Network


Latest external collaboration on country level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots.

Hotspot


Dive into the research topics where Bryan E. Denham is active.

Publication


Featured researches published by Bryan E. Denham.


Journal of Applied Communication Research | 2006

Effects of Mass and Interpersonal Communication on Breast Cancer Screening: Advancing Agenda-Setting Theory in Health Contexts This article is drawn from data gathered for the doctoral dissertation of Karyn Ogata Jones at the University of Georgia in 2003. An earlier version of this article was presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference, Health Communication Division, November 2005.

Karyn Ogata Jones; Bryan E. Denham; Jeffrey K. Springston

Drawing on components of agenda-setting theory and the two-step flow of information from mass media to news audiences, this study examines the effects of mass and interpersonal communication on breast cancer screening practices among college- and middle-aged women (n = 284). We theorized that screening behaviors among younger women would be influenced more by interpersonal sources of information while screening among middle-aged women would be more influenced by exposure to mass-mediated information. Findings supported anticipated patterns, revealing important and varying roles for both mass and interpersonal communication in the health behaviors of women. Implications for health practitioners and campaign planners, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed.


Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism | 2004

Sports Illustrated,the Mainstream Press and the Enactment of Drug Policy in Major League Baseball A study in agenda-building theory

Bryan E. Denham

This article advances on existing studies in agenda-building theory, examining how a prominent sports magazine can build an agenda for mainstream press coverage, which in turn assists in building policy agendas. When Ken Caminiti, a former Most Valuable Player in the National League, admitted to Sports Illustrated in June 2002 that he used anabolic steroids during his award-winning season, mainstream newspaper journalists reported the revelations heavily, with many calling for changes in policy and the introduction of drug testing. As discussed here, policy-makers apparently listened: approximately three months after the magazine exposé appeared, baseball instituted a drug testing procedure. The study reveals how mainstream newspaper reports (n = 231) built on the Sports Illustrated investigation and how policy-makers reacted to a widespread condemnation of professional baseball, namely its apparent inability to police itself.


JAMA | 2011

Dietary Supplements—Regulatory Issues and Implications for Public Health

Bryan E. Denham

IN OCTOBER 1994, PRESIDENT CLINTON SIGNED INTO LAW the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), and 17 years later, health experts, policy makers, and industry lobbyists continue to spar over the legislation. Classifying dietary supplements as a subcategory of food, DSHEA allowed supplement manufacturers to market products without submitting proof of safety or efficacy to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Currently, for a tainted or otherwise hazardous product to be removed from the supplement marketplace, an agency such as the FDA or the Drug Enforcement Administration must offer evidence that the product is unsafe, contains a controlled substance, or is absent ingredients listed on the product label after the product has appeared in retail outlets. For US health professionals, the fact that more than 150 million US residents use dietary supplements should be a point of concern as many users will almost certainly forgo conventional medical treatment in favor of using products that may offer no medicinal value and taking health advice from medically untrained sales representatives. Counterintuitively, DSHEA became law 5 years after the L-tryptophan amino acid disaster of 1989, in which 38 individuals died and 1500 sustained adverse reactions. When the FDA appeared heavy-handed in its response to the supplement catastrophe, industry lobbyists began applying pressure to lawmakers, especially those with a vested political interest in the economic success of supplement companies. US Senator Orrin Hatch, representing Utah, a major producer of dietary supplements, responded to industry appeals by coauthoring DSHEA and shepherding it through Congress. In doing so, Hatch sought to help manufacturers enjoy the freedom they had profited from during the 1980s after the Proxmire Amendment of 1976 barred the FDA from using potency levels to classify dietary supplements as drugs. To date, no public official has defended the interests of the supplement industry to a similar extent. In 2009, a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that “consumers are not well-informed about the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements and have difficulty interpreting the labels on these products.” In fact, one of the most significant problems with DSHEA is that it allows structure and function claims to appear on product labels; as long as products do not claim to treat, prevent, or cure specific diseases, they can enter and remain in the marketplace. The concern is that consumers may not differentiate between technical descriptions and marketing language and may attempt to use dietary supplements in place of medicines that have been tested in rigorous trials. To that end, a 2010 GAO investigation found that sellers of dietary supplements may actually encourage consumers to substitute supplements for physician-prescribed medications. In preparing its 2010 report, the GAO investigated 22 retailers of herbal dietary supplements, hiring an accredited laboratory to examine 40 single-ingredient supplements for the presence of lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, and assorted pesticides. Although none of the supplements qualified as having an acute toxicity hazard, trace amounts of at least 1 contaminant were found in 37 of 40 products. According to the GAO, more troubling than the contaminants was the dubious and potentially hazardous advice offered to investigators who had posed as elderly customers. The GAO gathered written materials from online retailers, observing claims of treating, preventing, and curing conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Among the more egregious marketing efforts were claims that garlic could be taken in place of high blood pressure medication and that ginkgo biloba could be used to treat Alzheimer disease, depression, and impotence. Studies conducted by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine have shown that ginkgo biloba, in particular, does not reduce the risk of cancer nor does it prove effective in reducing high blood pressure among older adults. Careful review of National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine studies reveals a similar lack of efficacy for garlic, chromium picolinate, and St John’s wort. On occasion, policy makers have attempted to address at least some of the problems associated with dietary supplements. For example, citing the 2009 GAO report, Senators John McCain and Byron Dorgan introduced the Dietary Supplement Safety Act (S 3002) in February 2010. Although this act did not propose significant changes in efficacy assessment, it would have required supplement


The Review of Communication | 2010

Toward Conceptual Consistency in Studies of Agenda-Building Processes: A Scholarly Review

