{"title":"How US newspapers view the UK's NHS: a study in international lesson-drawing.","authors":"Sean Tunney, Jane Thomas, Adam Cox","doi":"10.1057/s41285-021-00162-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Healthcare on both sides of the Atlantic is a highly charged political and economic subject. This work considers US media coverage of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), an under-researched area. We assess the framing of the NHS in editorials, opinion and feature articles during the time of the Obama administration to show how media can perform the role of lesson-drawing, a theory adopted from public policy research. The study also applies the notion of journalistic habitus in this context. Using these ideas, we address a hypothesis which holds that US coverage is framed around the flaws of the UK's NHS. The paper considers how intermedia editorial and news values operate, with commentators drawing a range of negative lessons in both the Democrat- and Republican-supporting press. We find that the NHS was often posited as a flawed international variant of the single-payer model, where newspapers employed an ahistoric explanation of failure and decline.</p>","PeriodicalId":46551,"journal":{"name":"Social Theory & Health","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068779/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Theory & Health","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-021-00162-4","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/4/25 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, BIOMEDICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Healthcare on both sides of the Atlantic is a highly charged political and economic subject. This work considers US media coverage of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), an under-researched area. We assess the framing of the NHS in editorials, opinion and feature articles during the time of the Obama administration to show how media can perform the role of lesson-drawing, a theory adopted from public policy research. The study also applies the notion of journalistic habitus in this context. Using these ideas, we address a hypothesis which holds that US coverage is framed around the flaws of the UK's NHS. The paper considers how intermedia editorial and news values operate, with commentators drawing a range of negative lessons in both the Democrat- and Republican-supporting press. We find that the NHS was often posited as a flawed international variant of the single-payer model, where newspapers employed an ahistoric explanation of failure and decline.
期刊介绍:
Social Theory & Health provides an international scholarly forum for theoretical reflection and debate on contemporary health issues, many of which bear directly on the planning and delivery of services. The journal aims to consolidate, refine and extend theoretically informed work on the role of health in modern societies. Interest in issues of theory and health now informs many academic and practice-oriented disciplines and crosses discipline boundaries. The Editors encourage contributions from all relevant disciplines, as well as from those involved directly in front-line treatment and care. Contributions from the developing world are particularly welcome. The journal aims to include contributions from all theoretical perspectives.