Public health benefits and risks of fish consumption: current scientific evidence v. media coverage.

Objective: To evaluate if and how the current degree of scientific uncertainty about the safety of fish consumption is incorporated at the media level.

Design: We used a dedicated software (TalTac®) to investigate the content of 169 news articles related to ‘mercury and fish consumption’ that appeared from 1990 to 2010 in the two Italian broadsheets with the highest circulation figures, in order to identify journalistic frames used in the coverage of benefits v. risks associated with fish consumption.