Crash Course: 5 Steps to Map a Media Environment

This is the 2nd article in a series on Networked Health Literacy. Last time, I introduced the concept as the collaborative use of networked technologies to advance health equity. This time, I describe how to understand the context your health messages are in. This helps you better understand the context your own health communication takes place in, including potential allies and counter-messaging.

1-Minute Takeaways

If you only have a minute, here are some tips to understand the online media environment around a topic of interest.

• Search YouTube, Amazon, Google, and various social media to find informal sources of information people may turn to.
• Pay attention to the funding sources, including speakers' paid appearances.
• Figure out if there are any patterns to messages of interest, e.g. latching onto certain kinds of news events.

5 Steps to Mapping a Media Environment: What, Who, Where, When, How?

Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, is the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor. He has a long track record of promoting vaccine research and supporting global vaccine access. He also has a long track record of science communication through mass media, including several books.

His most recent book came out last fall. In The Deadly Rise of Anti-science, Hotez analyzes his own experiences with anti-science aggression. The most notable is his encounter with the followers of Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and RFK Jr. Last summer, he refused a high-profile "debate" on vaccine science. Musk, Rogan, and others discredited him for their followers. A Twitter dogpile ensued. And, as is all too common, the harassment didn't stay online.

This dogpile didn't happen in a vacuum. It took place in a broader media environment. This article uses Hotez’s description of anti-science media as a jumping-off point for media analysis by health communicators.

Step 1: What messages will you focus on?

Ask yourself 2 questions to start mapping a media environment. What topic are you interested in? What communication goal are you interested in? In The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, Hotez focuses on anti-vaccine messages.

Then, search for messages that match this focus. Search for informal sources on YouTube, Amazon, Google, and social media. Note phrases you keep finding. How do they differ from phrases in formal sources like government reports, news media, and research articles on the same topic? Can you find more messages of interest by searching for those phrases?

Step 2: Who makes these messages?

Identify the authors and speakers of the messages you found. This might include authors, hosts, influencers, and organizations. Hotez illustrates this through naming anti-vax communicators, including:

• Authors selling books on Amazon
• Contrarian academics on Twitter
• Hosts on cable news
• Elected officials crafting soundbites

Hotez goes further by drawing connections to health behaviors and harassment. Each line represents the spread of messages from state actors and prominent anti-vaccine advocates, through US officials and conservative news outlets, to more general publics.

Hotez's diagram streamlines this into a linear, hierarchical chain. Each connection likely goes both ways. And each author likely connects to others. Much like Hotez, however, you don't need to map the network in full. You just need a better idea of how the pieces interact.

Step 3: Where do these messages spread?

Once you identified authors and messages, you might want to search again. Where do these authors and speakers spread their messages? Where do people post quotes, screenshots, and clips of them?

To draw on Hotez's example, an author from the Disinformation Dozen might write anti-vaccine talking points in a book. Then they might share anti-vaccine talking points on a podcast. Then they might use social media to create a spectacle of it. At the same time, audiences breathe new life into these messages when they combine them with commentary and memes in new contexts.

Step 4: When do these messages pop up?

Next, pay attention to when these messages pop up. Are they constant? Are they seasonal? Do they respond to specific kinds of news events? In Hotez's case, he could see how anti-vaccine messages latched onto his pro-vaccine news media appearances.

Step 5: How do people afford to make these messages?

Finally, look at the funding sources for these messages. Though many people spread messages for free on social media, there is often a financial incentive for prominent media creators. YouTube channels may be monetized, meaning they earn money from ad views. On social media more broadly, look for sponsored posts and retail affiliate links. Creators may also set up paid subscriptions on platforms like YouTube, Patreon, and Substack. You might also look up where creators make speaking appearances on TV or in-person. Altogether, this helps you understand the stakeholders with a vested interest in online conversations on your topic of interest.

In Hotez's case, he highlights how many anti-vaccine advocate receive funding from political action committees and fans’ direct sponsorship. We can also see how anti-vaccine advocates and authors build their notoriety to be hired as public speakers.

Conclusion

This article introduced the skill of mapping a media environment, particularly online. This is a key skill in Networked Health Literacy. You can use this skill to understand allies who you may collaborate with. You can also understand how messages counter to yours are being sustained. This might give you ideas of how to avoid harassment or anti-science aggression. It can also give you insight into successful communication strategies.

About the author

Sam is a PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Their research combines media studies and computational social science to help expand the scope of health literacy research. Outside of research, their work focuses on supporting social media communication that can help advance health equity.