News coverage in popular media can shape public perspectives on occupational issues. Few studies exist concerning how occupational injury and fatality are represented in the news.
OBJECTIVES:
This study examined how injuries, fatalities and worker characteristics were represented in newspapers compared with official government statistics. It also examined what individuals or organizations were most often included by reporters to provide interpretations of injuries and fatalities.
METHODS:
Quantitative content analysis was used to examine 304 newspaper articles from between 2007 and 2012 representing the nine most populous cities in the province of Ontario, Canada. Government data came from reports compiled by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario.
RESULTS:
Compared to workers’ compensation board records, physical characteristics of injuries and fatalities were skewed toward the acute traumatic. Women were dramatically underrepresented in newspaper articles. Age distributions were represented. Goods-producing, transportation and resource extraction occupations were overrepresented while services were underrepresented. Worker voices were largely absent in newspaper accounts compared with law enforcement, the State and management.
CONCLUSIONS:
How workplace injury and fatality are framed, and who contributes to these frames, serves to shape public interpretations of occupational injury and fatality and how occupational health and safety issues might be addressed in the future.
GoffmanE. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experienceCambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1974.
2.
SealeC. Health and media: An overview. Sociology of Health and Illness2003;6:513–531.
3.
BarnetsonB, FosterJ. Bloody lucky: The carelessworker myth in Alberta, Canada. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health2012; 18(2): 135–146.
4.
DenenbergRV, DenenbergTS. Workplace violence and the media: The myth of the disgruntled employee. Work2012;42:5–7.
5.
ReeceKT, DavisJA, PolatajkoHJ. The representations of work-life balance in Canadian newspapers. Work2009;32:431–442.
6.
WikmanS. Violence at work as a social problem. A study of the media coverage on workplace violence in Swedish trade union journals, 1978-2004. Sociologisk Forskning2008;3:6–31.
7.
ConnorSM, WesolowskiK. Newspaper framing of fatal motor vehicle crashes in four Midwestern cities in the United States. Injury Prevention2004;10:149–153.
8.
ClarkeJN, Van AmeromGP. When bad things happen to good people: The portrayal of accidents in mass print magazines. Health Risk and Society2007;9(4):425–439.
9.
BarnetsonB. The political economy of workplace injury in Canada. Edmonton: AU Press; 2010.
10.
LeighJP. Economic burden of occupational injury and illness in the United States. Milbank Quarterly2011;89(4):728–772.
11.
SoklaridisaS, CassidyJD, Gabrielle van der VeldeG, TompafE, Hogg-JohnsonS. The economic cost of return to work: An employer’s perspective. Work2012;43:255–262.
12.
TakalaJ, HamalainenP, SaarelaKL, YunLY, ManickamK, JinTW, HengP, TjongC, KhengLG, LimS, LinGS. Global estimates of the burden of injury and illness at work in 2012. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene2014;11(5):326–337.
13.
Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada. Available at http://awcbc.org/ Accessed 11/07 2014.
14.
WelchM, PriceEA, YankeyN. Moral panic over youth violence: Wilding and the manufacture of menace in the media. Youth and Society2002;34(1):3–30.
15.
AltheideD. Creating fear: News and the construction of crisis. Hawthorne, NY: deGruyter; 2002.
16.
BestJ. Random violence: How we talk about new crimes and new victims. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 1999.
17.
Herda-RappA. The social construction of local school violence threats by the news media and professional organizations. Sociological Inquiry2003;73:545–574.
18.
SaccoVF. When crime waves. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 2005.
19.
RomerD, Hall JamiesonK, AdayS. Television news and the cultivation of fear of crime. Journal of Communication2003;53(1):88–104.
20.
DanielsS, BrijsT, KeunenD. Official reporting and newspaper coverage of road crashes: A case study. Safety Science2010;48(10):1469–1476.
21.
RosalesM, StallonesL. Coverage of motor vehicle crashes with injuries in U.S. newspapers 1999-2002. Journal of Safety Research2008;39:477–482.
22.
FaircloughN. ‘Political correctness’: The politics of culture and language. Discourse and Society2003;14(1):17–28.
23.
KitzingerJ. Researching risk and the media. Health Risk and Society1999;1(1):55–69.
24.
KitzingerJ. Media templates: Patterns of association and the (re)construction of meaning over time. Medicine Culture and Society2000;22:61–84.
25.
DeBottonA. The news: A user’s manual. New York: Pantheon Books; 2014.
26.
RauhalaA, AlbaneseP, FernsC, LawD, HaniffA, MacdonaldL. Who says what: Election coverage and sourcing of child care in four Canadian dailies. Journal of Child and Family Studies2012;21(1):95–105.
27.
SchneiderB, Chamberlaink, HodgettsD. Representations of homelessness in four Canadian newspapers: Regulation, control, and social order. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare2010;37(4):147–172.
