Health and the Media

Valentina Marinescu is a professor at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work at Bucharest University in Bucharest, Romania. Her research interests lie in media and communication studies on which she has published several articles and book chapters. Bianca Mitu is a lecturer at the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom. Her research interests are in television studies, digital culture and media sociology.

Table of Contents


Foreword—Mass Media, Health, Communication: Main Issues (Maria ­Marczewska-Rytko)

Introduction—Media and Health: Contemporary Approaches (Valentina Marinescu and Bianca Mitu)

Part One. Narratives of Health and Illness

Multifaceted Health Communication (Sinikka Torkkola)

Narratives of Media Coverage of Maternal Health: Quest for New Dimensions (Alfred Okoth Akwala and Lynete Lusike Mukhongo)

Autoimmune Illness and the Rhetoric of Differential Diagnosis: Loss, Suppression and Negation from Patient Narratives and Medical Histories (James A. Wren)

Bridging the Medical Divide: Communication as a Metaphor in HIV Cases (Naga Mallika Gudipaty)

Part Two. Anthropology of Communicating Health and Illness

The Sick Person Remediated in ­Data-Driven Health Care (Suneel Jethani)

Extraterrestrial Pregnancies and Nasal Implants: A Mythologization of Biopower? (Marika Moisseeff)

Public Health Care in Private Hospitals: A Critical Analysis of the Aarogyasri Health Insurance Scheme (Sajit M. Mathews and Ravindra Kumar Vemula)

Part Three. Media Coverage of Health and Illness

Health News Coverage in Print Media: Is It Healthy? (Sriram Arulchelvan)

Media Coverage of Health and Illness in Romania (Valentina Marinescu)

Population Health in Interwar Romania Reflected in the Sociological School of Bucharest’s Research and Publications (Bogdan Bucur)

Conclusion—Media and Health, Challenges and Opportunities (Valentina Marinescu and Bianca Mitu)

About the Contributors

Index