The senses and the social effects of information about health on TV: a reception study with patients of breast cancer

• Main Authors: Allan de Gouvêa Pereira, Iluska Maria da Silva Coutinho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto de Comunicação e Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde (Icict) da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) 2016-03-01
• Series: RECIIS
• Subjects: Informação; Câncer; Televisão; Sentidos; Recepção.
• Online Access: https://www.reciis.icict.fiocruz.br/index.php/reciis/article/view/1002

This paper results from a research project developed between 2012 and 2015 combining an analysis of hundreds of media products, interviews with health professionals and patients, and the focus on television coverage of cancer. Aiming to systematize the senses, impressions and perceptions of a group of patients (at different stages of treatment) and former patients who were diagnosed with breast cancer, the main purpose of the research was verifying the cancer’s meanings produced by the television, in a comparative perspective with cancer’s meanings for the patients. We selected as sample a group of women from an oncology hospital in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, and we used techniques of non-participant observation and discussion group.