Mediating medicine: Controversy, credibility, and the use of alternatives to conventional hormone therapy

My research explores the performance of the media in shaping the public character of the debate and controversy surrounding the use of complementary and alternative medicine for the symptoms and health conditions that are of concern to midlife women. I pay particular attention to the way in which conventional and alternative medical interests advance, defend, and secure their respective claims to credibility and medical legitimacy. The media play a critical role in establishing the boundaries of debate and in shaping public perceptions of health and medical issues. By filtering and translating medical views and information, the media construct the public dimensions of medical controversies and shape the ways in which people understand the boundaries of debate, including the debate over scientific truth and medical legitimacy.;The data for this research are collected from coverage of alternative medicine published in two major newspapers (The New York Times and The Washington Post), articles in two key medical trade journals (The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association), and articles in three women's consumer magazines (Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, and GoodHousekeeping). Using qualitative discourse analysis, a case study is conducted of media coverage of alternatives to conventional hormone therapy.;Rather than being the voice of one dominant medical ideology, this study finds that the media represent a contested terrain upon which competing medical ideologies, values, and views intersect and influence media content. Generally, media coverage of alternative medicine defends the dominant or mainstream mode of medicine and marginalizes alternative medical practices, but this study finds that the undetermined nature of media content provides openings for negotiation and contestation within which competing views are voiced concerning the definition of medical legitimacy and therapeutic credibility of alternatives to conventional hormone therapy for the symptoms and conditions of concern to midlife women.