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This analysis discusses China’s soft power push in Europe, specifically focusing on mask diplomacy during the early stage of Covid-19 outbreak. Using a sample of 233 articles published by European-based news media such as the BBC, Euronews, Politico, French 24, and Der Spiegel, from March to September 2020, we argue that China’s mask diplomacy acted as two overlapping legitimacy-seeking tools, one that demonstrated the legitimacy of the CCP’s governance (authoritarian frame) and one that sought foreign gratitude and acceptance of China as a responsible global leader (leadership frame). We also argue, however, that China’s soft power effort was overshadowed by two other dominant frames found in the articles: compensation for the government's early cover-up (remedy frame) and infringement on EU solidarity and security (threat frame). Our results also show that European media tend to default to longstanding stereotypes of Yellow Peril and Orientalism. Most reports othering China as the source and spreader of Covid-19 critically portray China’s medical aid as propaganda and compensation, thereby undermining China's soft power efforts and their credibility. Additionally, the study opened up a minor, though rather novel, discussion on China's top-down management model's positive impact on handling the health crisis in China.

Forcibly displaced people often face restrictive migration policies and stereotypical discourses. Therefore, this study analyzes UNHCR's public communication strategies towards the Syrian and Central African crises. Through a comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) of UNHCR's (international) press releases (N = 28), news stories (N = 233), photos (N = 462) and videos (N = 50) of 2015, we examined its main representation and argumentation strategies. First, we found that UNHCR primarily represents forcibly displaced people in its press releases and news as victimized and/or voiceless masses, reproducing humanitarian savior and deservingness logics. However, stories, photos, and videos frequently portray them also as empowered individuals. This can be partially explained by media logics and political and private sector discourses and agenda-building opportunities. Moreover, UNHCR mainly voices pity-based and post-humanitarian Self-oriented solidarity discourses, and links protection to states’ (perceived) interests. Finally, these discursive strategies respond to dominant migration management paradigms and the increasingly neoliberalized, political realist international refugee regime (IRR).

Wikipedia is one of the most popular online sources of information on a wide range of topics, including health and medical affairs. While a large body of research examines Wikipedia’s factual accur...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major health concern as the world population ages. Yet, few studies have examined what the public over the age of 50 knows about AD. This qualitative study, based on 40 in-depth interviews, examines the knowledge of AD by Flemish people between 50 and 80 years old and their cross-source engagement with information sources. Building on AD media representations and theories on media complementarity and health information behaviour, we find that respondents mostly encounter AD information non-purposively via traditional mass media and interpersonal communication, while the internet is occasionally used to purposefully seek information. Novels, personal experiences/social proximity, public figures and particularly film stand out as channels and sources of AD information, suggesting that fictional narratives, personal experiences and being able to identify with others leave lasting impressions and help to communicate and disperse AD information. However, common misconceptions and gaps in knowledge persist, including AD being considered part of the normal ageing process and old age as well as confusing AD with Parkinson's disease. The biomedical perspective and the tragedy discourse prevail among the majority of respondents, who describe AD in terms of decline, loss and death and as ‘the beginning of the end’. Only a few, typically female respondents, appear aware of the role of individual health behaviour and lifestyle choices to prevent dementia or delay its onset. The misconceptions of AD and gaps in knowledge, as well as the fact that a third of all cases of dementia might be delayed or prevented by managing lifestyle and other risk factors, stress the importance of public educational programmes and the need to emphasise and raise awareness of preventative behaviour. Overall, the findings from this study can be of help to public health communicators and dementia-awareness campaigns, as well as AD training programmes for health-care professionals and family care-givers.

