Communication and Health: Media, Marketing and Risk

This book explores the unique contribution that critical communication studies can bring to our understanding of health. It covers several broad themes: representing and mediating health; marketing and promoting health, co-producing health; and managing health crises and risks. Chapters speak to moral and social regulation through health communication, technologies of health, healthism and governmentality. They engage with historical and contemporary issues, offering readers theoretically grounded perspectives. At base, the book explores what a critical communication approach to health might look like, revealing in important―and sometimes surprising―ways how communication sits at the centre of understanding how health is constructed, contested, and made meaningful.

Charlene Elliott is Professor in the Department of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary, jointly appointed with the Faculty of Kinesiology. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Food Marketing, Policy & Children’s Health. Her current program of research focuses on food promotion and policy (particularly food marketing to children and youth), communication and health, and sensory communication and regulation.

Josh Greenberg is Director of the School of Journalism and Communication and Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Carleton University. His expertise is in health risk communication, with a focus on media coverage of outbreaks and other infectious disease risks; public risk perceptions of vaccination; and the risk communication strategies and activities of public health officials and organizations.