Cancer journalism in Nigeria: A discursive linguistic perspective

The article explores the phenomenon of cancer journalism and traces its development in modern Nigeria. Cancer journalism is defined as a subtype of medical journalism that covers a wide range of issues related to oncological diseases with a special focus on their social implications. In this article, cancer journalism is also presented as a discursive practice which is a key determinant in forming and developing a robust public cancer discourse. The need for this type of discourse is particularly acute in developing countries where cancer mortality rates are the highest, largely due to the low rank of oncological diseases on the healthcare agenda and general invisibility of cancer as a major health threat. The article discusses the main goals of cancer journalism and controversies around it, mentioning severe shortages of medically competent professionals, possibility of conceptual distortions and fraud, a disproportionate representation of different types of cancer, an uneven representation of the cancer continuum (prevention - detection - treatment - survivorship - end-of-life care), use of different frames and a number of recent discursive trends, such as the case approach to cancer coverage. It highlights the need for considering the local sociocultural context and argues for the "adopt and adapt" principle when it comes to replicating western journalistic practices. It further looks into the peculiarities of the Nigerian culture, which preclude an uncritical adoption of western trends. Chief among them is African medical pluralism, which implies a therapeutic synergy of western biomedicine, traditional healing, and religion and which renders a purely scientific approach followed by western cancer journalism unproductive. Other factors include cancer fatalism, common perception of cancer as a white man's disease, ageism in cancer care, and cultural unacceptability of some treatment protocols. The article presents an analysis of a sample of 173 articles from three major Nigerian newspapers (The Vanguard, The Nation, and The Punch) dated 2023. The goal of the analysis is to reveal the following features: (1) the general framing of cancer with a further focus on the main conceptual nodes; (2) relevance of the Nigerian sociocultural context for the representation of cancer; (3) representation of the cancer continuum; (4) adoption of the common western discursive patterns (the use of the case approach and replication of common metaphors). The analysis revealed a striking preponderance of the politico-economic framing with a special emphasis on the exorbitant cost of cancer treatment; a high relevance of the African medical pluralism for the representation of cancer, which is especially evident in The Nation sample; prevalence of prevention, detection and treatment in cancer coverage with almost a complete lack of survivorship and end-of-life care; an evident tendency to follow western patterns of cancer coverage, especially when it comes to the use of metaphors. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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