Who or what has agency in the discussion of antimicrobial resistance in UK news media (2010–2015)? A transitivity analysis

Collins, LC, Jaspal, R ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8463-9519 and Nerlich, B, 2018. Who or what has agency in the discussion of antimicrobial resistance in UK news media (2010–2015)? A transitivity analysis. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 22 (6), pp. 521-540. ISSN 1363-4593

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Abstract

The increase in infections resistant to the existing antimicrobial medicines has become a topic of concern for health professionals, policy makers and publics across the globe; however, among the public there is a sense that this is an issue beyond their control. Research has shown that the news media can have a significant role to play in the public's understanding of science and medicine. In this article, we respond to a call by research councils in the United Kingdom to study antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance as a social phenomenon by providing a linguistic analysis of reporting on this issue in the UK press. We combine transitivity analysis with a social representations framework to determine who and what the social actors are in discussions of antimicrobial resistance in the UK press (2010–2015), as well as which of those social actors are characterised as having agency in the processes around antimicrobial resistance. Findings show that antibiotics and the infections they are designed to treat are instilled with agency, that there is a tension between allocating responsibility to either doctors-as-prescribers or patients-as-users and collectivisation of the general public as an unspecified 'we': marginalising livestock farming and pharmaceutical industry responsibilities.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine
Creators:	Collins, L.C., Jaspal, R. and Nerlich, B.
Publisher:	Sage
Date:	1 November 2018
Volume:	22
Number:	6
ISSN:	1363-4593
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1177/1363459317715777 DOI 1313684 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2017. Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	06 Apr 2020 11:55
Last Modified:	21 May 2020 08:28
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/39568

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