The impact of objective/sensationalist media on young women's concern and misconceptions about breast cancer: an experimental study

Abstract

Background: Young women are overrepresented in sensationalist media stories about breast cancer, which has been associated with heightened breast cancer concern within this population. Recent research has also revealed that young women show significant misconceptions about breast cancer, and that these seem to have been increasing over the last two decades. Accordingly, the present study sought to gather experimental evidence on the impact of media messages on negative affect, fear of breast cancer, fatalism, and misconceptions about breast cancer among young women.

Methods: 186 females aged 18 to 40 were randomly allocated into one of three experimental conditions, designed to recreate the nature of breast cancer information typically presented in government health websites (i.e. objective information, condition 1) and women's magazines (i.e. sensationalist information); as part of the sensationalist information, participants were either exposed to a photograph of a young woman (i.e. condition 2) or a middle-aged woman (i.e. condition 3) featured as a cancer patient.

Results: Participants exposed to sensationalist information (i.e. conditions 2 and 3) reported significantly higher levels of negative affect, fear of breast cancer, and fatalism than participants exposed to objective information, after statistically adjusting for relevant covariates. No statistically significant differences were observed between participants exposed to sensationalist information featuring women of different ages. Overall, participants held important misconceptions about breast cancer. First, they greatly overestimated the risk of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis, especially participants exposed to sensationalist information featuring a young woman. Second, they also believed that breast cancer was most often diagnosed among women just under 50 years of age; participants exposed to sensationalist information (i.e. conditions 2 and 3) estimated the age at diagnosis as significantly lower than those exposed to objective information.

Conclusions: This study provides experimental evidence that sensationalist media increases concern and contributes to misconceptions about breast cancer. Concern and misconceptions may by further exacerbated when sensationalist messages feature a young woman as a cancer patient, thus offering a distorted view of the women typically diagnosed with breast cancer. Overall, participants revealed important misconceptions about breast cancer, which has significant implications for preventive behaviors and health communication.

Keywords: Breast cancer; Fatalism; Health competence; Media exposure; Misconceptions; Young women.