Lok Pokhrel presented his current research at the AEJMC national convention in San Francisco
Journalism & Mass Communication Assistant Professor Lok Pokhrel presented his current research titled “News-media Framing of Obesity, Responsibility Attribution, and Moral Discourses” at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) national convention on Aug 6, 2015 in San Francisco. Researcher Pokhrel’s research found that the news media’s framing of obesity-related health issues, through the use of various discursive and framing tactics, raises ethical concerns. The study highlighted the ethical concerns from appeals to both personal responsibility and a sense of obligation to promote the health of others and fulfill the duty to avoid becoming an unfair burden to others. The researcher suggests that rather than putting a victim-blaming approach into the forefront, the media should promote a duty or obligations-based approach in which people are not blamed or considered guilty for having health problems, but are responsible for the solution to them –need to be in the forefront. Such an approach will help maintain the notion that people can be positively encouraged to take personal control in solving lifestyle- related health problems, such as obesity, without putting any blame on who caused the problem. The researcher claims that by promoting responsibility at the individual level, one will not contradict or negate the overall community empowerment principles. The research expects that the health-policy makers take these suggestions into consideration.
Professor Pokhrel has previously won a prestigious “Carol Burnett Award on Best Research in Media Ethics” from Media Ethics Division, AEJMC in 2013.
Professor Pokhrel is scheduled to present another study on health communication at National Communication Association (NCA) Convention at Las Vegas in November this year.
During the AEJMC convention, Professor Pokhrel, who is also a faculty adviser for PRSSA MSUM chapter, attended a reception followed by a presentation on social media optimization (SMO) hosted by LinkedIn (www.linkedIn.com) and Edelman, he world’s largest PR agency (www.edelman.com).