Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: This study examines how news stories depict different burdens of cancer by incorporating public health literature to communication and journalism. A systematic content analysis of news coverage from the crucial period 1988 to 1992, when the cancer incidence and mortality rates began to decrease significantly, indicates that more than half of the coverage highlighted the individual burden of cancer rather than the social or epidemiological burden, regardless of changes in epidemiological trends. Rather, the types of burdens appear significantly associated with the news values or theme frames. Individual burdens are represented through personal experiences, especially narratives detailing cause or treatment, while the social burdens are associated generally with the news themes relating to cancer policy. Also, the individual burdens typically relate to soft news values, while the social burdens most often reflected hard news values. The news frames of cancer burdens may be associated more with journalistic routines and readers’ news values than with factual representations of epidemiological phenomena and scientific information. It may be here that debatable questions concerning the news frames of health-related messages are identified.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In light of ongoing debate and inconsistent findings about the existence of an oppositional culture among black students, this paper reexamines the “burden of acting white” hypothesis. Using interview and enrollment data generated from a study undertaken for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, we find that school placement patterns figure significantly in the development of a burden acting white, but only among adolescents. We encountered the term “acting white” only in middle and high schools with disproportionate underrepresentation of minority and lower income students in rigorous courses and programs. In those schools we find considerable animosity toward the “rich white” students enrolled in upper-level classes and it served as a barrier to enrollment for some students, both black and white. At other schools, we find no animosity toward black students enrolled in these courses, whether under- or overrepresented. In general, students’ perceived lack of ability explained their reluctance to enroll in AP and honors courses. Given our findings, we suspect that the evidence of an oppositional culture found in other studies may be explained by the extent to which the minority students were underrepresented in the advanced courses, a situation that breeds animosity and resentment toward the privileged few.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines how grassroots community groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ecuador mobilized transnational networks to pressure the multinational oil industry and international institutions for greater and more meaningful participation in natural and community resource decision-making. On the construction of a second oil pipeline in Ecuador, Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP), communities and NGOs transcended national borders to form multinational alliances to demand local and national-level claims. In this case, civil society had greater leverage and influence on international institutions and multinationals, than on their own state and national companies. Grassroots groups and NGOs honed their negotiating and confrontational skills in an international arena, which may be converted into national empowerment to demand a greater role in the decisions of the state and domestic companies. Their activism of opposition and negotiation may also block multinationals from operating in the future in Ecuador without accountability, compensation, international safeguards and just practices. However, unexpected burdens accompanied transnational collaboration, including a local undervaluing or hoarding of local knowledge, persistent South-North tension, neglect of local groups and an overemphasis on the environment at the expense of labor and social and economic justice issues.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the past few decades, cancer related research has begun to focus on the psychological and social costs of disease. Quality of life has become an important issue, judged not only by absence of disease, but also by how satisfied the patient is with their day-to-day living. Despite this growing body of literature, there remains a considerable gap in understanding how far-reaching the social costs of cancer actually are. This study was designed to address the needs, behaviors and social expenditures of groups that are yet to be fully acknowledged in the research body; adult siblings, extended family and friendship networks and co-workers. The diagnosis of cancer creates change and potential conflict in the lives of these caregivers. It was hypothesized that each of these groups would be profoundly affected by the diagnosis of cancer and that they would have needs that were not likely being met as most support and research focuses on the patient and those within his/her spouse/intimate partner.