Content Analysis Of The Media Image Of Doctors

In recent years, along with the escalation of medical disputes, doctors and the medical industry has become a hot social concern, so the content analysis of doctors’ media images is of certain social significance. However, researches focused on doctors’ media images in the academic field of Journalism and communication has been very scarce, let alone researches through the Internet. In this paper, 1048 news reports about doctors were extracted from Sina.com.cn and all these reports were written during the National Twelfth Five-year Plan, namely 2011-2015, a crucial stage in deepening the reform of medical and healthcare services system, and also a key period of the establishment of basic medical and health system. Thus with adequate samples, the latest situation of the media images of doctors can be seen.To be more specific, this thesis consists of four parts. The first comes the introduction part, in which the origin, theory and practical significance were elaborated, current academic achievements were generalized, conceptions concerning with this research were explained and research questions were raised. The second part deals with samples and coding, which defines the principles and reasons of media selection and definition of time. Research plan is also included. The third section, through content analysis, statistic and analyze the changes of factors like quantity, genre, form, nature, theme,source and role positioning of reports on doctors, trying to outline the images of doctors and make discussions on factors influencing the presentation of such doctor images. In the last part, conclusions were given that the media images of doctors presented in Sina.com.cn from 2011 to 2015 tended to be neutral with partially negative bias, and the stereotyped and routine constructions of the media image of doctors need to be improved. Meanwhile, doctors’ media images in Sina.com.cn were weakened in some degree, which may help build the positive media images of doctors.