Pharmacological content in the German tabloid newspaper BILD: Comparison with DIE ZEIT

The background to this work is society's growing interest in medical and pharmacological content. Tabloid media such as BILD have a massive reach through both print and online media, which contributes significantly to the formation of public opinion. The tabloid press is often classified as an untrustworthy source and judged to be biased. Therefore, this study will focus on the question of linguistic and thematic patterns in the reporting of a tabloid medium (BILD) and its differences and similarities with a quality medium (DIE ZEIT). For the analysis, 100 articles were selected from BILD.de based on clearly defined criteria and parameters. A formal and content analysis of the articles was carried out with regard to text structure, content, and comprehensibility. BILD presents current facts in a well-researched, easily understandable, and neutral manner. The most frequently discussed drugs are those used in the fields of pain pharmacology, immunopharmacology, treatment of bacterial infections, sex hormones, and neuropsychiatric disorders. BILD tends to focus on drug groups that are of interest to its main readership and that the frequency with which these topics are covered does not correspond to prescription figures and disease prevalence in Germany. 62% of the BILD articles provided information about adverse drug reactions and 93% mentioned the indication. There were weaknesses in the explanation of modes of action (7%) and in the mention of contraindications (18%) and interactions (3%). Both contraindications and interactions were mentioned simultaneously in 1% of the articles. BILD provides more frequently information about indications and Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs), contraindications and interactions, while DIE ZEIT discusses modes of action more often. BILD goes into more detail in 76% of the drug names defined in the articles, while DIE ZEIT does so in 59% of cases. Drug groups, on the other hand, are discussed in 24% of BILD articles and in 41% of DIE ZEIT articles. This study illustrates that even a tabloid newspaper can be used as a source of basic information on pharmacological content and that the information content in certain subject areas is better than in a quality newspaper such as DIE ZEIT. The analysis thus shows that successful science communication is not tied to a particular medium, but to the quality of the communication.