Many threats to health exist, but only some are treated as serious problems by the public and policy makers. Scholars have previously explored how state, activists, and medical actors influence the construction of health-related public problems, but there are currently no scholarly models that integrate news professionals? decisions about which issues to cover and how. This project investigates the ways journalists and key stakeholders selectively problematize and respond to health-related issues, by comparing the controversies over female genital cutting (FGC) and male circumcision (MC) as practiced in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, from 1985-2007. Whether they should be viewed as issues of health, human rights, gender oppression, or religious/cultural identity is hotly debated. Specifically, this study asks: How does the status of different stakeholders, and alliances among them, affect debate processes and policy outcomes? What factors influenced stakeholders? framing of the issues and those frames? effectiveness? How do news media practices shape the coverage of issues, stakeholders, and frames? In what ways did the broader social/historical context affect these processes? Three types of data will be gathered and analyzed using grounded theory techniques: materials produced by activist, medical, religious, and other stakeholder groups (e.g., press releases, brochures); accounts from national and regional newspapers and news magazines; and interviews with journalists, editors, activists, medical association leaders and media liaisons, and other key actors. The intellectual merits of this project include contributions to the research literature on social problems, health and medicine, journalism, and social movements. The research will shed light on the theoretically important but rarely studied matter of ?failed? domain expansion, whereby activists concerned with one issue attempt to capitalize on the success of a similar, successful issue. The study also will help to delineate the causes and consequences of defining problems in medical terms (i.e., medicalization).
The project will have a broader impact by expanding knowledge of the ways journalists, activists, state, and medical actors contribute to the construction of health-related public problems and policies. It will also produce more effective communication among, and public-policy engagement by, journalists and stakeholders; inform ongoing debates around MC and FGC in the three nations while illuminating local politics of gender, race/ethnicity, immigration, and religion; and provide tools for addressing concern about the ?over-medicalization? of society. Scholarly training opportunities for graduate students will also be provided.