The practice of Dutch-Flemish film remaking that came into existence in the new millennium quickly appeared to be of great importance in the film industries of Flanders and The Netherlands – and consequently of Europe. Inspired by methods used in television (format) studies, this article conducts a systematic comparative film analysis of nine Dutch-Flemish remakes together with their nine source films. Considering the remake as a prism that aids in dissecting different formal, transtextual, and cultural codes, and subsequently embedding the practice in its specific socio-cultural and industrial context, we found several similarities and differences between the Dutch and Flemish film versions and showed how these can be made sense of. More generally, we distilled two encompassing principles that administer the remake practice: even though a great deal of the remake process can be explained through the concept of localization – or, more precisely, through the concepts of ‘manufacturing proximity’ and ‘banal aboutness’ – we found that it should certainly not be limited to these processes – as both (trans)textual, such as the mechanism of ‘filling in the gaps’, and contextual elements were found.

When films are being remade, they undergo several transformations, including changes related to (the representation of) national, disability, and gender identities. By drawing on the case of the Flemish film Hasta La Vista and its Dutch remake Adios Amigos, this article critically investigates the (dis)similarities on these levels through the prism of the film remake. Both films are popular road trip movies dealing with the adventure of three friends with disabilities who overcome boundaries in multiple ways not only by figuratively (and almost literally) escaping their parents and their disabilities but also through traveling, exploring sexuality, and eventually by dying. Although the films deal with almost exactly the same themes, their interpretation and contextualization differ considerably. Our findings show that as a consequence of the localizing processes embedded in film remakes, subtexts which were ‘originally’ ingrained in the source text were ignored or even withheld in the newer version. As the involved filmmakers built on particular stereotypical visions and myths about these specific cultures and national identities, often with the purpose of recreating a socio-cultural context, such narrowed perceptions were occasionally subverted but also reconsolidated. Finally, we argue that, through the remake process, some ableist and patronizing representations of, respectively, disability and gender identities were subverted, while others were kept or even reinforced. Our results show that such transformations point toward specific socio-culturally defined disability and gender identities but also toward a shared and almost universally shaped disability and gender culture.

Refugees on screen. A critical discourse analysis of the news discourse about Syrian refugees by the public and commercial broadcaster in Flanders The civil war in Syria, ongoing since 2011, forced 6.7 million people to flee their country (UNHCR, 2019). Applying a critical discourse analysis, this study investigates the representation of refugees by the public (VRT) and the commercial (VTM) broadcaster in Flanders, focusing on September 2015 and December 2018. Our findings show that Flemish news media do not discursively reproduce the established socio-demographic binary of ‘us’ and ‘them’ as they generally tend to avoid portraying refugees as ‘others’. The public broadcaster reports more on the topic and offers more contextualization, resulting in a more nuanced style of reporting. Nevertheless, there are a few implicit articulations of a negative discourse about refugees as both broadcasters occasionally apply negative nomenclature and use stereotypical imagery.

A growing number of scholars have empirically engaged with audience reactions toward mediated distant suffering, albeit mainly on a small, qualitative scale. By conducting quantitative research, this study contributes to the knowledge about people's reactions toward distant suffering on a greater scale, representative of a Western audience. Following a critical realist approach, a survey was developed and several independent constructs were found by doing an exploratory factor analysis which represents people's engagement with distant suffering. We also found four clusters based on a k-means cluster analysis that portrays typical ways of responding to distant suffering. These clusters have been controlled for people's background, indicators of age, gender, education and people's donation behavior, media use, and news interests.

Apart from their primary role as news providers in disaster situations, news media can also assume a broader social role. Drawing on a critically informed qualitative content analysis of the Belgian news reporting on a national disaster, the article reveals a twofold articulation of this social role. The first consisted in newspapers highlighting the emotional dimension with potential societal implications of raising compassion and identification. Second, we found a strong articulation of a discourse of (national) unity and community, aimed at restoring the disrupted social order in the disaster’s aftermath. Both aspects were discursively established by a dominant presence of emotional testimonies, strategies of personalization and by the use of inclusive language permeated with references to nation or community. The study highlights the important social role of journalism in disaster situations and events involving human suffering.

