The mediatization of health expertise: Health programmes on Danish public service television

This article concerns the Danish public service broadcaster, Danmark Radio, and the programmes on health it produced from 1990 to 2010. It applies a historical perspective and, methodologically, the study is based on a qualitative content analysis of selected health programmes. Theoretically, the article is informed by ‘mediatization’ theory and demonstrates how television influences changes to the discursive construction of Health and health expertise in factual programming in this 20-year period. The analysis demonstrates how early factual programmes were dominated by information on illness, medical treatment and care and communicated by medical experts and laypeople, whereas later programmes present health as an individual and entrepreneurial project that rapidly changes and improves the individual’s lifestyle with the help of all kinds of lifestyle experts.