Home

Section 5: Media Epidemics

Contents:

• Using the word 'epidemic'
• Quiz

Language is a powerful tool. Often words which have specific definitions, such as epidemic (see the basic pages for the definition), are also used in other ways.

‘Epidemic' is a prime example of this, as whilst when strictly defined, it refers only to communicable diseases, it is often used in the media to refer to many other health problems, and non health related problems.

For example, obesity is often referred to as an epidemic. The word epidemic is used to emphasise the rise in cases of obesity, in order to gain the benefits associated with media coverage of epidemics (see above) such as increased funding and awareness raising.

However the use of the word may also mean that the disadvantages associated with prejudice, moral panic and the attribution of blame may also apply. See the case study page on obesity for more discussion of this.

Back to top

Quiz

Below is a list of things which were referred to as epidemics in recent news reports (taken from the BBC and Guardian). See if you can identify which are ‘true' epidemics.

Flu

Using other people's bins

Back to top