Regarding the representation of Africa in western media, academic criticism often refers to the presence of Afro-pessimistic discourses, and more recently to a seemingly emerging Afro-optimistic discourse. However, Scott (2015, 1) points out that a systematic study of Africa’s representation is still missing as most research only includes mainstream media, news genres and formats and thus forms ‘an insufficient basis for reaching any firm, generalisable conclusions’. To address this, we explore the representation of Africa in MO* Magazine, a Belgian alternative news magazine that focuses on the Global South, including an extensive coverage of Africa. Applying Critical Discourse Analysis, we examined all articles covering Africa in 2015 and 2016 in addition to in-depth interviews with editorial staff. The study investigates how MO* constructs its alternative identity in the context of African news coverage. We argue that a mere empirical focus on features and narratives generally attributed to mainstream media, such as the presence of Afro-pessimistic and -optimistic discourses, is not sufficient to reach conclusions about the alternative identity of a magazine. The alternative value of MO* is reflected in the overall focus on the Global South and its key issues, the geographic diversity, editorial approach, and context-richness of the articles.

The world has seen a major increase in forced displacement since 2011. As a growing number of states implement restrictive refugee policies, public communication has become essential for refugee organisations. This study analysed, therefore, three international refugee organisations' discursive strategies towards the recent Syrian crisis, as well as their production and the social context. A critical discourse analysis of international press releases (N=122) and six semi-structured interviews with press and regional officers revealed that the observed actors largely dehumanise displaced people and subordinate them to the 'Western self' and state interests; displaced people hardly ever acquire their own voice. The study found that the medium characteristics of press releases and the importance of media attention result in a depersonalising humanitarian discourse. In addition, there were indications of a post-humanitarian discourse that reproduced the humanitarian sector's 'marketisation'. Finally, the examined organisations use the political realist cross-issue persuasion strategy, displaying displaced people as resettlement objects.

This study explores the discursive construction of online privacy through a critical discourse analysis of Flemish newspapers' coverage of privacy, teens, and Facebook between 2007 and 2018 to determine what representation of (young) users the papers articulate. A privacy-as-control discourse is dominant and complemented by two other discourses: that of the unconcerned and reckless teenager and that of the promise of media literacy. Combined, these discourses form an authoritative language on privacy that we call "control responsibility." Control responsibility presents privacy as an individual responsibility that can be controlled and needs to be learned by young users. We argue that the discourses contribute to a neoliberal rationality and have a disciplinary effect that strengthens various forms of responsibilization.

The current research focuses on the role of frame sponsors, more specifically politicians of the six main Flemish political parties (N-VA, Open Vld, CD&V, sp.a, Groen or Vlaams Belang), in framing the public debate about migration in the news as well as on social media. More specifically, we investigated the presence of four frames: the intruder frame, the victim frame, the wealth gap frame and the win-win frame (Van Gorp et al., 2018). We collected statements on migration or migrants made by Flemish politicians between 1 January 2016 and 30 June 2018 in four different types of media. We selected the five most read national newspapers: Het Laatste Nieuws, Het Nieuwsblad, De Standaard, De Morgen, and De Tijd. The television news items were collected from the 19h daily newscast VTM Nieuws (commercial broadcaster) and 19h daily newscast Het Journaal (public broadcaster VRT, Eén). On Twitter and Facebook, we included the official accounts of the political parties as well as the official accounts of their most important politicians (party leaders, Ministers and State Secretaries in the Federal and Flemish government, party experts on migration). In each of the four media, the units of registration are the statements by Flemish politicians containing at least one of the keywords “migration” or “migrant”. We only selected the verbatim quotes by politicians. The newspaper data were collected through the GoPress database, the TV items through the ENA (Elektronisch Nieuwsarchief) database, the Twitter data using the Twitter API, and the Facebook data by means of a manual scraping (due to practical limitations only the 50 most recent posts). The study was conducted by two independent coders. The intercoder reliability test resulted in strong kappa values (ranging from 0.617 to 1). We collected 1528 statements of 82 politicians representing the six parties; 47.9% (732) from N-VA, 27.1% (414) Vlaams Belang, 8.2% (125) Open Vld, 6.0% (91) CD&V, 5.9% (90) sp.a, and 5.0% (76) Groen. Importantly, only 245 of these statements contain one of the four researched frames (16.0%). This is not a surprise, since a lot of quotes are just factual and too short to contain framing or reasoning devices. The intruder frame is by far the most used frame (73.1%), followed by the victim frame (22.0%), wealth gap frame (3.7%), and win -win frame (1.2%). Vlaams Belang (38.8%) had the most framed statements, shortly followed by N-VA (35.9%). Both parties used the intruder frame the most. In contrast, the other four parties used the victim frame the most. We also found differences in frame use depending on the media type. The overrepresentation of the intruder frame on Twitter and television is related to the dominance of N -VA and Vlaams Belang accounts in these platforms. We also compared the framed statements in the media to the official views as carried out in the parties’ election programs (2014) which turn out to be more neutral, less emotional and comprise more alternatively framed statements about migration.

