The disciplinary boundaries of social studies on the body, health and illness are widely dispersed and no less so when inquiring into the subject of media representations. So much research from a range of disciplines seeps into this area that it can be difficult to draw meaningful boundaries around it. Such issues as disability, eating disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, mental disorder, cosmetic surgery, drug cultures and much more, all fall within this area of concern. Moreover, debates …
Read moreThe disciplinary boundaries of social studies on the body, health and illness are widely dispersed and no less so when inquiring into the subject of media representations. So much research from a range of disciplines seeps into this area that it can be difficult to draw meaningful boundaries around it. Such issues as disability, eating disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, mental disorder, cosmetic surgery, drug cultures and much more, all fall within this area of concern. Moreover, debates in other areas of media inquiry are often explained through a health-related lens. For instance, discussions about computer games are repeatedly subjected to health-related discourses over whether their use leads to an increasingly sedentary, young population – a claim that is not borne out in the literature. The breadth of this subject prompts us to consider how to limit the study of media representations of health, illness and the body, when each and every action we undertake can be interpreted through this conceptual lens