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The purpose of this article was to describe and analyze the ways that parents' and children's health are portrayed in health advice to parents in Canada's major mass print media magazine entitled "Today's Parent", from 1993 to 2008. The qualitative content analysis noted three significant themes, including: most health issues are easily managed by mothers using common sense at home; mothers are responsible, healthy, energetic, and capable managers and experts who are able to work and advocate for their children's health; and mothers are able to critically assess doctors and medical care. Finally, anomalous stories are highlighted and some of the underlying assumptions of the stories are discussed. The substantive and practical consequences of these findings regarding parental health beliefs and actions are discussed.

Previous research has found that psychiatric symptom expression is inextricably linked with culture and that psychiatric categories do not necessarily reflect the experiences of people from other cultures. Using a multidisciplinary approach, this study explored the Portuguese culture-specific phenomenon agonias (meaning "the agonies"). Fifty (21 males and 29 females) Portuguese immigrants from the Azores were interviewed concerning their immigration experience, family life, health, healing, suffering, and understanding of agonias. Although there was diversity among the participants' responses, a cohesive and systemic understanding of agonias arose from the narratives. A link between the somatic symptoms of agonias and psychological processes, social context, and religious beliefs was demonstrated, and highlighted that psychiatric categories are limited when classifying a multidimensional experience like agonias.

This paper offers an investigation of the portrayal of depression in magazines whose audience is primarily North American males of young middle ages ranging between medians of 37 and 42.5. [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.038 Byline: Juanne N. Clarke (a), Stephanie Arnold (a), Michelle Everest (a), Kyle Whitfield (b) Keywords: Canada; Health; Media; Audience interpretation; Medicalization Abstract: A number of studies have found an association between what people see, hear and read in the mass media and their corresponding actions and beliefs. This link has been demonstrated both at the micro and at the macro levels of analysis. However, when people are asked directly about the impact of mass media they tend to deny that they are personally affected. In fact, they tend to describe themselves as critical and skeptical media consumers. The purpose of this paper is to explore this contradiction through 12 in-depth focus group discussions undertaken in Ontario, Canada in 2004. Findings from the focus group interviews confirm earlier research in that people claimed that they were not susceptible to media influence. At the same time as they said that they took information from the mass media 'with a grain of salt', they articulated sophisticated and nuanced accounts of how and why they evaluated some information as good and some as bad. In general they evaluated media stories on the basis of the values of allopathic medicine and positivistic science. Moreover, in the context of the focus groups and their explicit comments on their skepticism, they discussed health information from the magazine articles that they were given to read (on either HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, or a heart disease). Possible explanations for these paradoxical findings are discussed. Author Affiliation: (a) Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ont. Canada (b) University of Waterloo, Canada

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.11.021 Byline: Juanne N. Clarke, Michelle M. Everest Keywords: Media; Cancer; Fear; Medical model; North America Abstract: Cancer is increasing in incidence and prevalence in North America and around the world. The mass print media play an important role in information provision about prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this disease, as well as informing health policy and personal experience. This paper reports on a content analysis of the portrayal of cancer in the highest circulating magazines available in Canada and published in Canada or the USA in 1991, 1996, 2001. It includes both manifest and latent analysis of the framing and content of cancer stories. Manifest analysis documented the dominance of the medical as compared to the lifestyle and political economy frames and the predominance of articles on breast as compared to other cancers. Latent themes included: an emphasis on fear of cancer in that: (1) cancer and fear are frequently conflated; cancer is said to grow outside of awareness; cancer is portrayed as (almost) inevitable; cancer is associated with normal experiences; early detection is associated with diagnosis; and scary statistics are emphasized; (2) contradictions and confusion exist within and between articles; and (3) metaphors of war and battle are used frequently. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the linking of fear with cancer in the context of medicine as the solution. Author Affiliation: Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ont., Canada

Previous research has found that psychiatric symptom expression is inextricably linked with culture and that psychiatric categories do not necessarily reflect the experiences of people from other cultures. Using a multidisciplinary approach, this study explored the Portuguese culture-specific phenomenon agonias (meaning 'the agonies'). Fifty (21 males and 29 females) Portuguese immigrants from the Azores were interviewed concerning their immigration experience, family life, health, healing, suffering, and understanding of agonias. Although there was diversity among the participants' responses, a cohesive and systemic understanding of agonias arose from the narratives. A link between the somatic symptoms of agonias and psychological processes, social context, and religious beliefs was demonstrated, and highlighted that psychiatric categories are limited when classifying a multidimensional experience like agonias. Keywords: immigrant; culture; Portuguese; mental health; cultural psychology; multicultural counseling