Het jaarlijkse Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap deed in 2018 voor een tweede maal in haar geschiedenis Gent aan. Onder het goedkeurende oog van The Netherlands and Flanders Communication Association (NeFCA), was de vakgroep Communicatiewetenschappen van de Universiteit Gent een trotse gastheer voor de twintigste editie van de jaarlijkse academische hoogmis van Vlaamse en Nederlandse communicatiewetenschappers. Ruim 320 aanwezigen werden enthousiast onthaald in de prestigieuze Aula Academica, bijna tweehonderd jaar lang een neoclassicistisch baken van kennis en wijsheid in de Gentse binnenstad en gedurende twee winterse dagen in februari 2018 de warme intellectuele habitat voor de gemeenschap van communicatiewetenschappers uit de Lage Landen.

For many scholars, critics as well as fans, fidelity to the source material is the key word in a debate on film adaptation. This article, however, scrutinizes the issue of fidelity by reflecting on the character and story of Batman that has been so often rebooted and reinvented in its long history of comics and movies that one can wonder what the original is. Acknowledging today’s widespread cross-media exchange of narratives, the article shows that fans’ reactions to the filmic adaptations are as diverse as is the range of retellings of the Batman story. Focusing on the different interpretations of the villain Bane in the recent film franchise, it demonstrates that most fans prefer a sense of faithfulness towards the ‘essence’ of the character rather than an accurate resemblance in appearance or look. The study further acknowledges the growing importance of fans in the creative and economic process of adaptation.

Journalists domesticate news about distant events to bring such events closer to the audience and thus make them more relevant and appealing; however, knowledge about the actual audience’s reactions toward domesticated news is lacking. Central to this study is understanding how an audience makes use of domestication strategies in viewing and reacting to mediated distant suffering. Earlier text-based research has found several ways of domesticating distant suffering that can invite an audience to care. Building further on this media-centered study, 10 focus groups reveal a two-flow model of domestication, consisting of first-level domestication on the production side by journalists and second-level domestication, in which audience members themselves use strategies of domestication to make sense of distant suffering.

Within an emerging tradition of adaptation research that looks beyond fidelity-driven inquiries into exclusively literary adaptations, the case of telenovelas is exemplary for a contemporary media industry that is characterized by a cross-media and cross-border exchange of narratives. Focusing on the recent revival and international success of the telenovela genre and format, Chapter 20 reflects on a series of extra-textual features and contexts that are related to the practice of adapting global telenovela formats into different cultural environments. It approaches telenovelas as localizable yet universally appealing cultural products and narratives that undergo a tailoring process to match local expectations or to conform to local sensibilities and cultural, narrative, and production codes.

This article provides an overview of the research and literature on media and disasters. Drawing on the central idea of a disaster as a social and media construction, I identify this young and rapidly emerging body of research as an inherent interdisciplinary area that has attracted the interest of many disciplines within social sciences. A first section of the article focuses on a characterization of (mediated) disasters and the question of academic relevance. Second, I adopt a historical perspective to reflect on issues of disciplinary concern, followed by an outline of the contemporary body of literature. In a final section, directions to advance future research on media and disasters are discussed.

