UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Cancer control agencies, their affiliated researchers and collaborating agencies in government and the NGO sector are often preoccupied by developing, running and evaluating health educational messages to the public in the form of "bought media" (health promotion advertising or public service announcements). Even the largest of such initiatives remain relatively modest when compared to the size and reach of commercial advertising campaigns.

Such interventions are seen as "foreground" variables in the mission to explain how communities change their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. They are seen as deserving of resources and serious attention. By contrast, "background" communications with the public in the form of news on cancer and cancer control are seen as somehow less worthy of as serious investment of resources, research and effort. Yet news media coverage of cancer ("earned media") typically dwarfs "bought media".

This paper will review evidence of the ability of news to cause important personal and political change in cancer control; providea case study of how news discourse contributed to ending smoking in bars; and end with a plea for cancer control agencies to take news generation more seriously.