A Content Analysis Of Media Reports On Autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs in early childhood,and there is currently no effective way to prevent and cure autism.In recent years,the incidence of autism has been on the rise.Autistic people of China have exceeded 10 million.The public’s lack of understanding and the public’s misconceptions about autism in China contribute to the underdiagnosis and undertreatment of the disorder and the stigma associated with it.The media plays an important role in defining and constructing health and social issues for the public.Whether the issue of autism can be presented in the right way and the image of patients can greatly affect the situation of the patients in the society,as well as whether the huge potential patients can face up to their own diseases and receive professional intervention and treatment.This article takes the autism reports of The Beijing News as the object and adopts the content analysis research method to sort out and analyze the news reports about the autism from 2003 to 2019 in The Beijing News.In order to investigate the Changes in the reporting time,length,subject,perspective,and sources of the report,and analyze the image of autistic people constructed by The Beijing News,and compare the diseases and patients’ images constructed by The Beijing News with scientific cognition,and reveal the current status and problems of reports on autism issues combined with social cultural background of China and the reality of people with autism,and then provide feasible suggestions for the scientific communication of autism issues in the field of health communication.The study found that the description of the causes and solutions of autism in The Beijing News is basically consistent with the scientific research.However,the number of reports on autism fluctuates,there are few in-depth reports and insufficient attention is paid to the topic.There are few opportunities for autistic people to vocalize,and professional medical content related to autism is also lacking.In addition,overall,the reports focus on the autistic children,paying less attention to adult patients,while also ignoring female and rural patients,leading to the marginalization of some patients.The stigmatization of autism is also reflected in The Beijing News,and some reports have shown an extreme trend,metaphorizing autistic patients as Genius or Devil,which is not conducive to the public to form a scientific understanding of autism and eliminate the patients’ sense of shame.Finally,in view of the problems in the autism reports of The Beijing News,some suggestions are put forward,that is,balance the sources of information,strengthen the depth of the report and pay attention to the marginalized groups.In addition,the concept of constructive news is introduced,and some thoughts are put forward on how constructive news can provide more scientific solutions to the issue of autism.