title: Media constructions of sleep and sleep disorders: a study of UK national newspapers.
abstract: Medicalisation, healthicisation and 'personal' strategies have been identified as the main factors contributing to the socially mediated experience of sleep and sleep disorders in modern societies. Medicalisation and healthicisation are publicly available discourses. But the degree to which apparently 'personal' strategies for managing sleep are presented in popular media has been underestimated. This study of the coverage of 5 UK newspapers shows that both medicalised and healthicised discourses are concentrated in the 'serious' press. The tabloid press is more likely to constitute sleep as a private realm and tabloid readers are therefore relatively less exposed to officially sanctioned forms of knowledge about sleep. Analysis of Daily Mail coverage shows, though, that women's 'personal' strategies for managing sleep are far from being private solutions. The Mail presents this topic as a component of its social construction of a 'Middle England' lifestyle, giving these apparently 'personal' solutions a political resonance.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences and Law, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK. clive.seale@brunel.ac.uk
authors.forename: Clive
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Seale
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boden
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Pam
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lowe
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Steinberg
mesh_terms: D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D009524:Newspapers as Topic; D012307:Risk Factors; D012890:Sleep; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012962:Sociology, Medical; D006113:United Kingdom