Talking cleanliness in health and agriculture
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: Inst of Science and Society
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
Publications
Brown B
(2008)
The habitus of hygiene: discourses of cleanliness and infection control in nursing work.
in Social science & medicine (1982)
Brown B
(2009)
Hygiene and Biosecurity: The Language and Politics of Risk in an Era of Emerging Infectious Diseases Hygiene and Biosecurity
in Sociology Compass
Crawford P
(2008)
The 'moral careers' of microbes and the rise of the matrons: An analysis of UK national press coverage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) 1995-2006
in Health, Risk & Society
Crawford P
(2008)
Soft authority: ecologies of infection management in the working lives of modern matrons and infection control staff.
in Sociology of health & illness
CURRIE G
(2009)
THE DYNAMICS OF PROFESSIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ROLES IN PUBLIC SERVICES ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF MODERN MATRONS IN THE ENGLISH NHS
in Public Administration
Hellsten I
(2010)
Bird flu hype The spread of a disease outbreak through the media and Internet discussion groups
in Journal of Language and Politics
Koteyko N
(2008)
Discourse of 'transformational leadership' in infection control.
in Health (London, England : 1997)
Koteyko N
(2007)
'Not rocket science' or 'No silver bullet'? Media and Government Discourses about MRSA and Cleanliness
in Applied Linguistics
Koteyko N
(2008)
Modern matrons and infection control practices: aspirations and realities
in British Journal of Infection Control
Koteyko N
(2008)
The Dead Parrot and the Dying Swan: The Role of Metaphor Scenarios in UK Press Coverage of Avian Flu in the UK in 2005-2006
in Metaphor and Symbol
| Description | We set out to study the language of biosecurity, hygiene and cleanliness in UK government, healthcare and agricultural policies and compare it with language used by key practitioners dealing with MRSA and the threat of avian flu, such as modern matrons and poultry farmers. Our aim was to examine how different agencies formulate issues, construct arguments and prioritise different practices and situated logics. We assembled a multidisciplinary team with expertise in nursing, the social study of health and illness, environmental studies and linguistics, especially corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and metaphor analysis. Our aim was to find answers to the following questions: • How do government policies, media reporting and the local knowledge of modern matrons interact with the way people construct issues of 'everyday' cleanliness and hygiene on the ground? • What implications do similarities and differences between policy and practitioner narratives have for the implementation of policy and good practice? To achieve these aims the project has successfully • Examined how issues of cleanliness in hospitals are addressed in policy discourse (WP1). • Determined how these issues are portrayed in the UK media (WP2). • Analysed how matrons and infection control personnel talk about cleanliness in the context of the threat from healthcare associated infections (WP3) • Investigated, compared and evaluated language use for qualitative and quantitative patterns of discourse (WP4). • Tested the utility of combining methods of critical discourse analysis with those of corpus linguistics. This project complements other work on the language and politics of infectious diseases and on the discursive and metaphorical framing of infectious diseases, carried out in relation to foot and mouth disease and SARS, for example (Nerlich et al., 2002; Wallis/Nerlich, 2005; Washer, 2006). One of the lessons learned from these epidemics is that the way people communicate about a threat largely determines how they are likely to understand it and behave toward it. As Powers and Xiao put it with reference to the 'social construction of SARS', "[w]e communicate ourselves into a particular way of thinking and acting" (Powers/Xiao, eds., in press). |
| Exploitation Route | infection control, disease management We contributed to the development of a hand-hygiene learning toy http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2010/july/gloyo.aspx |
| Sectors | Healthcare |