The Gekko Effect: The Media's Framing of Michael Douglas' Ambiguous Public Health Disclosure and the Public's Online Health Information Seeking

Abstract

On June 2, 2013, The Guardian published a story on Michael Douglas where he stated his previous battle with throat cancer was due to a cancer-causing strain of the human papillomavirus, which he claimed he contracted by performing oral sex. This case study investigated the presence and frequency of online media frames and frame combinations in stories related to Michael Douglas' public health disclosure, and the frames' relationship with the public's online information seeking of "Michael Douglas", "HPV", "throat cancer", and "oral sex". The results of the framing analysis indicate that the body of online media reports regarding Douglas' health disclosure were confusing, or ambiguous, at best, and the online information search aggregate data demonstrates dramatic search increases for the four key phrases under examination. Using media-system dependency theory, this study suggests that the ambiguous nature of the media reports on Douglas' health disclosure elicited the public's online health information seeking.