Recent research into the media’s influence on public health recommends that researchers take the media seriously. The media can both enhance or undermine public health objectives, as it is a primary source of common narratives around health and illness. Previous research has identified the effectiveness of Māori framed health messages yet little is known about indigenous media outlets and how they mobilize indigenous health related cultural concepts. In this paper, we report our findings from a study that investigated how Maori cultural concepts are used by the Māori Television Service, specifically Te Kāea news, to communicate to its audience health messages about Meningococcal B immunisation. Several months of news and current affairs footage were reviewed and cultural metaphors used to communicate issues around the Meningococcal B virus identified. In contrast to campaigns such as Auahi Kore (Smoke Free) we found limited use of cultural imagery, cultural role models or settings. While Te Kāea News is in the Māori language, the content does not appear to vary dramatically from mainstream reporting, where the bio-medical model is dominant, and socio-economic explanations are negated.
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