Abstract

Info

Title:: Image of Medical Personnel in News Media and Its Influence onDoctor-Patient Trust

Keywords:: image of medical personnel; traditional news media; self-media; doctor-patient trust; stereotype

Abstract:: As one of the channels for the communication between doctors and patients，news media playan important role in building doctor-patient relationship and constructing the public image for the medicalpersonnel. The images of medical personnel in China show different characteristics in different historicalperiods. In a new media environment，traditional news media and self-media have similarities as well asdifferences in constructing the public image of medical personnel. The expansive use of new social media hasled to the multiplicity of media images. Broadly speaking，news media present a negative image of medicalpersonnel in medical reports：due to their pursuit of newsworthiness and their effort to meet the publicpsychological expectation，they tend to intentionally select news sources and subjectively adopt their narrativeframeworks. News media have helped create the negative stereotypes of the relationship between doctorsand patients，which are so reinforced that both doctor-patient relationship and doctor-patient trust are highlydamaged. News media，the public，the patients and the doctors ought to work together devotedly so as toconstruct a more positive image of the medical personnel，ease the tension in doctor-patient relationship andimprove doctor-patient trust. Only in this way can a harmonious doctor-patient relationship be promoted andexpected.