Graduation Year
2012
Date of Thesis Acceptance
Fall 5-9-2012
Major Department or Program
Anthropology
Advisor(s)
Suzanne Morissey
Abstract
This thesis addresses media representations of contagious diseases. Focusing on the Ebola outbreak of 1995 and the SARS outbreak of 2002-2003, I examine the metaphorical language used to describe the diseases, and interrogate how the media contribute to Lakoff and Johnson’s metaphorical cognitive framework. I explore how ideas about contagious diseases reify Mary Douglas’ understandings of contagion and liminality, and ultimately, demonstrate that the media engender a fear of contagious diseases beyond their medical realities. By associating Ebola and SARS with elements such as war and nature, the media extend the power of the disease and make it imminently threatening. Thus, the media’s use of metaphors manipulates and alters pre-existing ideas about disease to create a new cognitive framework within which we understand infectious diseases.
Page Count
93
Subject Headings
Infectious diseases, Ebola virus diseases, SARS Virus, AIDS (Disease), HIV infections, China -- Health, Other (Philosophy), Mass media criticism, Communicable diseases -- Contagious diseases, Media -- Interpretation, Public health -- Representation, Africa -- Health, Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Zaire, Whitman College 2012 -- Dissertation collection -- Anthropology Department
Permanent URL
http://hdl.handle.net/10349/1119
Document Type
Public Accessible Thesis
Terms of Use
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Recommended Citation
du Bray, Margaret V., "Fear and the coming plague : what American media tell us about infectious disease" (2012). Honors Theses. 4.
http://arminda.whitman.edu/theses/4
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