Dementia Knowledge in Chinese Newspapers: A Topic Modeling Analysis
Author Information
Author(s): Chen Lin, Tian Felicia F, Fu Yu
Primary Institution: Fudan University
Hypothesis
How public policies convey dementia is an important source of the public’s understanding of dementia.
Conclusion
The study found a steady increase in articles about dementia caregiving and a decline in lifestyle recommendations, highlighting the need for better media representation of dementia.
Supporting Evidence
- The study identified six prevalent topics on dementia in Chinese newspapers.
- There was a noted increase in articles about dementia caregiving from 2005 to 2020.
- The portrayal of dementia in newspapers often included stigmatizing language.
Takeaway
The study looked at how Chinese newspapers talked about dementia over 15 years and found that while there are more articles about caregiving, there are fewer about healthy lifestyles.
Methodology
The study used topic modeling strategies and analyzed 12,719 articles from 45 newspapers using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA).
Potential Biases
The study noted that newspapers stigmatized aging by co-depicting dementia and old age with biased terminology.
Limitations
The study may not capture all aspects of dementia portrayal due to the limited scope of selected newspapers.
Participant Demographics
The analysis focused on articles from mainland Chinese newspapers.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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