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Palgrave Macmillan
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Children’s Healthcare and Parental Media Engagement in Urban China

A Culture of Anxiety?

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Qian Gong

    1. University of Leicester , Leicester, United Kingdom

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  • First book to engage with the concept of risk and to address parental anxiety in China

  • Interdisciplinary study of varying fields, including: sociology, media and communication, cultural studies, health science, and Chinese studies

  • Extensive empirical work covering a five-year period

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 1-12

  3. Risk and Children’s Healthcare in Modern China

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 13-39

  4. Contextualising Parental Experiences in Post-Reform China

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 41-71

  5. Feeding Fears: News Coverage of the Infant Formula Scandal and Health Risk Communication

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 73-108

  6. Mediating Nature, Risk and Scientific Protection: Advertising Discourse of Healthcare Products and Parental Reception

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 109-139

  7. Managing Anxiety: Parental Engagement with New Media and Civic Participation

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 141-173

  8. Conclusion: A Culture of Anxiety?

    • Qian Gong
    Pages 175-205

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 207-214
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Keywords

About this book

This book analyses parental anxieties about their children’s healthcare issues in urban China, engaging with wider theoretical debates about modernity, risk and anxiety. It examines the broader social, cultural and historical contexts of parental anxiety by analysing a series of socio-economic changes and population policy changes in post-reform China that contextualise parental experiences. Drawing on Wilkinson’s (2001) conceptualisation linking individual’s risk consciousness to anxiety, this book analyses the situated risk experiences of parents’ and grandparents’, looking particularly into their engagement with various types of media. It studies the representations of health issues and health-related risks in a parenting magazine, popular newspapers, commercial advertising and new media, as well as parents’ and grandparents’ engagement with and response to these media representations. By investigating ‘a culture of anxiety’ among parents and grandparents in contemporary China, this book seeks to add to the scholarship of contemporary parenthood in a non- Western context. 

Reviews

“The ‘culture of anxiety’ that pervades contemporary societies to the detriment of everyday life and experience is nowhere more marked than among parents. This book makes an important and innovative contribution to the investigation of this matter, as it has developed in China. Taking health care and young children as its focus, it provides thought provoking discussion about the interplay between media (including new media) and the workings of risk consciousness, in an economy characterised by rapid change. The empirical work discussed in the book that explores the experience of parents and grandparents is of particular interest methodologically.” (Dr Ellie Lee, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Leicester , Leicester, United Kingdom

    Qian Gong

About the author

Qian (Sarah) Gong is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, UK. Her recent research interests include health communication, risk, parenting and motherhood. She is currently the Principal investigator of a Wellcome Trust funded project Health communication for Chinese migrant mothers in Northern England.


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