ABSTRACT
This chapter looks into the relationship between media and medicine through the naming of an epidemic as it argues that names adopted by the media not only reflect values and judgment, but also play a vital role in constructing the image of certain diseases. It analyses the agenda and politics involved in the many different names for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) during the outbreak and handling process, as giving names to disease is sometimes the beginning of myths, social labeling, and negative imagination. It regards the naming of the epidemic as a dynamic process in which different names interact with the social atmosphere, through the decisions made by gatekeeper editors in the newsroom. The chapter demonstrates that names of diseases are results of the struggles between different powers such as the industry's drive for profit, organizational ideology, socio-cultural ideas and personal feeling.