Bryan E. Denham

In the years since Cobb and Elder (1971) advanced agenda building as an alternative structural perspective to the normatively appealing, yet realistically untenable, democratic theory, the agenda-building framework has been applied somewhat sporadically and inconsistently in at least three types of studies: (a) those that analyze reciprocity and interchange among policymakers, mass media and mass publics; (b) those that position media content as an independent measure, as in the case of investigative reporting; and (c) those that examine influences on media content, as in analyses of information subsidies and presidential communications. Tracing the conceptual origins of agenda building and reviewing relevant scholarship in mass communication, political science, and sociology, the present article seeks to clarify conceptual terminology. As indicators of direction-specific research, the terms policy agenda building, media agenda building, and public agenda building, adapted from Rogers and Dearing (1988), stand to add both clarity and consistency to the scholarly literature. Additionally, with the continued influence of Internet communication, the author suggests that scholarship might be enhanced with consistent use of the term intermedia agenda building, as explained in the article.


Journalism Studies | 2008

FOLK DEVILS, NEWS ICONS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MORAL PANICS

Bryan E. Denham

In studying media content and effects, scholars sometimes refer to amplifications of deviance and constructions of moral panics. The present article examines how “heroin chic,” a 1990s trend characterized by emaciated, disheveled fashion models and film actors, as well as the symbolic death of music icon Kurt Cobain, interacted with news representations of heroin—namely how the narcotic had reappeared to threaten a new generation of users—thus creating a moral panic. The article posits a role for exemplification theory and news icons in conversations of how moral panics arise and are sustained through mass media. Content analyses of heroin reports in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post (n=1770) revealed increases in references to popular culture during the middle 1990s, with officials citing dramatic exemplars as evidence of a “new scourge” and of “an old enemy making a dangerous comeback.” Actual heroin use did not appear to increase during 16 years of analysis.


Journal of Sport & Social Issues | 1997

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, THE “WAR ON DRUGS,” AND THE ANABOLIC STEROID CONTROL ACT OF 1990: A Study in Agenda Building and Political Timing

Bryan E. Denham

This study considers the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 in light of the political climate of the late 1980s. A series of Sports Illustrated articles concerning the adverse consequences of steroid use are addressed, as are the broader social forces that may have led Congress to pass legislation classifying steroids as Schedule III controlled substances. Articles from Sports Illustrated appeared in the appendixes of congressional hearings, and several individuals who appeared in those articles were invited to testify. From a theoretical base of agenda building, this study focuses on the relationships between media, policy makers, and everyday news consumers.


Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly | 2014

Intermedia Attribute Agenda Setting in the New York Times The Case of Animal Abuse in U.S. Horse Racing

Bryan E. Denham

In 2012, the New York Times published a series of reports addressing doping and fatal breakdowns in U.S. horse racing. This study examines the extent to which the Times transferred the salience of certain story attributes to news media at the regional and national levels. Reports appearing after the Times began its investigation were more likely to mention (1) an injured or deceased horse, (2) equine drug use, and (3) a trainer suspension or other disciplinary action. The study concludes that, in addition to transferring object salience, the Times also may affect how news organizations characterize issues and events.


Health Communication | 2007

Differing Effects of Mass and Interpersonal Communication on Breast Cancer Risk Estimates: An Exploratory Study of College Students and Their Mothers

Karyn Ogata Jones; Bryan E. Denham; Jeffrey K. Springston

Research has demonstrated that women tend to overestimate the percentage of all breast cancers that result from genetic predispositions, and this article examines the knowledge of college students, as well as their mothers, on this subject, applying uncertainty management (Brashers, 2001) as the theoretical framework. The authors build on the literature by studying (a) the types of media outlets college students and their mothers use for securing information, and (b) the types of articles and programs within those outlets that may affect risk perceptions. The authors also address associations between these mass communication measures and interpersonal sources of information in the context of risk estimation. Respondents exposed to media reports about the role of genetics in breast cancer, in addition to study participants who had discussed this role within the family, tended to overestimate measures of genetic risk. Conversely, those who had attended to media reports about screening practices tended to offer lower risk estimates, indicating that such reports may have positioned genetics as just one factor in the overall equation of breast cancer risk. The authors discuss the implications of these and other findings for communication scholars and health practitioners.


International Review for the Sociology of Sport | 2010

Correlates of pride in the performance success of United States athletes competing on an international stage

Bryan E. Denham

Grounded in social-identity and self-categorization theories and drawing on data gathered in the US General Social Survey (N = 2528), this research examines how demographic and media-use measures associate with national pride, as experienced through the success of US athletes competing internationally. Bivariate tests and analysis of covariance models indicated greater levels of national pride among black males, older respondents, those who classified themselves as republicans and those with lower levels of formal education. Exposure to newspapers and television did not prove statistically significant in multivariate analyses, although bivariate tests revealed that those exposed most frequently to television tended to agree in significantly higher numbers with the statement ‘When my country does well in international sports, it makes me proud to be an American.’ Limitations and recommendations for future research are offered.


Men and Masculinities | 2008

Masculinities in Hardcore Bodybuilding

Bryan E. Denham

In his definitive ethnography of hardcore bodybuilding in Southern California, Klein (1993) examined gender construction in a narcissistic subculture characterized by deceit and excess on many levels. In the present article, I compare my own experiences as a strength athlete and bodybuilding author with some of the observations Klein made at Olympic Gym. Like Klein, I address ironies associated with hardcore bodybuilding and discuss the nature of deviance in the bodybuilding subculture.

Collaboration


Dive into the Bryan E. Denham's collaboration.

Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar

K. Jackson Thomas

Medical University of South Carolina

View shared research outputs
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Researchain Logo
Decentralizing Knowledge