NEWS CONTENT ANALYSIS

For this assignment, you will find a newspaper article that discusses a health and/or disease event
from current events (or the past 5 years). You will then provide an analysis, including your
informed opinion, on the event discussed in the article using the frameworks and analytical tools
you have learned in the course.
You will attach the news article to your paper. Your paper should be ~3 pages long.
In addition, you will find at least two academic articles to support your claims.
You need to:
1. Provide a brief summary of the newspaper article and issue. Remember, your summary
and description is always best used in the body of your paper as evidence to support your
argument.
2. Deconstruct the newspaper article and its argument(s):
• Think about: Are you satisfied with the argument(s) in the news article? Why or why
not? What does the author focus too much on or overlook?
• As you do the analysis consider the following:
o How is the health and disease event presented in the news article?
o Are any issues/ideas of: affordability responsibility, accessibility, access,
ethics, choice, and quality/quantity of treatment and/or prevention…
addressed? How?
o Is there a problem defined in the article and, if so, how is that problem
FRAMED?
o Do you know of different ways of describing or approaching this issue based
on what you have learned from lecture or readings or other experiences
you’ve had?
o How would you extend or critique the news’ analysis of the event with
concepts you have learned in this class: such as space, history,
interconnections, scale, and/or social/political/ecologic context?
• Provide concrete evidence from your two scholarly articles to support your claims.
• Provide a bibliography; choose a standard citation style and be consistent throughout!
An “academic” article is one written by someone in an academic and/or research position that
has undergone peer review. These can best be found through creative searches on Google
Scholar or via the Library website. You can search keywords from the main search page or use
the E-journals portal to track down resources. Pay close attention to who wrote the article and in
what journal the article was published.