This article applies a combination of an input–output content analysis and in-depth interviews with nongovernmental organization (NGO) communication professionals to determine whether the growing incorporation of press releases in editorial print content could be a new public forum through which international political actors, such as NGOs, could gain wider news access by serving as emerging key players in global civil society. The study indicates that Belgian news coverage of international aid issues is more often based on NGO press releases than government press releases. We also found that the agenda-building capacities of NGOs and government institutions are enhanced as journalists present information subsidies as original journalistic work in most cases. Nonetheless, we must tone down prevailing one-sided conclusions, as most press releases are not just copy-pasted. Instead, most are supplemented with additional sources and information. The data, moreover, identify different journalistic roles of NGOs according to their objectives. While some issue press releases to raise short-term public awareness and donations for humanitarian crises (mobilization), others have developed into established expert news source organizations that provide background information and reliable eyewitness accounts to journalists.

An emerging field of research within social sciences concerns itself with the issue of suffering. Following its growing (mediated) societal prevalence and impact in recent years, suffering has already spurred a rich and diverse body of work. Alongside its emergence within academia, questions arose about its disciplinary home and scope. Drawing on elite interviews with twelve leading scholars, this article positions the on-going research on media and suffering at the heart of social sciences and humanities as well as at the crossroads of different disciplines. This overall open view was reflected in discussions on the current and future scope of the research. Regarding future directions, empirical audience research is high on the academic agenda as are studies that look into the role of new media with regard to suffering. Other widely shared comments referred to a further opening up of the research in terms of methodological and disciplinary approaches.

News media play an important role in giving publicity and meaning to global suffering, as it is mainly through media reports that the world perceives international risk situations. This article focuses on natural and technological disasters as part of the contemporary risk society and their (de)construction by Flemish news media. Applying quantitative content analysis, the study reveals that 70.8 per cent of all disasters occurring between 1986 and 2006 are neglected by the newspapers, for the large part disasters in less developed countries. Regarding news coverage, proximity appears to be the guiding principle. Disasters developing in western or high-income countries are well covered while distant crises in the peripheral south are struggling to get attention, unless they affect a huge number of (western) people. In general, this article supports the claim that disasters and other instances of risk are essentially media constructs: they exist only when covered by the media.

Scholarly work on audience reactions to mediated distant suffering tends to focus on the moral, ethical and/or emotional aspects involved (Höijer 2001; Chouliaraki 2006; Scott 2014) while there is also a bias in foregrounding negative reactions such as denial, skepticism or indifference (Moeller 1999; Seu 2010). Hence, more complex and qualified aspects of audience reception risk staying under-explored in future scholarly work. This article acknowledges the complex nature and identifies a broad range of aspects (psychological, cultural, sociological,…) that can influence people’s attitude towards distant societies and suffering. The objective is to explore different processes and aspects that can be integrated in research on audience reactions to images of distant suffering, from different disciplines within social sciences. Cultural anthropology and sociology of new media are briefly discussed in this regard while social psychology is looked in more closely. An interdisciplinary theoretical basis is quintessential in understanding the audience and its complex relation to distant suffering. In this respect, the presented article responds to the call for more empirical and theoretical audience research in the field of mediated suffering by taking the first step towards interdisciplinary and multi-methodological research (Joye 2013; Ong 2014; Orgad and Seu 2014).

Several scholars have identified an important emotional role in news media’s covering of international disasters; inviting the audience to care for people in need who are not like us. This article addresses the question of how news media can attribute a local sense of relevance to global suffering by focusing on the journalistic practice of domestication. Following a case-based methodology, we investigate how two Belgian television stations have domesticated international disasters in 2011. As the study shows, rendering distant suffering more relevant to local audiences can be realized in several ways. A critical discourse analysis identified four key discursive modes of domestication. By drawing on these modes, news journalists try to incite involvement in their representations of distant suffering, hence inviting the local audience to relate with the distant other. Domestication can lead to possible feelings of cosmopolitanism and identification, although dominant power relations of global inequality remain largely unchallenged.

