Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Do Calendars Influence the News?
In the natural history of news, timing is very important, of course. Knowing the influence of timing on news, does it follow that journalists pay attention to awareness events? Although it doesn’t require much examination of awareness calendars to see that the association of events to dates seems arbitrary and artificial—there is no strong relationship of hunger to October as far as I know – awareness events are very popular. Just look at the full calendar.
But the major question is, are they effective? Do they garner media interest? Checking out your intuition or subjective might not be the place to go when you can Google so easily.
Searching for the term “awareness month” on Google News gave 613-788 results during multiple searches during September, 2010. This list of news clips (many were multiple entries) included the following awareness events, mostly from Sept. and Oct.:
• ADHD
• Baby Safety
• Breast Cancer
• Childhood Cancer
• Childhood Obesity
• Down Syndrome
• Drowning Impact
• Hunger
• Infant Mortality
• Latino Health
• Menopause
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Ovarian Cancer
• Pain
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
• Prostate Cancer
There were more, of course, but I include only health in this list. Most were health related. Most in the first few pages were either in the current month (Sept.) or next (Oct.).
The major point from this brief analysis is simply the volume of stories. Journalists are aware of and write about awareness events.
Here’s a blogger’s contrarian point of view: http://blogs.alternet.org/appetiteforprofit/2010/09/05/why-is-mcdonalds-listed-a-resource-for-childhood-obesity-awareness-month/ Michele Simon says, “…oh god, please no ribbons or walks.” She raises some good points about how to appropriately promote an awareness month. I’m sure she also represents the emotional reaction of a major sector of the public to awareness events. However, the Google News search clearly demonstrates that the awareness promotions are covered in the media.
Because of journalist’s interest in awareness calendar events, Newswise has introduced the “Newswise Health Awareness Calendar” . We promise to try to our utmost to avoid irony and inappropriate sponsorships of health awareness, although it is quite easy to imagine some catastrophic pairings, and a mischievous sense of humor could get us a lot of coverage (negative). Perhaps we need a National Irony Awareness Day?
These data are reinforced by other search results, including Google for the term “awareness month” gave 1,820,000 results. A search of Google is not so dynamic or limited to the last 30 days, as a search of Google News. Similarly, a Google News search for “awareness week” gave 261 stories (on 9-13-2010; or 27 pages). The search on Google gave 1,350,000 results.
And a Google News search for “awareness day” gave 264 stories (on 9-13-2010; or 27 pages), while searching Google gave 1,550,000 results.
The take home lesson is that Awareness Months, Weeks, and Days work with the media. In the natural history of news awareness events represent a peculiar type of story; they are somewhat manufactured or didactic, and they are artificially or arbitrarily associated with time rather than having any real or physical association with a particular point in time. I speculate that the date on the calendar merely serves as a planning and implementation device, so that the people working on awareness events manage their resources to create events that enroll people in taking action. People move and are moved by the ribbons and walks.
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