Introduction

The early development of the health communication discipline emphasized interpersonal and mediated communication (Thompson, 2003). Much of this research relied on a narrow definition of communiation as message production and reception, and focused primarily on individual levels of analysis. Perhaps, as a result, extant research emphasizes subjects such as interpersonal support, provider-patient communication, and health campaigns, whereas attention to helath policy making as a significant communication process has been slow to develop. Indeed, some work in the field such as Freimuth et al. (1993) distinguished between policy interventions and “communication approaches” such as promotional campaigns.