For most people living in western countries, disasters are a priori cases of distant suffering as they mainly affect cultural or ethnic others. News media thus play a pivotal role in giving publicity and meaning to the numerous instances of global suffering as it is essentially through media reports that the (western) world witnesses international disasters. Accordingly, several scholars define a disaster as a media construction; they exist only when recognized and covered by the media. This paper focuses on the conceptualization of a disaster as a media construction by exploring the inherently selective nature of news coverage, the representation of suffering in Flemish news media and the possible societal implications.

In our contemporary mediatized societies, philanthropy seems to be part of celebrities’ ontology, while celebrities have become indispensable for the charity industry. This has provoked both negative and positive appraisals, although the specific nature and consequences of celebrities’ involvement remain unclear. This article contributes to these debates by providing a systematic analysis of the roles celebrities play in telethons, which we redefine as charity media events, allowing us to study the shows in their full contextual complexity as ideological constructs. Applying qualitative content analysis, we have analysed two charity media events following the 2010 Haitian earthquake. In general, four distinct roles have been discerned: celebrities add an aura of exclusiveness and glamour, they render distant suffering relevant to domestic audiences, they function as principal motivators, and also contribute to the commodification of charity. Celebrities’ involvement thus reinforces charity media events’ dominant discourse of charitainment, in which a disaster is portrayed as a short term problem that can be remedied by supporting relief aid. Although this analysis does not disregard the usefulness and impact of fundraising campaigns and the contribution celebrities can make, it criticizes the oversimplified representation of complex issues and the decontextualized and depoliticized interpretations of distant suffering.

News carries a unique signifying power, a power to represent events in particular ways (Fairclough, 1995). Applying Critical Discourse Analysis and Chouliaraki’s theory on the mediation of suffering (2006), this article explores the news representation of the 2003 global SARS outbreak. Following a case-based methodology, we investigate how two Belgian television stations have covered the international outbreak of SARS. By looking into the mediation of four selected discursive moments, underlying discourses of power, hierarchy and compassion were unraveled. The analysis further identified the key role of proximity in international news reporting and supports the claim that Western news media mainly reproduce a Euro-American centered world order. This article argues that news coverage of international crises such as SARS constructs and maintains the socio-cultural difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ as well as articulating global power hierarchies and a division of the world in zones of poverty and prosperity, danger and safety.

Cross-national and longitudinal comparative research on the media coverage of EU-related news has gained increasing interest and momentum, but is still rare and generally focuses on the EU as an intergovernmental institution, hence remaining largely ignorant of the particular flows of news in between the member states of the EU. The following analysis provides insight into the media coverage of the Polish EU presidency in the region of Flanders. For this quantitative content analysis, our scope is narrowed to three Flemish media sources. Based on a predetermined set of keywords related to the Polish case and using the newspaper search engine Mediargus, we collected 735 articles for analysis. In conclusion, the analyzed news sample devoted little attention to the Polish EU presidency. News items relevant to Poland’s presidency of the EU were concentrated around the presidential inauguration, limited in size, not necessarily political in nature, and favored objective news reporting with absence of a discernible attitude towards Poland.

Against the theoretical background of the concept ‘karaoke-Americanism’, this article compares the Belgian, Dutch and American version of the film Loft. Several (dis)similarities in the representation of sexuality, female characters, and ethnicity, as well as some formal changes, are observed. By combining these results with self-conducted, in-depth and press interviews with the filmmakers of these films, it is ascertained that, although the three versions share a similar use of specific Hollywood conventions, the changes in representation were motivated by perceived cultural differences. Building on known cultural stereotypes and clichés, filmmakers reinforce specific cultural (and national) identities, with the aim of enhancing the recognizability for their local audiences. In conclusion, the Dutch and Belgian filmmakers, in an attempt of localizing the universal, realized a hyperreal version of their own or another culture. Focussend op de Belgische, Nederlandse en Amerikaanse filmversies van Loft bestudeert dit artikel de relaties tussen interculturele mediapraktijken en de (re)producties van culturele identiteiten. Een vergelijkende tekstuele en contextuele filmanalyse van representaties van vrouwelijke personages, seksualiteit en etniciteit illustreert dat de verschillende versies van eenzelfde filmverhaal gerelateerd zijn aan hun specifieke socio-culturele contexten en aan het concept van karaoke-Amerikanisme.

