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A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy
BACKGROUND: On 6th April 2018, the UK Government introduced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) as a mechanism designed to address increasing prevalence of obesity and associated ill health by reducing sugar consumption. Given that the successful introduction of upstream food and nutrition policies...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6498658/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31046718 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6799-9 |
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author | Buckton, Christina H. Fergie, Gillian Leifeld, Philip Hilton, Shona |
author_facet | Buckton, Christina H. Fergie, Gillian Leifeld, Philip Hilton, Shona |
author_sort | Buckton, Christina H. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: On 6th April 2018, the UK Government introduced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) as a mechanism designed to address increasing prevalence of obesity and associated ill health by reducing sugar consumption. Given that the successful introduction of upstream food and nutrition policies is a highly political enterprise involving multiple interested parties, understanding the complex network of stakeholders seeking to influence such policy decisions is imperative. METHODS: Media content analysis was used to build a dataset of relevant newspaper articles, which were analysed to identify stakeholder agreement or disagreement with defined concept statements. We used discourse network analysis to produce visual representations of the network of stakeholders and coalitions evident in the debate as it was presented in UK newspapers, in the lead up to and following the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy in the UK, from May 2015 to November 2016. RESULTS: Coding identified 3883 statements made by 214 individuals from 176 organisations, relating to 47 concepts. Network visualisations revealed a complex network of stakeholders with clear sceptical and supportive coalitions. Industry stakeholders appeared less united in the network than anticipated, particularly before the SDIL announcement. Some key industry actors appeared in the supportive coalition, possibly due to the use of corporate social responsibility rhetoric. Jamie Oliver appeared as a dominant stakeholder, firmly embedded with public health advocates. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the complexity of the network of stakeholders involved in the public debate on food policies such as sugar tax and the SDIL. Polarisation of stakeholders arose from differences in ideology, focus on a specific policy and statements about the weight of evidence. Vocal celebrity policy entrepreneurs may be instrumental in gaining public and policy makers’ support for future upstream regulation to promote population health, to facilitate alignment around a clear ideology. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6799-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6498658 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64986582019-05-09 A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy Buckton, Christina H. Fergie, Gillian Leifeld, Philip Hilton, Shona BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: On 6th April 2018, the UK Government introduced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) as a mechanism designed to address increasing prevalence of obesity and associated ill health by reducing sugar consumption. Given that the successful introduction of upstream food and nutrition policies is a highly political enterprise involving multiple interested parties, understanding the complex network of stakeholders seeking to influence such policy decisions is imperative. METHODS: Media content analysis was used to build a dataset of relevant newspaper articles, which were analysed to identify stakeholder agreement or disagreement with defined concept statements. We used discourse network analysis to produce visual representations of the network of stakeholders and coalitions evident in the debate as it was presented in UK newspapers, in the lead up to and following the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy in the UK, from May 2015 to November 2016. RESULTS: Coding identified 3883 statements made by 214 individuals from 176 organisations, relating to 47 concepts. Network visualisations revealed a complex network of stakeholders with clear sceptical and supportive coalitions. Industry stakeholders appeared less united in the network than anticipated, particularly before the SDIL announcement. Some key industry actors appeared in the supportive coalition, possibly due to the use of corporate social responsibility rhetoric. Jamie Oliver appeared as a dominant stakeholder, firmly embedded with public health advocates. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the complexity of the network of stakeholders involved in the public debate on food policies such as sugar tax and the SDIL. Polarisation of stakeholders arose from differences in ideology, focus on a specific policy and statements about the weight of evidence. Vocal celebrity policy entrepreneurs may be instrumental in gaining public and policy makers’ support for future upstream regulation to promote population health, to facilitate alignment around a clear ideology. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6799-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6498658/ /pubmed/31046718 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6799-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Buckton, Christina H. Fergie, Gillian Leifeld, Philip Hilton, Shona A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy |
title | A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy |
title_full | A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy |
title_fullStr | A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy |
title_full_unstemmed | A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy |
title_short | A discourse network analysis of UK newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy |
title_sort | discourse network analysis of uk newspaper coverage of the “sugar tax” debate before and after the announcement of the soft drinks industry levy |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6498658/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31046718 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6799-9 |
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