Nurse Jackie aside, how visible are nurses in the media today?
Nurse Jackie was supposed to put nurses “on the map” in the sense of portraying the real world of nursing. After all, here was a modern, gutsy, “take no guff” nurse who stood her ground and stood up for patients. (Sure, she had a drug problem, traded sex for drugs, and her marriage came apart—but one can’t have everything.) At least, there was a nurse character on television who wasn’t relegated to only saying “Yes, doctor,” or standing silently behind an OR mask.
The show portrayed a dynamic, compellingly complex nurse character. But what did the show, or what could any such fictional drama, do to change how people think about nurses and their place and value in health care? It certainly didn’t change the media’s thinking—in 2018, reporters rarely consider getting nurses’ views on stories about health care.
The 1998 Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media: ‘dismal’ results.
In 1998, Sigma Theta Tau International commissioned a study—the Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media—to examine how the media portrayed nursing. (You can read AJN’s summary (free until May 28) of the study in the December 1998 issue.) The results were dismal—after examining over 20,000 articles in newspapers and magazines, the researchers found that nurses were mentioned in only four percent of articles about health care.
New study. Even worse results.
Last year, Diana Mason and a team from the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and Berkeley Media Studies Group replicated the Woodhull Study as part of a broader study on nurses and the media.
The summary of the results, fittingly released at the beginning of Nurses Week when the media does pay some attention to nursing, were disheartening: nurses are still essentially invisible in the media and rarely sought by media as sources or experts on health care topics. The current analysis is more disappointing than the original: nurses were quoted or appeared as sources in only two percent of articles examined in September 2017. We’ve lost ground!
Why the media ignores nurses.
Other parts of the study looked at why journalists did or didn’t use nurses as sources. Findings:
- they don’t really understand all that nurses do
- the right nurse is hard to find
- public relations staff don’t offer nurses as experts to media
- nurses may be reluctant to speak with media
Also, schools of nursing didn’t typically use Twitter accounts to position nursing faculty and researchers as experts, but instead were “inwardly facing” in their posts, focusing on promotion of their schools within their own university communities but not seeking to promote nurse interactions with outside voices of influence. (You can get more details and see video of the press conference here.)
Being visible in the media and to the media is important if nurses are to be considered as having an important and valued voice on health care issues. If we are invisible, policy makers and funders will not seek our perspective on cost or processes or needed innovations. As the largest profession at the point of care, we perhaps have the most valuable perspective and the one that makes the most difference for our patients.
I agree with with Marianna Crane. The idea of nurses meekly waiting to be given the opportunity or permission to speak is hard picture to for me to accept. Combine the hand-maiden- waiting- for- a- knight- to- come -and- provide- a -platform image with the fact there are numerous tools nurses can choose to use to build their OWN communication platforms….I am unsure how to process this blog post… I wrote about a related topic [in a letter to the editor] and I would love your thoughts: http://bit.ly/ShareYourValue. Let’s continue the conversation.
Full disclosure here: I once got an award from The Truth About Nursing for activism on this issue. I am sorry to see TTAN not mentioned in the AJN post, as Sandy Summers and associates are the leaders in promoting accuracy how media depict nurses and nursing. Her scathing takedowns of TV shows (not just low-hanging fruit like Gray’s Anatomy) and TV “doctor shows” (I’m looking at you, Drs. Oz and Phil) are classics. Checking her website at http://www.truthaboutnursing.org will reward readers, spur them into action, and offer a number of good resources, including her books. I give them away all the time. Let’s see the AJN promote this regularly, as the excellent resource it is. Perhaps some free advertising would be in order– put the money where the editorial is, as it were.
I am saddened to read that nurses are not increasing their visibility in the media but are even less visible then they were 20 years ago.
In my long career as a nurse I have always felt that we nurses don’t tell our stories.In retirement, I have started a blog, nursingstories.org, and recently wrote a book about my nursing experience.
In 2013, I responded to a call from Sandy Summers, The Truth About Nursing, to write a letter to journalists who ignored detailing in Business Week what affect nursing care would have on a Hilary Clinton’s hospitalization–only doctors were mentioned. I found out I was the only one to compose and send off such a inquiry.
https://nursingstories.org/2013/02/10/i-was-the-only-one/
At a time when women are standing up to years of dismissal in politics, arts, finance, etc, it is a timely moment for the 90% of female nurses to speak out about what we do and gain visibility.