Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Growing Influence of Mass Media

The days in which a tribal witch doctor or medicine man was the sole proprietor of medical knowledge are long gone. The impact of the mass media on the practice of medicine can never be underestimated. Nor can the power of the media to help the public understand the language of medicine.
As recently as World War II, medical knowledge was very tightly controlled by a closed society whose members were primarily white males. All that has changed. The media has done a tremendous job of educating the public about health concerns.

Whether medical concerns are presented as fact or fiction, the immediacy of today's mass media (combined with the strength and power of its graphics) helps to frame medical knowledge in an extremely user-friendly format.





Next: Medicine As Fiction

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