Modern Media Affected Nurses in Nurse Media

Question :

How has it affected nurses in their daily interactions?

What are some ways media anthropologists could contribute to the understanding or betterment of nursing practice and of how nurses consume or even produce media?

Answer :

Media serves an important source of information for both the nurses and the public. Media framing affects how the public think about nurses and other healthcare workers. These sources have a tendency to reporting health related news in a way where most of the time the nursing staff are shown in poor light. It also gives an unclear image to nurses as to how they should interact with the patients without further affecting the negative impact of health stories. Daily interactions between patients and nurses and also between nurses and fellow workers are driven by cautiousness because there is constant fear of damage of reputation (Jackson, Fraser, & Ash, 2014). 

Media anthropologists are referred to as informed service users who can improve the understanding of nursing practices. Nurses need better information about the receipt and response of healthcare information and in the same way the public needs to gain a deeper understanding of the nursing practices which is beyond the portrayal of the health stories. Media anthropologists work to bridge this gap of understanding. One of the methods used by media anthropologists is the establishment of ‘journalist-in-residence’. This is an engagement program through which nurses can get better idea about the way their services are perceived and also nursing services get improved appreciation because through these anthropologists knowledge is shared and decision making becomes more informed (Brown, González, & McIlwraith, 2017). 

1 References

Jackson, J., Fraser, R., & Ash, P. (2014, September 30). Social Media and Nurses: Insights for Promoting Health for Individual and Professional Us. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 19(3).