Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Health, 21 (6), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Health page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/hea on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Obesity frames and counter-frames in British and German online newspapers
AU - Atanasova, Dimitrinka
AU - Koteyko, Nelya
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Health, 21 (6), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Health page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/hea on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
PY - 2017/11/1
Y1 - 2017/11/1
N2 - By featuring news articles highlighting certain aspects of obesity and backgrounding others, the media can frame these aspects as especially applicable to how obesity should be understood and addressed. Despite the highest rates in Europe, news reports from Britain and Germany have come under little scholarly scrutiny. In this article, we explore frames and their frequency of use in British and German online newspapers. Our findings reveal a dominant cross-national framing of obesity in terms of ‘self-control’, which places a more pronounced emphasis on individual responsibility than demonstrated by earlier studies and may contribute to a culture of weight bias and stigma. The results also reveal evidence for cross-national efforts to challenge this individualising framing with counter-frames of ‘acceptance’ and ‘coming out’. We argue that this is a positive development, which demonstrates the potential of media frames to function not only as possible contributors to weight bias and stigma but also as mechanisms for countering entrenched social conceptions of obesity.
AB - By featuring news articles highlighting certain aspects of obesity and backgrounding others, the media can frame these aspects as especially applicable to how obesity should be understood and addressed. Despite the highest rates in Europe, news reports from Britain and Germany have come under little scholarly scrutiny. In this article, we explore frames and their frequency of use in British and German online newspapers. Our findings reveal a dominant cross-national framing of obesity in terms of ‘self-control’, which places a more pronounced emphasis on individual responsibility than demonstrated by earlier studies and may contribute to a culture of weight bias and stigma. The results also reveal evidence for cross-national efforts to challenge this individualising framing with counter-frames of ‘acceptance’ and ‘coming out’. We argue that this is a positive development, which demonstrates the potential of media frames to function not only as possible contributors to weight bias and stigma but also as mechanisms for countering entrenched social conceptions of obesity.
KW - counter-frames
KW - Europe
KW - frames
KW - obesity
KW - online news
U2 - 10.1177/1363459316649764
DO - 10.1177/1363459316649764
M3 - Journal article
VL - 21
SP - 650
EP - 669
JO - Health
JF - Health
SN - 1363-4593
IS - 6
ER -