JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Cancer is a severe health issue in Malaysia. Different media channels, especially digital media outlets play an essential role as a health educator to disseminate cancer health information, as well as persuade and mobilise cancer prevention in the community. However, little is known about the knowledge of mobilising information (calls to action) in online cancer news, especially from Asian media outlets.

Objective:

This study aimed at analysing cancer news articles that contain mobilising information and its news components on the selected Malaysian English and Chinese newspapers with online versions.

Methods:

The Star Online and Sin Chew Online were selected for analysis because the two newspaper websites enjoy the highest circulation and readership in the English-language and the Chinese-language streams respectively. Two bilingual coders searched the cancer news articles based on sampling keywords, after that read and coded each news article accordingly. Six coding variables were conceptualised from previous studies (i.e., cancer type, news type, news source, news focus, cancer risk factors and mobilising information), and a perfect consistency using Cohen’s Kappa was built between coders (k=.73-.97). Descriptive analysis was used to examine the frequency and percentage of each coding item; Chi-square test was applied to analyse the differences between two newspaper websites, and the associations between examined variables and the presence of mobilising information were examined through binary logistic regression.

Results:

Among 841 analysed news articles, 69.6% (585/841) presented mobilising information. News distributions were unbalanced throughout the year in both English and Chinese newspaper websites; some months occupied the peak (i.e., February and October), but cancer issues and mobilising information for cancer prevention received minimal attention in other months. The news articles from The Star Online and Sin Chew Online were significantly different in several news components, such as the present rates of mobilising information (x^2=9.25, p=.003), providing different types of mobilising information (Interactive MI: x^2=12.08, p=.001), interviewing different news sources (Government Agency: x^2=12.05, p=.001), concerning different news focus (Primary Cancer Prevention: x^2=10.98, p=.001), and mentioning different cancer risks (Lifestyle Risks: x^2=7.43, p=.007). Binary logistic regression results reported that online cancer news articles were more likely to provide mobilising information when interviewed NGOs, focused on topics related to primary cancer prevention, and highlighted lifestyle risks (OR: 2.77, 95% CI: 1.89-4.05; OR: 97.70, 95% CI: 46.97-203.24; OR: 186.28; 95% CI: 44.83-773.96; p=.001; respectively).

Conclusions:

This study provided new understandings regarding mobilising information in cancer news coverage. It could wake and trigger the individuals’ pre-existing attitudes and intentions on cancer prevention. Thus, health professionals, health journalists, and health campaign designers should be concentrated on mobilising information when distributing health information to the community.