Global Climate Change, the Problem with “Public Opinion” and Epistemic Dependence

I recently submitted a think piece to the online news magazine The Mark. My article deals with how the term “public opinion” has been used by reporters, political officials and environmentalists to influence the debate about global climate change.
The basic point I make is that public opinion is a social construction, yet it often comes [...]

Global Warming, Public Health and the Discourse of Responsibility

In 2008 Health Canada commissioned the polling company Environics Research Group to survey Canadians about their attitudes and understanding of global warming and its likely impact on public health. Titled Assessing Perceived Health Risks of Climate Change: Canadian Public Opinion – 2008, the report is available in the electronic collection of Library and Archives Canada.
Most [...]

The Food Security & Safety Puzzle

One of the current era’s most pressing political, economic and public health issues is food security and safety. Recent outbreaks of food-borne illness in Canada have brought this home in a powerful and highly resonant way, yet there is much more to the issue than the increased potential for infection and disease. Costs are also [...]

Purple Pills and Puffery

This post is about promotionalism and the pharmaceutical industry. Some of the ideas come from a paper I wrote a couple of years ago (This Ad May be Bad for Your Health) published as a chapter in my book Communication in Question. I was compelled to revisit some of the ideas that informed the paper [...]

Opt in/Opt out? Consumers Benefit from Surveillance Backlash

In January 2006, the Bush administration came under intense criticism for authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct electronic (soft) surveillance on citizens’ telephone and Internet correspondence without court approval. The NSA’s ability to monitor the daily communications of U.S. citizens was made possible by the willing participation of some of the largest telecommunications [...]

Thank You for Smoking

In what must be a sign that public health advocates are making big gains in the legal and PR battles against Big Tobacco, news today that the biggest cancer purveyor in the U.S., Philip Morris, has taken the City of San Francisco to court over a new bylaw banning sales of cigarettes in pharmacies.

The company [...]

Crisis & Empathy Goffman Style

I’ve been thinking a lot about Maple Leaf Foods and its crisis communication response following the listeria outbreak. I’ve posted about the political dimensions of this event already, but even while working through these reactions I was having a hard time reconciling: (a) my admiration for how the company handled the crisis (admiration in terms [...]

Politicizing the public service a danger to public health

Two news items today worth noting. The first story, from the front page of the Ottawa Citizen, reports that the Tories have clamped down on public servants during the election, “muzzling” them from speaking at conferences, to scientific meetings, or in other public engagements. The story quotes Myriam Massabki, a spokesperson with the Privy Council [...]