University Report: Social Determinants of Health and Media's Influence

This report analyzes the influence of media on public health, focusing on how the media disseminates health information and shapes public opinion. It examines the role of media in educating the public about health ideas, using examples like the Australian government's mass-media campaigns. The report also discusses the ethical responsibilities of the media in presenting health information, including considerations of media ethics, journalism ethics, and entertainment media ethics. Factors influencing the kind of health information presented, such as bandwidth, credibility, relevance, alignment, and timing, are explored. Finally, the report explains why the media is so influential in forming public opinions, highlighting strategies like agenda-setting and priming. The content provided on Desklib offers a comprehensive understanding of these critical issues.

Running head: SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
1. The main health ideas that the public absorbs from the media
Media is considered as one of the most influencing platform that has an enormous
impact on the individual lifestyle as large number of people are involved and keep a track on
the daily media and television. The impact of media is so influential that it can either modify
or form a different public opinion in diverse ways. Mass media is also considered as the other
form of media source that has a huge influence on an individual lifestyle after television
(Wagner, 2018). The role of media in educating people and sharing knowledge regarding the
health ideas is one of the major benefit, as large number of population irrespective of their
age are influenced and gain ideas that will help them to change their opinion. The Australian
government had initiated a new mass-media campaign named “measure up” that will help the
population to gain knowledge and idea regarding different strategies to decrease the lifestyle-
associated chronic illness. The communication source of this campaign was press, television,
local community activity, outdoor advertising and radio (Humanrights.gov.au, 2019).
The rate of obesity, low physical movement and unhealthy diet had contributed to
high level of non-communicable illness, where, 70% of the primary cause is sedentary
lifestyle and poor intake of food with appropriate nutrients and minerals. Hence, the federal
and State government of Australia had initiated programmes that will promote better and
enhanced lifestyle. The mass-media campaign promotes reduced consumption of sugar by
exhibiting the advantage of low-sugar diet in maintain diabetes and active lifestyle. The
causes of obesity are also explained that helps the people to reduce the consumption of fried
foods, oily foods and carbohydrates that increase the probability of obesity (Beraia & Beraia,
2018). The use of condoms, withdraw of risky sex and birth control promotions helps the
young generation to gain idea regarding sexually-transmitted diseases. Hence, these mass-
media promotions will educate the general population of Australia regarding the health ideas
that they must practice in their daily life to reduce the overall burden of disease (BoD). The

2SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
hand-wash or hand-hygiene promotions educate the population regarding hand- washing
before and after consuming foods and eating healthy foods that consist of all necessary
nutrients and vitamins that will help the individual to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Hence,
mass-media campaign using different sources will help the general population of Australia to
gain relevant health ideas for leading a healthy lifestyle (Www1.health.gov.au, 2019).
2. Does the media have an ethical responsibility in presenting health information?
Mass-media health promotion is considered as the strong and influential platform that
has the power to control and regulate the perspective and ideas of each individual and help
them to enhance their knowledge and idea regarding the general health issue that affects large
number of population. With such control and power, the media also bear some curial ethical
responsibilities that must be followed on a regular basis (Golder et al., 2017). Media ethics is
considered as the section under applied ethics that deals with the ethical standards and
principles of media, which comprise of film, print media, broadcast media, internet, theatre
and arts. Media ethics comprise of defending and promoting ethical values that exhibit the
rule of legality and law associated with respect for an individual being and life. The moral
values that an individual handling the mass-media should be aware of that comprise of the
content that is exhibited in the media highlighting the ethics of journalism and marketing
(Kasemsap, 2019).
Journalism ethics is one of the major sector that dominate the other associated areas of
media ethics and the topics included under journalism ethics are news manipulation, truth that
might clash with other values such as privacy, taste, public interest and fantasy and lastly
clash with the regulation. The ethical responsibility that the entertainment media bear is huge
as the content shown in the television has a strong impact on the general population
irrespective of their age. The ethical responsibility of entertainment media includes the

3SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
presence of violence, strong language and sex, ethical discrepancies in any news content
related to any domain that might affect the emotions or sentiments of an individual,
stereotyping is the most common negative aspect of media and hence is considered as one of
the major areas of debate and conflict (World Health Organization, 2017). Media integrity
denotes to the capability of the media channel to assist the democratic process and public
interest, thereby resulting in resilience to established corruption in the system of media,
conflicting dependence, economy of influence, governmental clientelism and conflicting
dependence. The reliability and responsibility of the media includes independence from
political or private interests, responsiveness to inhabitants, transparency regarding the
financial interest and laws and commitment towards the ethical standards of journalism (Stohl
et al., 2017).
3. What factors might influence the kind of health information the media presents?
The use and practice of different media platform has a strong influence and effect on
an individual and the general population. The health information that is presented and
exhibited by the media has a strong influence among the general population as they gain idea
and knowledge regarding the preventive strategies that could be used and implemented by the
general population on improving the overall health condition of an individual. The two major
factor that has an influence on the kind of health information presented by the media are
bandwidth and Credibility. The bandwidth refers to the degree and complexity of the news
that might affect the population and their individual knowledge on that specific news. The
second most crucial factor that influence the health information if the media is credibility. If
the news or any information that is exhibited in any social platform is nor credible or
authentic then publishing such news cannot be published and shown in any media platform.
Hence, the news that is exhibited or shown to any media platform must be authentic and

4SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
credible with a large bandwidth that will gain huge attention and also help the population to
enhance their ideas and knowledge (Song et al., 2016).
There are different type of factors that influence the population regarding the health
information exhibited through any media, which will determine if the news is helpful or not
in increasing heath awareness and knowledge. Relevance is considered as one of the major
factor that influence the general population regarding the health information exhibited by any
platform. The heath information shown to the population should be relevant and must
influence the population to adapt the necessary steps in gaining knowledge and ideas that will
eventually help them to enhance their health condition (Mai, 2016). Alignment is the second
factor that influence the general population regarding the health information exhibited by any
platform, as it is very crucial that right information should reach the right target population so
that the impact of the news is appropriate and relevant. Timing is considered as the last factor
that influence the general population regarding the health information exhibited by any media
platform as the right news should reach the target population on time or at the right tome. If
large number of Australian population are suffering from typhoid or malaria, then the media
should advertise the preventive strategies to overcome from such disease in a right time that
will thereby help the population to gain knowledge and information of the current health
issue (Haddon & Mante, 2016).
4. Why is the media so influential in forming the opinions of the public?
In the democratic world, mass- media platform is considered as the motivating force
that enhance or build the public opinion and ideas reading the health issues that are affecting
the general population or that are the major concern among the population. Media platform
such as news-broadcast, internet and newspaper are some of the most widely used and
practiced platform that is responsible for shaping and modifying the daily life and activities

5SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
of an individual because these platform are easily accessible and have an enormous influence
in the public opinion (McCombs, 2018). Different agenda-setting strategies are used by this
media that focuses on the moat crucial and selected issues that is hampering the well-being of
the population, therefore, the news has a strong influence in the general population.
The different strategies are adopted by the media to gain attention of the people and
influence their individual opinions by repeatedly exposing the population towards the news
and also exhibiting the news in every possible mass-media platform that is accessed by every
individual irrespective of their age. The media are the main source of information that help
the population to stay updated and gain knowledge of all the issue or trends that is circulating
within the country and make sure that the trending news are on headlines (King, Schneer &
White, 2017). The concept of priming is adopted by the mass-media that plays an important
factor in circulating all the significant news and updates within the county either in rural or in
urban areas and hence large number of people are dependent on mass-media for updating
their knowledge and ideas concerned with any health issues.

6SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
References
Beraia, M., & Beraia, G. (2018). Health Education and Public Health. Health Educ, 1, 2.
Golder, S., Ahmed, S., Norman, G., & Booth, A. (2017). Attitudes toward the ethics of
research using social media: a systematic review. Journal of medical Internet
research, 19(6), e195.
Haddon, L., & Mante-Meijer, E. (2016). Generational use of new media. Routledge.
Humanrights.gov.au. (2019). Chapter 4: The role and influence of the media | Australian
Human Rights Commission. Retrieved 3 August 2019, from
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/chapter-4-role-and-influence-media
Kasemsap, K. (2019). Professional and business applications of social media platforms. In
Social Entrepreneurship: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 824-
847). IGI Global.
King, G., Schneer, B., & White, A. (2017). How the news media activate public expression
and influence national agendas. Science, 358(6364), 776-780
Mai, J. E. (2016). Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking,
needs, and behavior. Emerald Group Publishing.
McCombs, M. (2018). Setting the agenda: Mass media and public opinion. John Wiley &
Sons
Song, H., Omori, K., Kim, J., Tenzek, K. E., Hawkins, J. M., Lin, W. Y., ... & Jung, J. Y.
(2016). Trusting social media as a source of health information: online surveys
comparing the United States, Korea, and Hong Kong. Journal of medical Internet
research, 18(3), e25.

7SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
Stohl, C., Etter, M., Banghart, S., & Woo, D. (2017). Social media policies: Implications for
contemporary notions of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics,
142(3), 413-436.
Wagner, A. (2018). The role of media influence in shaping public energy dialogues. The
Oxford Handbook of Energy and Society, 381.
World Health Organization. (2017). WHO guidelines on ethical issues in public health
surveillance.
Www1.health.gov.au. (2019). Department of Health | Publications. Retrieved 3 August 2019,
from https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/health-
publicat.htm