28.
AttonC, WickendenE. Sourcing routines and representation in alternative journalism: A case study approach. Journalism Studies2005;6(3):347–359.
29.
BeckerHS. Whose side are we on?Social Problems1967;14(3):239–247.
30.
DowlerK. Comparing American and Canadian local television crime stories: A content analysis. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice2004;46(5):573–596.
31.
SullivanBA, ChermakSM. Product counterfeiting and the media: Examining news sources used in the construction of product counterfeiting as a social problem. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice2013;37(4):295–316.
32.
ChermakS. Body count news: How crime is presented in the newsmedia. Justice Quarterly1994;11(4):561–582.
33.
ChermakS. Crime in the news media: A refined understanding of how crimes become news. In: BarakEG, editor. Media process and the social construction of crime: Studies in newsmaking. New York, NY: Routledge; 1995.
34.
NicholsT, TuckerE. OHS management systems in the U.K. and Ontario, Canada: A political economy perspective. In: FrickK, JensenPL, QuinlanM, WilhagenT, editors. Systematic occupational health and safety management: Perspectives on an international development. Oxford: Pergamon; 2000. pp. 285–310.
35.
StoreyR. From the environment to the workplace and back again? Occupational health and safety activism in Ontario, 1970s–2000. Canadian Review of Sociology2004;41(4):419–447.
36.
TuckerE. Diverging trends in worker health and safety protection and participation in Canada, 1985-2000. Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations2003;58(3):395–426.
37.
TuckerE. Remapping Worker Citizenship in Contemporary Occupational Health and Safety Regimes. InternationalJournal of Health Services2007;37(1):145–170.
38.
BarabJ. Acts of God, acts of man. Working USA2003;7(2):7–23.
KoehoornM, TamburicL, XuF, HasanatAA, DemersPA, McLeodCB. Are all fatal and hospitalized work-related injuries captured in workers’ compensation data? Paper presented at 7th International Symposium: Safety and Healthin Agricultural and Rural Populations (SHARP); Saskatoon, Canada; 2014.
44.
StockS, NicolakakisN, RaïqH, MessingK, LippelK, TurcotA. Underreporting work absences for nontraumatic work-related musculoskeletal disorders to workers’ compensation: Results of a 2007–2008 survey of the Québec working population. American Journal of Public Health2014;0:e1–e8.
45.
TuckerS, DiekragerD, TurnerN, KellowayEK. Work-related injury underreporting among young workers: Prevalence, gender differences, and explanations for underreporting. Journal of Safety Research2014;50:67–73.
46.
KrippendorffK. Content analysis. An introduction of its methodology. Third EditionThousand Oaks: Sage; 2004.
47.
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). National occupation classification (NOC). Available at: http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC/English/NOC// Welcome.asps. Accessed 28/012014.
48.
MuzzattiSL, FeatherstoneR. Crosshairs on our backs: The culture of fear and the production of the D.C. sniper story. Contemporary Justice Review2007;10(1):43–66.
49.
MessingK. One-eyed Science: Occupational health and women workers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; 1998.
50.
MessingK, PunnettL, BondM, AlexandersonK, PyleJ, ZahmS, WegmanD, StockSR, de GrosboisS. Be the fairest of them all: Challenges and recommendations for the treatment of gender in occupational health research. American Journal of Industrial Medicine2003;43(6):618–629.
51.
ChungJ, ColeD, ClarkeJ. Women, work, and injury. In SullivanT, editor. Injury and the new world of work. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press; 2000. pp. 69–90.
52.
StoreyR. From invisibility to equality? Women workers and the gendering of workers’ compensation in Ontario 1900–2005. Labour/Le Travail2009;64:75–106.
SmithP, MustardC. Examining the associations between physical work demands and work injury rates between men and women in Ontario, – Occupational and Environmental Medicine2004;61(9):750–756.
55.
McCloskeyE. The health and safety of young people at work: A Canadian perspective. International Journal of Workplace Health Management2008;1(1):41–49.
56.
RaykovM, TaylorA. Health and safety for Canadian youth in trades. Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society2013;20:33–50.
57.
SullivanT, FrankJ. Restating disability or disabling the state: Four challenges. SullivanT, editor. Injury and the new world of work. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press; 2000. pp. 1–24.
MorassaeiS, BreslinFC, IbrahimSA, SmithPM, MustardCA, AmickBC, ShankardassK, PetchJ. Geographic variation in work injuries: A multilevel analysis of individual-level data and area-level factors within Canada. Annals of Epidemiology2013;23(5):260–266.
60.
TuchmanG. Making news by doing work. In BerkowitzDA, editor. Social meanings of news: A text-reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 1997. pp. 173–192.
61.
SchulteP. Emerging issues in occupational safety and health. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health2006;12(3):273–277.
