Analyzing around 10,000 UK news articles, researchers found that while type 1 diabetes is often depicted through medical and biological narratives, coverage of type 2 diabetes often emphasizes lifestyle and personal responsibility, ignoring the broader social and economic factors that shape disease risk and management.
Research: Type 1 and type 2 diabetes in the UK press: A diachronic corpus-based analysis. Image credit: Maya Kruchankova / Shutterstock.com
In a recent study published in pro swanresearchers investigated how diabetes is represented in the UK news media and whether this representation leads to misconceptions and stigma.
How the media affects diabetes awareness
Current estimates suggest that an estimated 828 million adults worldwide will have diabetes in 2022. Diabetes is a chronic disease associated with impaired insulin production or use and is further characterized as type 1 or type 2 (T1D and T2D), each with distinct causes and management pathways.
The media shapes how the public understands scientific issues by increasing awareness of and accessibility to notable discoveries. Inappropriate media commentary that oversimplifies, sensationalizes, or misrepresents scientific findings can lead to misinformation, public mistrust, and prejudice.
Diabetes, and T2D in particular, is often blamed as a result of irresponsible behavior and overeating, due to its association with physical inactivity and weight gain. These negative emotions contribute to feelings of shame, guilt, and regret in people with diabetes, increasing the risk of disease mismanagement, diagnosis concealment, and self-limiting behaviors.
There is an urgent need to promote awareness of T1D and T2D while reducing media misconceptions and bias. To this end, national diabetes organizations in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia have published media guidelines to improve language use around diabetes.
A study examining the language patterns of major British newspapers
Researchers in the current study conducted corpus-based discourse analysis to examine how diabetes is represented in the UK media, using the Diabetes UK News Media Corpus, which consists of 9,673 news articles and approximately 10 million words. Articles were obtained from 10 UK print and online newspapers using the Nexis Lexis database.
The researchers used built-in Nexis Lexis filters and Python scripts to remove duplicates, financial reports, and irrelevant material in the original corpus. The corpus was then split into two separate corpora, T1D and T2D, using built-in filters and Python scripts.
We used Sketch Engine, an advanced language software, to identify collocations, defined as words that appear frequently alongside “diabetes.” In the current study, collocations were aligned and grouped into thematic categories, such as preferred and non-preferred words, references to types of diabetes, references to other diseases, and explanations of causes and management. This combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods allowed researchers to identify trends over time and reveal how language influences public perceptions of medical conditions such as diabetes.
How does the UK news portray T1D and T2D?
From 2020 to 2024, news coverage of T1D and T2D increased. However, substantially more content was devoted to T2D than T1D. Diabetes is often mentioned alongside other diseases such as obesity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Although these associations are medically justified, they may suggest inaccurate causal relationships.
Terms such as “patient,” “patient,” and “diabetes,” all objectionable terms, were used more frequently in news coverage of T1D. This strong medical discourse surrounding T1D was further reinforced by its frequent association with both viral and biological rather than social factors.
T1D is interpreted as a personal medical problem, and individuals with T1D are held responsible for managing their own health.
In contrast, reports of T2D often emphasize lifestyle factors such as diet, obesity, and physical inactivity, suggesting individual responsibility for disease development. By emphasizing these factors associated with T2D, the media indirectly places the responsibility for reducing risk on the free will of individuals, rather than considering broader social determinants of health such as income, food security, and healthcare access that may contribute to the development and management of the disease.
The study also notes that medicalized reporting may help alleviate moral responsibility associated with T2D by emphasizing the biological and clinical aspects of the T2D condition, rather than just individual failures. However, researchers found that discussion of the social and economic factors that influence diabetes risk and management was relatively limited in news coverage.
Experts call for socially informed diabetes coverage
Media outlets are encouraged to use clear, guideline-based language when discussing diabetes and to clearly differentiate between T1D and T2D. In addition to avoiding expressions that may reinforce stigma, stigmatization, or misconceptions, careful consideration of both the medical and social factors involved in the development and management of diabetes may also reduce negative stereotypes surrounding this disease.
The researchers also recommend that greater care be taken when discussing diabetes alongside other medical conditions to avoid unintended implications of causation or similarity.
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