Abstract
This chapter focuses on MRSA, one of the superbugs that seem to ‘outwit’ modern medicine. It contributes to the emergent study of ‘infectious diseases and society’ which complements the more established study of ‘science and society’. We use approaches derived from discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and metaphor analysis (especially the study of discourse metaphors and metaphor scenarios) to investigate how an emergent risk from a bacterium was portrayed by the UK national press at three points in time: 1995 when the threat was as yet remote, 2000 when cases began to rise dramatically, and 2005 when the threat from MRSA became a hot political issue. We describe the changing rhetorical strategies used and the influences from science and policy on the use of preferred strategies, which roughly speaking changed from giving the bacteria a voice, to giving patients a voice, to giving politicians and policies a voice. In studying MRSA from a ‘discursive’ perspective we hope to contribute to a new understanding of the epidemiology of infections.l
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
- Intelligent Agent
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
- Hospital Infection
- Media Discourse
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Aldridge, M., and Dingwall, R. (2003). ‘Teleology on television? Implicit models of evolution in broadcast wildlife and nature programmes’, European Journal of Communication, 18, 4, 435–53.
Anonymous (1972). ‘Contamination, cleaning, and common sense’, The Lancet, 1, 1108–9.
Billig, M. (1996). Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Board on Global Health/BGH (2006). Ending the War Metaphor: The Changing Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship - Workshop Summary (Washington: Institute of Medicine).
Bono, J. (2005). ‘Perception, living matter, cognitive systems, immune networks: a Whiteheadian future for science studies’, Configurations, 13, 1, 135–81.
British Medical Journal/ BMJ (2004). UK health news, http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/uknews [Weblink defunct].
Bryson, B. (2003). A Short History of Nearly Everything (USA: Broadway Books).
Bucchi, M. (1998). Science and the Media: Alternative Routes in Scientific Communication (London: Routledge).
Bud, R. (2005). ‘The history of antibiotics’. The Medicine Chest, http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX026108.html.
Cannon, G. (1995). Superbug – Nature’s Revenge: Why Antibiotics Can Breed Disease (London: Virgin Publishing Ltd).
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
Chiang, W. (2007). ‘Conceptual metaphors for SARS: ‘war’ between whom?’, Discourse & Society, 18, 5, 579–602.
Cohen, H. (1995). House of Commons Hansard Debates for 5 December 1995, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo951205/debtext/51205–41.htm.
Dancer, S. J. (1999). ‘Mopping up hospital infection’, Journal of Hospital Infection, 43, 85–100.
Department of Health (2004a). A Matron’s Charter: An Action Plan for Cleaner Hospitals (London: The Stationery Office).
Department of Health (2004b). Towards Cleaner Hospitals and Lower Rates of Infection: A summary of action (London: Department of Health).
Department of Health. (2005). Saving Lives: A Delivery Programme to Reduce Healthcare Associated Infection (HCAI) Including MRSA (London: Department of Health).
Duerden, B. (2006). ‘Biology, politics and performance management. Tackling HCAI in the NHS in England’, www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/13-brian-duerden.pdf.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (London: Longman).
Garrett, L. (1994). Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (New York: Penguin).
Hilgartner, S. (1990). ‘The dominant view of popularization’, Social Studies of Science, 20, 519–39.
Hilgartner, S. (2000). Science on Stage (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
King’s Fund. (2005). ‘MRSA’, http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/resources/briefings/mrsa.html.
Koteyko, N. , Nerlich, B., Crawford, P. and Wright, N. (in press). ‘Not rocket science’ or ‘no silver bullet’? Media and government discourses about MRSA and cleanliness’, Applied Linguistics.
Lakoff, G. (2001). ‘Metaphors of Terror’, http://www.press.uchicago.edu/News/911lakoff.html.
Larson, B., Nerlich, B. And Wallis, P. (2004). ‘Metaphors and biorisks: the war on infectious diseases and invasive species’, Science Communication, 26, 3, 243–68.
Lawrence, J. (2005). ‘MRSA, politics and the press’, http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX026126.html.
Leibovich, M (2006). ‘In clean politics, flesh is pressed, then sanitized’, New York Times, 27 October.
Loveday H.P., Pellowe, C.M., Jones S. and Pratt R. (2006). ‘A systematic review of the evidence for interventions for the prevention and control of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (1996–2004)’, Journal of Hospital Infection, 63, 1, 45–70.
Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
Musolff, A. (2006). ‘Metaphor scenarios in public discourse’, Metaphor & Symbol, 21, 1, 23–38.
National Audit Office and Comptroller and Auditor General. (2000). The Management and Control of Hospital Acquired Infection in Acute NHS Trusts in England (London: NAO).
Nerlich, B. and Halliday, C. (2007). ‘Avian flu: the creation of expectations in the interplay between science and the media’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 29, 1, 46–65.
Nerlich, B. (in prep.). ‘“The post-antibiotic apocalypse” and the “war on superbugs”: catastrophe discourse in microbiology, its rhetorical form and political function’.
Nightingale, F. (1859/1952). Notes on Nursing, revised edn (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd).
Public Health Laboratory Service Board/PHLS. (2000). Communicable Disease Report 10, 3, 21 January.
Rheinberger, H.-J. (1997). Towards a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
Royal College of Nursing/RCN. (2005). Wipe It Out: Good Practice in Infection Prevention and Control — Guidance for Nursing Staff (London: RCN).
Voss, A. (2004). ‘Preventing the spread of MRSA’, British Medical Journal, 329, 521.
Wallis, P. and Nerlich, B. (2005). ‘Disease metaphors in new epidemics: the UK media framing of the 2003 SARS epidemic’, Social Science & Medicine, 60, 2629–39.
Washer, P. and Joffe, H. (2006). ‘The hospital ‘superbug’: social representations of MRSA’, Social Science and Medicine, 63, 8, 2141–52.
Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (2003). Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
Williams, R., Blowers, R., Garrod, L. P. and Shooter, R. A. (1966). Hospital Infection: Causes and Prevention (London: Lloyd-Luke Ltd).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2009 Brigitte Nerlich and Nelya Koteyko
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nerlich, B., Koteyko, N. (2009). MRSA — Portrait of a Superbug: A Media Drama in Three Acts. In: Musolff, A., Zinken, J. (eds) Metaphor and Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230594647_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230594647_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35903-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-59464-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Language & Linguistics CollectionEducation (R0)