IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i4p2189-d504402.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Guides Vaccination in the Portuguese Press? An Analysis of Information Sources

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Langbecker

    (Institute of Collective Health, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40.110-040, Brazil
    Research Group for Communication, Health and Education, Department of Public Health, São Paulo State University, Botucatu 18.618-686, Brazil)

  • Daniel Catalan-Matamoros

    (Department of Communication and Media Studies, Madrid University Carlos III, 28903 Madrid, Spain
    Health Research Centre, University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain)

Abstract

Sources of information are a key part of the news process as it guides certain topics, influencing the media agenda. The goal of this study is to examine the most frequent voices on vaccines in the Portuguese press. A total of 300 news items were analysed via content analysis using as sources two newspapers from 2012 to 2017. Of all the articles, 97.7% included a source ( n = 670). The most frequent were “governmental organisations”, “professional associations” and the “media”. Less frequent sources were “university scientists”, “governmental scientific bodies”, “consumer groups”, “doctors”, “scientific companies”, “NGOs” and “scientific journals”. Most articles used only non-scientific sources ( n = 156). A total of 94 articles used both categories and 43 used exclusively scientific sources. Our findings support the assertion that media can be an instrument to disseminate information on vaccines. Nevertheless, despite being present in most articles, the number of sources per article was low, therefore not presenting a diversity of opinions and there was a lack of scientific voices, thus suggesting lower quality of the information being offered to the audience.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Langbecker & Daniel Catalan-Matamoros, 2021. "Who Guides Vaccination in the Portuguese Press? An Analysis of Information Sources," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-10, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:2189-:d:504402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/2189/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/2189/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Catalan-Matamoros & Carlos Elías, 2020. "Vaccine Hesitancy in the Age of Coronavirus and Fake News: Analysis of Journalistic Sources in the Spanish Quality Press," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-15, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. María Jesús Fernández-Torres & Ana Almansa-Martínez & Rocío Chamizo-Sánchez, 2021. "Infodemic and Fake News in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-13, February.
    2. Laura Picazo-Sánchez & Rosa Domínguez-Martín & David García-Marín, 2022. "Health Promotion on Instagram: Descriptive–Correlational Study and Predictive Factors of Influencers’ Content," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Luis Cárcamo-Ulloa & Camila Cárdenas-Neira & Eliana Scheihing-García & Diego Sáez-Trumper & Matthieu Vernier & Carlos Blaña-Romero, 2023. "On Politics and Pandemic: How Do Chilean Media Talk about Disinformation and Fake News in Their Social Networks?," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-14, January.
    4. Hedviga Tkacová & Roman Králik & Miroslav Tvrdoň & Zita Jenisová & José García Martin, 2022. "Credibility and Involvement of Social Media in Education—Recommendations for Mitigating the Negative Effects of the Pandemic among High School Students," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Daniel Muñoz-Sastre & Luis Rodrigo-Martín & Isabel Rodrigo-Martín, 2021. "The Role of Twitter in the WHO’s Fight against the Infodemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-13, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:2189-:d:504402. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.