| Obesity Stigmas in News Stories and the Role of Sources in Two Leading Newspapers in the United States and South Korea |
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Hyang-Sook Kim, Mun-Young Chung |
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Department of Mass Communication, Towson University |
Correspondence:
Hyang-Sook Kim,
Email: hkim@towson.edu
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| Abstract |
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Regardless of the gap in the number of countries with low versus high obesity rates, a similar degree of negative perceptions about obesity and obese individuals is pervasive throughout the world. Despite the inevitable negative social conception of obesity and obese individuals regardless of their country origins, little research has explored (a) the likelihood that newspapers contributed to the obesity stigmatization in societies and (b) how different, if at all, newspapers in those countries depicted obesity and obese individuals in news stories. Undergirded by the attribution theory and the model of stigma communication, a content analysis of two leading newspapers—one in the United States and one in South Korea—found that the American newspaper produced more stories with obesity stigmas than the Korean newspaper. Unlike the assumption of the attribution theory, news stories with an obesity stigma included not only personal, but also social levels of attributions of obesity in both countries’ newspapers. However, health expert sources might cancel out the potential harms of situating obesity-related stigmas in news stories in both newspapers. Implications of stigma communication are discussed to understand the possibility of biased, unhealthy news production. |
| Key Words:
Obesity Stigmas, News Media, Attributions of Obesity, Stigma Communication, News Source, Cultural Comparison |
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