Network analysis approach for exploring dementia representations in the Slovak media

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Media Studies
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• Dementia representation in media influences public perception and understanding.
• Systematic analysis of media content is crucial for understanding these representations.
• Network analysis offers a novel quantitative approach to media studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate network analysis as a method for studying media representations.
• To systematically analyze how dementia is represented in Slovak media.

Main Methods:

• A corpus of 244 Slovak media documents (web, print, TV, radio) from 2015-2018 was compiled.
• Social network analysis was used to model a word network from the text corpus.
• Search terms included 'dementia' and 'Alzheimer's disease'.

Main Results:

• Twelve distinct clusters of co-occurring concepts were identified, representing key themes.
• Biomedical themes ('medical diagnosis', 'prevalence of dementia', 'memory disorders') showed the highest representational strength.
• These biomedical themes constituted approximately two-thirds of the analyzed media content.

Conclusions:

• Network analysis provides valuable insights into dementia representation in Slovak media.
• The study demonstrates the utility of network analysis for systematically studying media portrayals.
• This approach offers a novel perspective on understanding public discourse surrounding dementia.