Gendered Health Message Framing and User Outcomes Among Digital Media Users in Bangladesh: The Mediating Role of Perceived Message Credibility
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63539/isrn.2026010Keywords:
Gendered Health Framing, Message Credibility, Digital Health Communication, Structural Equation ModelingAbstract
In Bangladesh, as in the rest of South Asia, gendered health stories in digital media reproduce structural inequalities that determine how people perceive, judge, and respond to health information. Although there is increasing interest in scholarly research on digital health communication, the psychological processes that mediate the way gendered message framing is translated into user outcomes have not been adequately theorized and empirically validated, in this regard. This paper explores the relationship between agentic and communal gendered health message framing exposure and perceived message credibility and, in turn, behavioral intent and counter-narrative agency among users of digital media in Bangladesh. The study builds on the Social Constructionism (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), Framing Theory (Entman, 1993) and Gender Performativity Theory (Butler, 1990) by proposing a process-based model where the central mediating variable is credibility. A purposive sample of n = 500 Bangladeshi adults who were active on-line health content consumers was used to conduct a quantitative cross-sectional survey. The data were obtained by a structured questionnaire online with the help of validated multi-item Likert scale. The proposed model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Maximum Likelihood Estimation including bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) as a mediation test and product-term interaction analysis as a moderation test. Agentic and communal framing were found to be important predictors of perceived message credibility. The relationships between framing types and both outcome variables—behavioral intent and counter-narrative agency were completely mediated by credibility. Media literacy was positively associated with behavioral intent and platform inclusivity, the strongest predictor of counter-narrative agency. Exposure to stereotypes had a negative effect on counter-narrative agency. Gender-role beliefs did not show significant moderation of the framing, credibility relationship, which implies interpretive norms might be changing even in younger, digitally-engaged Bangladeshi groups.
Downloads
References
Aftab, A., & Rashed, M. A. (2021). Mental disorder and social deviance. International Review of Psychiatry, 33(5), 478–485. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2020.1815666.
Ahmed, M. (2025). Social media users, suicidal notes and tendencies: A study on young-adult males and females of Bangladesh. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202505.2055.v1.
Alkaabi, N. M. R. N. (2024). Socio-political aspects in framing narratives of conflict (Version 1). University of Leicester. https://doi.org/10.25392/leicester.data.25061255.v1.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Doubleday.
Bonah, C., & Laukötter, A. (2020). Body, capital, and screens: Visual media and the healthy self in the 20th century (p. 350). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048540310-004.
Breton, N. N. (2023). Reflecting on our good intentions: A critical discourse analysis of women's health and empowerment discourses in sexual and gender-based violence policies relevant to southern Africa. Global Public Health, 18(1), 2120048. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2022.2120048.
Briggs, C. L., & Hallin, D. C. (2016). Making health public: How news coverage is remaking media, medicine, and con-temporary life (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315658049.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Carah, N. (2021). Media & society: Power, platforms, and participation. SAGE Publications.
Camilletti, E. (2021). Social protection and its effects on gender equality: A literature review. Innocenti Working Papers. https://doi.org/10.18356/25206796-2020-16.
Chelak, K., & Chakole, S. (2023). The role of social determinants of health in promoting health equality: A narrative review. Cureus, 15(1), e33425. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33425.
Chowdhury, I. A. (2025). Advertising, gender, and consumer culture in Bangladesh. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-04234-4.
Crawford, R. (2022). A cultural account of "health": Control, release, and the social body. In Issues in the political economy of health care (pp. 60–104). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003284857.
Dane, A., & Bhatia, K. (2023). The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people. PLOS Global Public Health, 3(3), e0001091. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001091.
Delacruz, P. M. (2022). Youth's digital practices, intersectional identities, and studenthoods in co-constructed third spaces (Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago). https://doi.org/10.25417/uic.21516780.v1.
Edwards, D. J. (2021). Ensuring effective public health communication: Insights and modeling efforts from theories of behavioral economics, heuristics, and behavioral analysis for decision making under risk. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 715159. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.715159.
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x.
Faisal, S. H., Rahaman, A., Islam, A., Khan, A., & Mannan, Y. (2022). Newspaper portrayal of gender-based violence during Covid-19 lockdown in Bangladesh. Asian Review of Social Sciences, 11(2), 60–68. https://doi.org/10.51983/arss-2022.11.2.3260.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/3151312.
Frank, J., Mustard, C., Smith, P., Siddiqi, A., Cheng, Y., Burdorf, A., & Rugulies, R. (2023). Work as a social determinant of health in high-income countries: Past, present, and future. The Lancet, 402(10410), 1357–1367. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00871-1.
