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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...

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Autores principales: Buckton, Christina H., Fergie, Gillian, Leifeld, Philip, Hilton, Shona
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
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.
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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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