Climate struggle: news coverage of climate change during the climate summit in Cancún in Flemish quality newspapers Climate struggle: news coverage of climate change during the climate summit in Cancún in Flemish quality newspapers This paper reports on the results of a qualitative content analysis of climate change coverage by two Flemish quality newspapers in the context of the Cancún climate summit. Important similarities as well as differences were found between both newspapers in terms of underlying assumptions regarding international relations.

Deze studie situeert zich binnen recente maatschappelijke tendensen zoals ‘healthism’ (Skrabanek 1994), medicalisering (Christiaens & van Teijlingen, 2009) en vergrijzing waardoor senioren een steeds belangrijker wordende doelgroep van gezondheidsinformatie zijn (Bracke et al., 2008). Een essentieel element in dit actueel debat is de enorme toename aan medische informatie via de massamedia, maar ook via andere spelers (of stakeholders) zoals overheden, educatieve en wetenschappelijke organisaties, en commerciële actoren. De vraag of dit proces senioren als patiënten/consumenten meer kennis en macht geeft (‘empowerment’) dan wel hen blootstelt aan subtiele manipulatie door misleidende of conflicterende informatie van stakeholders, blijft voorlopig voorwerp van intens debat (Fox et al., 2005; Santana et al., 2011). Dat komt mede doordat onderzoekers tot dusver eenzijdig gefocust hebben op de producenten van gezondheidsnieuws (bv. Applbaum, 2009), de nieuwsinhoud (bv. Goodfellow et al., 2013), of op de nieuwsconsumenten (bv. Lewis, 2006). Men onderzocht telkens een deel in plaats van het geheel en daarom hebben we tot op vandaag geen volledig inzicht in het proces van nieuwsconstructie en -deconstructie. Wij sluiten ons daarentegen aan bij de stelling van Rimal en Lapinski (2009) dat gezondheidscommunicatie benaderd dient te worden vanuit een transdisciplinair perspectief om inzicht te krijgen in de complexe interactiepatronen die vorm geven aan het discours over gezondheid. De centrale doelstelling van deze paper is daarom de ontwikkeling van een innovatief, transdisciplinair onderzoeksdesign dat kan toegepast worden om te onderzoeken welke rol de verschillende stakeholders opnemen in de constructie van discours rond senioren-gerelateerde gezondheidskwesties via de nieuwsmedia, en hoe het publiek van Vlaamse senioren gezondheidsinformatie verzamelt en deconstrueert. In navolging van Chiapello en Fairclough (2002, p.206) definiëren we transdisciplinair onderzoek als een “particular form of interdisciplinary research which (…) initiates a dialogue between two disciplines and frameworks, which may lead to a development of both through a process of each internally appropriating the logic of the other as a resource for its own development.” Uitgaande van de hierboven beschreven tendensen opteren we voor een transdisciplinaire samenwerking tussen communicatiewetenschappen, sociolinguïstiek, geneeskunde en sociologie. Methodologisch stoelt het onderzoeksdesign op een triangulatie van verschillende kwalitatieve en kwantitatieve onderzoekstechnieken. We onderscheiden vier convergerende onderzoekslijnen die sterk met elkaar verweven zijn: 1. De eerste onderzoekslijn brengt het discours van en de politiek-economische en institutionele relaties tussen de actoren in het veld van senioren-gerelateerde gezondheidskwesties in kaart. We combineren politiek-economische analyse, een stakeholder mappingtechniek en een reeks van semigestructureerde elite-interviews met vertegenwoordigers van de stakeholders. 2. Een tweede onderzoekslijn focust op de (productie)levenscyclus van nieuwsverhalen over senioren-gerelateerde gezondheidskwesties. Via een case-georiënteerde, ‘multi-sited’ linguïstisch etnografische benadering, onder meer in de communicatieafdeling van een farmaceutisch bedrijf en in een krantenredactie, wordt het complexe raderwerk van discursieve praktijken en professionele routines ontleed dat vorm geeft aan de berichtgeving over gezondheid. 3. Terwijl de tweede onderzoekslijn de productie van gezondheidsnieuws analyseert, focust het derde subproject op de uiteindelijke output van het nieuwsproductieproces: de nieuwsinhoud. Aan de hand van kwantitatieve inhoudsanalyse, frame en discoursanalyse onderzoeken we welke stakeholders, bronnen en discourses aan bod komen in senioren-gerelateerd gezondheidsnieuws in verschillende Vlaamse nieuwsmedia. 4. De laatste onderzoekslijn positioneert zich aan het ontvangersuiteinde van de nieuwsketen: de consumptie van gezondheidsinformatie. In twee series van focusgroepinterviews zal nagegaan worden hoe Vlaamse senioren informatie rond gezondheid ontvangen, interpreteren en evalueren in termen van betrouwbaarheid en waardevolheid. Zo kunnen we inzicht verwerven in de geletterdheid van senioren op het vlak van gezondheid (‘health literacy’) en de bredere sociale vraag naar transparante informatie over gezondheid. Zoals eerder aangegeven streven we naar een kruisbestuiving tussen de verschillende onderzoekslijnen. Daartoe voorzien we verschillende overlegmomenten en integratiefases. Het doel van deze paper is om uitgebreid te reflecteren over het onderzoeksdesign van dit ambitieus onderzoeksproject, meer bepaald over de transdisciplinaire benadering, de theoretische invalshoeken, en de gekozen onderzoeksmethoden.

