O poder da assessoria de imprensa na saúde em portugal: organizações, protagonistas e técnicas entre 2008-2010

Abstract

Media relations is a classic area in Public Relations. In the health sector, it is an essential tool to promote public health policies and to produce quality information to the general population. However, in Portugal, the conditions for the production of health information are controversial and there is a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction over matters of great ethical sensibility. In order to enlighten this debate, a group of researchers at the University of Minho has been developing a systematic study on the health news coverage in Portugal, since 2008 (Project “Disease in the News”, FCT).

This paper is a longitudinal study on the press officers’ activities as health information sources in Portugal. The study was based on a systematic analysis of three newspapers, between 2008 and 2010, gathering 4 415 news articles.

Then, the research was carried on in two stages: (1st) we tried to find out who are the sources of information in health news?; and (2nd) we looked to reveal how they became news sources? –, in order to answer our initial concern: what is the press officer’s role on the news coverage on health in Portugal?