Does the public image of nursing reflect a profession that has lost
its ethic of caring? Harrison detected signs of this in the United
States of America (USA) in 1990, as reflected in her JAN
editorial, and a similar case can be made today in the United
Kingdom (UK). Television soap operas portray the seamy (and
steamy) side of hospital life; documentaries with titles like
Undercover Angels use hidden cameras to expose nursing
malpractice; and anecdotes recycled as news items feature
supposedly uncaring nurses much like those Harrison described.
Such is the deluge of media information, misinformation and
opinion that the public image of nursing is hard to pin down. In
the intervening years, digital technology and the globalization of
mass communication have changed the media beyond recognition.
There is so much data from so many sources. It would be a
Herculean task to replicate the studies pioneered by Kalisch and
Kalisch, who analysed representative samples of media portrayals
of nursing in the USA (for example, in Kalisch et al. 1983).