Introduction: Most studies on information behaviour focus on individual behaviour, predominantly seeking, scanning and avoiding. This paper explores sharing, the understudied informal exchange of health information in everyday social settings. Method: Forty qualitative in-depth interviews were held with adults in the age range of fifty to eighty in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium. Analysis: Thematic data analysis was carried out to identify and single out sharing behaviour. Using a grounded analysis approach, data findings were compared with and placed within the literature and conceptual frameworks. Results: The study finds that health information sharing is a common and frequently occurring type of health information behaviour, embedded in everyday social and supportive interactions. The sharing of knowledge, experiences and advice takes place intentionally and in a premeditated fashion, as well as spontaneously and unintentionally when opportunities arise. Respondents observe and learn from others about health conditions, although the doctor remains the foremost expert. Conclusions: Driven by social motivations, sharing plays an important role in the acquisition, exchange and circulation of health information. This suggests that more attention should be paid to the social, collective and collaborative aspects of information behaviour, specifically everyday information sharing.

Introduction. This study explores health information non-sharing behaviour in everyday social settings and interactions. The novelty and relevance of the study lies in the fact that it explores a common yet understudied information behaviour, as very few studies have examined information non-sharing. Method. Forty qualitative in-depth interviews were held in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, with adults between the ages of fifty and eighty. Analysis. A contextual framework was drawn from information studies and health information and communication research, consisting of the concepts of health orientation, information avoidance, uncertainty management, to help understand health information non-sharing. Thematic analysis was employed to identify reasons for non-sharing behaviour. Results. Seven key themes or reasons emerge for health information non-sharing behaviour; health as a non-topic, avoid being labelled as ill, individual responsibility, avoid burdening others, lack of trust in others, lack of trust in the internet, and avoiding information overload. Conclusions. This study is not only more nuanced than earlier work on sharing behaviour, but also leads to new questions about outcomes of health information non-sharing. The findings further illuminate 'non-information behaviour' within information studies, while also offering insights relevant to health communication researchers and healthcare practitioners.