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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
Sick With Fear: Popular Challenges To Scientific Authority In The Vaccine Controversies Of The 21st Century, Ellen Watkins
Sick With Fear: Popular Challenges To Scientific Authority In The Vaccine Controversies Of The 21st Century, Ellen Watkins
Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society
In the 20th century, vaccines were heralded as one of the greatest medical inventions in history. In the late 1990’s, however, the myth of vaccine-caused autism caught fire. Despite mountains of evidence disproving the link, panicking Americans eschewed vaccines and turned against their physicians. Why did Americans turn their backs on doctors, scientists, and the health industry? This paper follows the vaccine controversy of the last thirty years, looking in particular at the relationship between science and the media. This paper analyzes the contrast between discussion of the hypothesized link in scientific circles and in popular news sources, seeking to …
The Drawn-Out Battle Against Stigma: Mental Health In Modern American Comics And Graphic Novels, Swee Khee Brenda Seah
The Drawn-Out Battle Against Stigma: Mental Health In Modern American Comics And Graphic Novels, Swee Khee Brenda Seah
Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society
The discussion of mental health issues in the media significantly shapes public perceptions, most notably in negative portrayals that contribute to the stereotyping of mental health patients. Perhaps surprisingly, comics and graphic novels are forms of media that have potential to mitigate such stigma, despite earlier criticism of mental health stereotypes propagated in some comics. This is reflected in a recent trend of comics treating mental health issues in more sympathetic ways. This paper discusses three American comics from the last decade, examining depictions of post-traumatic stress disorder in Garry Trudeau's comic strip, Doonesbury, around 2005-2006, schizophrenia in Nate …
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Thinnest Of Them All?, Ann Marie O'Brien
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Thinnest Of Them All?, Ann Marie O'Brien
Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society
Societal standards of feminine beauty are presented in all forms of popular culture, thus bombarding women with images that portray what our society considers to be the “ideal body type.” These images, as seen on the cover of magazines, in popular films and in all forms of web and print advertising, are consistently depicted and easily described with one word: skinny. The regular use of unnatural, unhealthy and unrealistic models sends the implicit message that in order for a woman to be beautiful, she must attain this ultra-thin physique. Such adulation of these images encourages women to sacrifice their health …