IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/policy/v48y2015i4p415-442.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social constructions of obesity target population: an empirical look at obesity policy narratives

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Husmann

Abstract

The present article discusses the results of an empirical test of Schneider and Ingram’s target population framework in terms of the NPF, taking a controversial contemporary issue of obesity as the context for the study. According to Schneider and Ingram, people form normative judgments about policy target populations, which in turn influence the development of public policies serving these populations. A between-subject experiment was conducted to test the power of four policy narratives, devised in accordance with the framework, and to examine the effects of social constructions of target populations on public support for policies either penalizing or benefiting the target population. Findings indicate that social constructions of target populations play an important role in the policy process by triggering individuals to support policies helping and benefiting the positively constructed populations, and policies punishing the negatively constructed populations. In addition, blame and anger as well as sympathy were identified as critical normative judgments produced by social constructions and affecting public attitudes toward the policy issue. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Husmann, 2015. "Social constructions of obesity target population: an empirical look at obesity policy narratives," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(4), pages 415-442, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:policy:v:48:y:2015:i:4:p:415-442
    DOI: 10.1007/s11077-015-9229-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11077-015-9229-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11077-015-9229-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schneider, Anne & Ingram, Helen, 1993. "Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 334-347, June.
    2. Mark Mcbeth & Elizabeth Shanahan, 2004. "Public opinion for sale: The role of policy marketers in Greater Yellowstone policy conflict," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 37(3), pages 319-338, December.
    3. Charles S. Taber & Milton Lodge, 2006. "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 755-769, July.
    4. Mark C. Donovan, 1993. "Social Constructions of People with AIDS: Target Populations and United States Policy, 1981–1990," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 12(3‐4), pages 3-29, September.
    5. Thomas J. Kaplan, 1986. "The narrative structure of policy analysis," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(4), pages 761-778.
    6. Jill Nicholson‐Crotty & Sean Nicholson‐Crotty, 2004. "Social Construction and Policy Implementation: Inmate Health as a Public Health Issue," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(2), pages 240-256, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sumaia A. Al-Kohlani & Heather E. Campbell, 2016. "Rank-order implications of social construction theory: Does air quality depend on social constructions?," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 49(4), pages 467-488, December.
    2. Andrea Terlizzi, 2021. "Narratives in power and policy design: the case of border management and external migration controls in Italy," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(4), pages 749-781, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sumaia A. Al-Kohlani & Heather E. Campbell, 2016. "Rank-order implications of social construction theory: Does air quality depend on social constructions?," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 49(4), pages 467-488, December.
    2. H. Abbie Erler, 2012. "A New Face of Poverty? Economic Crises and Poverty Discourses," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(4), pages 183-204, December.
    3. Maddison, Jonathan & Watts, Richard, 2011. "The technological fix as a frame in media debates about tailpipe emissions," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 294-303.
    4. Fritz Sager & Yvan Rielle, 2013. "Sorting through the garbage can: under what conditions do governments adopt policy programs?," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 46(1), pages 1-21, March.
    5. Frank R. Baumgartner & Christine Mahoney, 2008. "Forum Section: The Two Faces of Framing," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(3), pages 435-449, September.
    6. Barrera, Oscar & Guriev, Sergei & Henry, Emeric & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2020. "Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    7. Mark K. McBeth & Donna L. Lybecker & James W. Stoutenborough, 2016. "Do stakeholders analyze their audience? The communication switch and stakeholder personal versus public communication choices," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 49(4), pages 421-444, December.
    8. Daniel Béland & Alex Jingwei He & M Ramesh, 2022. "COVID-19, crisis responses, and public policies: from the persistence of inequalities to the importance of policy design [The impact of COVID-19 on gender equality]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 41(2), pages 187-198.
    9. Ronja Sczepanski, 2023. "European by action: How voting reshapes nested identities," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 751-770, December.
    10. Tomi Rajala, 2019. "Mind the Information Expectation Gap," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(1), pages 104-125, March.
    11. Jensen, Carsten & Naumann, Elias, 2016. "Increasing pressures and support for public healthcare in Europe," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(6), pages 698-705.
    12. Byungdoo Kim & David L. Kay & Jonathon P. Schuldt, 2021. "Will I have to move because of climate change? Perceived likelihood of weather- or climate-related relocation among the US public," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-8, March.
    13. Matt Guardino & Suzanne Mettler, 2020. "Revealing the “Hidden welfare state†: How policy information influences public attitudes about tax expenditures," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(1).
    14. Christopher Weible & David Carter, 2015. "The composition of policy change: comparing Colorado’s 1977 and 2006 smoking bans," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(2), pages 207-231, June.
    15. Lorenz Kammermann & Karin Ingold, 2019. "Going beyond technocratic and democratic principles: stakeholder acceptance of instruments in Swiss energy policy," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 52(1), pages 43-65, March.
    16. Caroline Le Pennec & Vincent Pons, 2019. "How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates," NBER Working Papers 26572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Ahlquist, John S. & Ichino, Nahomi & Wittenberg, Jason & Ziblatt, Daniel, 2018. "How do voters perceive changes to the rules of the game? Evidence from the 2014 Hungarian elections," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 906-919.
    18. Neal D. Woods, 2021. "The State of State Environmental Policy Research: A Thirty‐Year Progress Report," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(3), pages 347-369, May.
    19. David L. Dickinson, 2020. "Deliberation enhances the confirmation bias. An examination of politics and religion," Working Papers 20-06, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    20. Rui Gaspar & Sílvia Luís & Beate Seibt & Maria Luísa Lima & Afrodita Marcu & Pieter Rutsaert & Dave Fletcher & Wim Verbeke & Julie Barnett, 2016. "Consumers’ avoidance of information on red meat risks: information exposure effects on attitudes and perceived knowledge," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 533-549, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:policy:v:48:y:2015:i:4:p:415-442. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.