – moralizing in public discourses during the coronavirus pandemic in Croatia

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krešimir Žažar
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Communication ◽  
Moral Discourses

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to discuss particular features of the public debate around the COVID-19 pandemic and its mitigation strategies in Croatian media from the beginning of 2020 to mid-September of the same year. Design/methodology/approach The discussion is theoretically grounded on Luhmann’s concept of moral communication combined with the key assumption of critical discourse analysis that language reflects a position of power of social actors. Based on these premises, the analysis of a sample of articles in a chosen online media was conducted to uncover the moral codes in the public debate concerning the corona outbreak and connect them with specific moral discourses of particular social actors. Findings The findings clearly indicate that the communication about the pandemic is considerably imbued with moralization and that moral coding is profoundly used to generate preferred types of behaviour of citizens and their compliance with the imposed epidemiologic measures. In conclusion, Luhmann’s claim of moralization as a contentious form of communication is confirmed as the examined public discussion fosters confrontations and generates disruptions rather than contributing to a productive dialogue among diverse social actors. Originality/value The novelty of the approach lies in the combination of Luhman’s conceiving of moral communication with critical discourse analysis that, taken together, entails a pertinent research tool for analysing relevant attributes of the ongoing vibrant debate on the coronavirus outbreak.

Facilities technology management framework for public health-care institutions in a developing country

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramiro Z. Dela Cruz ◽  
Ruth A. Ortega-Dela Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Technology Management ◽  
Developing Country ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Framework ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Care Institutions

Purpose This study aims to develop a Facilities technology management framework for public health-care institutions in a developing country. Design/methodology/approach The study used descriptive research design to identify the specifications of the framework via strategic initiatives anchored on efficiency, sustainability, ecological-friendliness and technological innovation. These measures are wrapped into a facilities TM framework which incorporates concepts and practices on risk management, facility management (FM) and TM. Findings Results of the survey of the public HCIs in the Philippines, show high levels of acceptability of proposed measures which identify the technologies, innovations and materials which are in the viable context of public hospital circumstances in the country. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study are limited to the public HCIs in a developing country, and thus cannot be generalized to other HCIs particularly the private institutions. Practical implications The framework seeks to help improve the operational efficiency and sustainability of public HCIs in a developing country like the Philippines. The discussions on TM revolve around the application of TM approaches. Also, the study incorporates discussions on sustainability, technology innovation and the conformity of these with HCI standards, best practices and government requirements. Social implications The study takes into consideration the identification of FM principles and practices that are deemed suitable and applicable for public HCIs in a developing country. This study is intended to develop a TM framework for FM services which is cost-effective but not sacrificing safety, security, employees and the environment. Then the foremost consideration is the perceived suitability of the framework in the public HCI environment. Originality/value This is an original study. It has as its scope the fusion of FM and TM approaches that would help in the identification of challenges, requirements for manpower, processes and technologies (especially, information and communications technolog-based technologies), and a corresponding TM system framework for public HCI facilities in a developing country.

The Application of Spatial Analysis to the Public Health Understanding of Alcohol and Alcohol-Related Problems

2011 ◽  
pp. 57-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Lipton ◽  
D. M. Gorman ◽  
Paul Gruenewald
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Alcohol Problems ◽  
General Context ◽  
Alcohol Outlet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Alcohol Outlet Density ◽  
Public Health Information ◽  
Outlet Density ◽  
Alcohol Related Problems

This chapter describes research that uses spatial modeling to address pressing issues related to a public health understanding of alcohol problems and violence. First, we introduce the language of spatial analysis used in prevention work and discuss the details of spatial research that result in useful public health information, particularly in regard to alcohol-related problems. Issues such as geo-mapping, variable selection, and area definition are discussed in regard to community level occurrence of such problems. We then discuss the general context for understanding the geographic relationship between alcohol outlet density and violent crime. Finally, we give a specific example of an analysis focusing on alcohol outlets and violence. This work is related to the major goal of studying the community geography of alcohol problems by mapping the alcohol environment, relating these features of the environment to the spatial distribution of problem events, and analyzing the statistical associations between these measures and drinking behaviors.

Assessing public health risk factors for internally displaced households in North Darfur, Sudan

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elfadil Mohammed Mahmoud ◽  
Indraijt Pal ◽  
Mokbul Morshed Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Factors ◽  
Health Risk ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Health Risk Factors ◽  
Public Health Risk ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Household Level ◽  
The Public

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the public health risk factors of internally displaced households and suggest appropriate measures and strategies for health risk reduction in the context of IDPs.Design/methodology/approachThe composite Index (CI) method was used to compare the public health risk factors at the household level in three IDP camps. A set of 22 indicators were studied in 326 households. Households were selected by using a two-stage cluster sampling technique.FindingsThe findings indicate that the Shangil Tobaya camp is at the highest risk for communicable diseases (63.6%) followed by Zamzam (52.4%) and Abu Shouk (42.7%) at the household level. Eight indicators appeared to have made differential impacts between Abu Shouk and Shangil Tobaya, these include: level of education, walking time to health facilities, water source, latrines type, safe disposal of child feces, frequency of visit by pregnant women to antenatal care services, place of delivery and women delivering their children with the help of skilled birth attendants.Research limitations/implicationsSince the selection criteria of the camps were predefined; there are variations in the number of samples between the camps. Therefore, the generalizability may be compromised.Social implicationsIncreased access to healthcare services particularly reproductive health services to the most vulnerable groups (women). Community involvement in services management to promote ownership.Originality/valueThe methods used in this study is original and flexible and can be replicated for other emergency areas and risks.

The public’s trust and information brokers in health care, public health and research

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 929-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodyn Platt ◽  
Minakshi Raj ◽  
Sharon L.R. Kardia
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Information Brokers

Purpose Nations such as the USA are investing in technologies such as electronic health records in order to collect, store and transfer information across boundaries of health care, public health and research. Health information brokers such as health care providers, public health departments and university researchers function as “access points” to manage relationships between the public and the health system. The relationship between the public and health information brokers is influenced by trust; and this relationship may predict the trust that the public has in the health system as a whole, which has implications for public trust in the system, and consequently, legitimacy of involved institutions, under circumstances of health information data sharing in the future. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the authors aimed to examine characteristics of trustors (i.e. the public) that predict trust in health information brokers; and further, to identify the factors that influence trust in brokers that also predict system trust. The authors developed a survey that was administered to US respondents in 2014 using GfK’s nationally representative sample, with a final sample of 1,011 participants and conducted ordinary least squares regression for data analyses. Findings Results suggest that health care providers are the most trusted information brokers of those examined. Beliefs about medical deceptive behavior were negatively associated with trust in each of the information brokers examined; however, psychosocial factors were significantly associated with trust in brokers, suggesting that individual attitudes and beliefs are influential on trust in brokers. Positive views of information sharing and the expectation of benefits of information sharing for health outcomes and health care quality are associated with system trust. Originality/value This study suggests that demonstrating the benefits and value of information sharing could be beneficial for building public trust in the health system; however, trust in brokers of information are variable across the public; that is, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs are associated with the level of trust different individuals have in various health information brokers – suggesting that the need for a personalized approach to building trust.

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