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.10.012 Byline: Juanne N. Clarke (a), Daniela B. Friedman (b), Laurie Hoffman-Goetz (b) Keywords: Print media; HIV/AIDS; Canadian Aboriginal populations; Stigmatization; Canada Abstract: This paper describes the portrayal of HIV/AIDS in 14 mass print newspapers directed towards the Canadian Aboriginal population and published between 1996 and 2000. Based on qualitative content analysis the research examines both manifest and latent meanings. Manifest results of this study indicate that women and youth are under represented as persons with HIV/AIDS. The latent results note the frequent references to Aboriginal culture, and the political and economic position of Aboriginal Canadians when discussing the disease, the person with the disease, the fear of the disease and the reaction of the community to the person with the disease. Unlike mainstream media where the medical frame is dominant, HIV/AIDS are here contextualized by culture, identity, spirituality and political-economic issues. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Sociology; Anthropology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue, Waterloo, Ont., Canada N2L 3C5 (b) Department of Health Studies and Gerontology, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Ont., Canada

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a relatively new disease that is difficult to diagnose. It is also a contested disease immersed in dispute about whether it is a physical or psychiatric reality. Sufferers often claim to experience not only the physical challenges of the disease, and these can be extensive, but also, initially, the anomie of suffering from a condition whose very reality is debated both in the medical and in the wider communities. Theories of self in illness emphasize how people who are diagnosed as chronically ill work hard as they seek to maintain previous, or to develop supernormal, selves. Such goals are cast in a critical light by Foucault's notion of the technologies of self in the context of circulating neo-liberal discourses. As people with CFS, lacking an uncontested medical diagnosis, search for meaningful self-identities, they resist previously available discourses to take up an alternative discourse, one that we call radicalized selves. This paper raises questions about the constraints and liberties, power and powerlessness associated with a clear and undisputed medical diagnosis. It suggests a model of the self in chronic illness that considers not only changes in body and biography but also the availability of an uncontested diagnosis. Keywords: Chronic fatigue syndrome; Chronic illness; Self-identity; Canada

This paper presents the results of a study of the images of breast cancer in the highest circulating periodicals in the USA and Canada over a twenty year period of time. Both manifest and latent themes are noted and described. The emphasis in the manifest themes is on the medical aspects of the treatment and early detection of breast cancer. The latent themes emphasize the contrast in the ways that women with the disease, as compared to their doctors, are described. Notably, women are portrayed as being `worried about their health' and, in particular, the most feared of `their' diseases, breast cancer. Breast cancer is said to be caused by everything, especially women's own traitorous bodies. Women are described as isolates, as emotional and preoccupied with their sexual attractiveness. Doctors are described in contrasting ways, as moral truth-seekers, infused with rationality and intelligence. The ubiquitous causes of breast cancer are also noted. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possible implications of the gendered character of the reporting about breast cancer. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com]

The incidence, as well as public and media focus on bullying and cyberbullying as social problems among children, has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Yet, the meanings, causes and consequences of bullying are all disputed. Thus, this paper reports on a qualitative content and discourse analysis of the portrayal of bullying in top circulating newsmagazines in Canada and the US from 2000 to 2014. It focuses on the answers to the following four the questions of what is bullying? What are its consequences? What is said to cause it? What can be done about it? It then offers possible theoretical explanations for the findings through the theories of medicalization, neoliberalism and risk society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children's mental health and development issues are considered a significant concern today. A century and more ago children's mental health and developmental disorders were likely understood differently. This paper examines the portrayal of children's mental health and developmental disorders in all 41 accessible articles on the topic indexed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature from 1890 to 1920. It focuses on these three decades as a time of fundamental economic, political and social transition before the first text in Child Psychiatry was published and the first professorship in the field established. It was also before the beginning of the influential child guidance movement. In particular, the research asks (i) what were the ‘disorders’ discussed and of what were they said to consist?, (ii) what was said to cause them? and (iii) what was thought best to be done about them? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]