Political citizens, consumers, or passive patients? Imagined audiences in the complementary medicine debate

Abstract

This is a content analysis (2011-2017) of news stories referring to an Australian-based lobby group called the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM) who have been active in their denouncement of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Australia. Of particular interest are the models of biocommunicability that dominated these news stories. Drawing from the works of Briggs and Hallin, these biocommunicability models enable us to consider whether the news story imagines its audience as passive patients, active patient-consumers, or engaged citizens in the public sphere. Of 76 articles, public sphere stories were the most frequent (n=54) followed by patient-consumer reports (n=36). Prioritising the voices of FSM lobbyists, news stories address their audiences as politically astute citizens or active consumers negotiating a range of healthcare options in an ambiguous healthcare landscape. These models correlate with framings of CAM as lucrative and unethical, illegitimate, with a poor evidence base.

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