Freda, M. F., Lemmo, D., Auriemma, E., De Luca Picione, R., & Martino, M. L. (2023). From sense to meaning: Narrative Function Coding System for the experience of illness. Qualitative Research Journal, 23(1), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-06-2022-0081.
Gerstenecker, G. (2021). Understanding wellness for young adults through Instagram influencers' content (Master's thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia).
Gillwald, A., & Partridge, A. (2022). Gendered nature of digital inequality: Evidence for policy considerations. Research ICT Africa. www.researchictafrica.net.
Hocevar, K. P., Metzger, M., & Flanagin, A. J. (2017). Source credibility, expertise, and trust in health and risk messaging. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.287.
Hoque, M. R. (2016). An empirical study of mHealth adoption in a developing country: The moderating effect of gender concern. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 16(1), 51. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-016-0289-0.
Hsu, N., Badura, K. L., Newman, D. A., & Speach, M. E. P. (2021). Gender, "masculinity," and "femininity": A meta-analytic review of gender differences in agency and communion. Psychological Bulletin, 147(10), 987. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000343.
Islam, K. F., Awal, A., Mazumder, H., Munni, U. R., Majumder, K., Afroz, K., Tabassum, M. N., & Hossain, M. M. (2023). Social cognitive theory-based health promotion in primary care practice: A scoping review. Heliyon, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14889.
Islam, M. R. (2024). Empowering marginalized communities: A Bangladesh perspective. In Family planning and sus-tainable development in Bangladesh: Empowering marginalized communities in Asian contexts (pp. 67–84). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-164-520241005.
Jafree, S. R., & Sastry, D. (2020). South Asian women's health behavior: Theoretical explanations. In The sociology of South Asian women's health (pp. 11–34). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50204-1_2.
Jafree, S. R., Zakar, R., & Anwar, S. (2020). Women's role in decision-making for health care in South Asia. In The soci-ology of south Asian women's health (pp. 55–78). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50204-1_4.
Jenkins, J., & Finneman, T. (2018). Gender trouble in the workplace: Applying Judith Butler's theory of performativity to news organizations. Feminist Media Studies, 18(2), 157–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1308412.
Jobst, L. J., Bader, M., & Moshagen, M. (2023). A tutorial on assessing statistical power and determining sample size for structural equation models. Psychological Methods, 28(1), 207. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000423.
Kiousis, S. (2023). The role of non-traditional medical spaces in fostering community and advocacy for healthcare reform. Theses & ETDs. 6523. https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/6523.
Kirmayer, L. J. (2023). Cultural poetics of illness and healing. Transcultural Psychiatry, 60(5), 753–769. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615231205544.
Kontolatou, A. M. (2025). Gender differences in audience engagement and interpretation of global media content. Journalism and Media, 6(2), 91. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia6020091.
Krijnen, T., & Van Bauwel, S. (2021). Gender and media: Representing, producing, consuming (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429318474.
Lemon, N. (2025). Prioritising wellbeing and self-care in higher education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003457510.
Li, R., & Suh, A. (2015). Factors influencing information credibility on social media platforms: Evidence from Facebook pages. Procedia Computer Science, 72, 314–328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.12.146.
Loughran, T., Mahoney, K., & Payling, D. (2022). Women's voices, emotion and empathy: Engaging different publics with 'everyday' health histories. Medical Humanities, 48(4), 394–403. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2020-012102.
Lundgren, L. (2024). James Carey (1975) "A cultural approach to communication." In Classics in media theory (pp. 183–195). Routledge.
Lupton, D. (2022). From human-centric digital health to digital One Health: Crucial new directions for mutual flourishing. Digital Health, 8, 20552076221129103. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076221129103.
Metzger, M. J., & Flanagin, A. J. (2015). Psychological approaches to credibility assessment online. In The handbook of the psychology of communication technology (pp. 445–466). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118426456.ch20.
Miani, C., Wandschneider, L., Niemann, J., Batram-Zantvoort, S., & Razum, O. (2021). Measurement of gender as a social determinant of health in epidemiology—A scoping review. PLoS One, 16(11), e0259223. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259223.
Oliffe, J. L. (2023). Connecting masculinities to men's illness vulnerabilities and resilience. Qualitative Health Research, 33(14), 1322–1332. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323231198967.
Pickard, A., Islam, M. I., Ahmed, M. S., & Martiniuk, A. (2024). Role of internet use, mobile phone, media exposure and domestic migration on reproductive health service use in Bangladeshi married adolescents and young women. PLOS Global Public Health, 4(3), e0002518. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0002518.
Riedl, A. A., Rohrbach, T., & Krakovsky, C. (2024). "I can't just pull a woman out of a hat": A mixed-methods study on journalistic drivers of women's representation in political news. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 101(3), 679–702. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990211073454.
Rodney, A. M. (2017). Healthy is the new thin: The discursive production of women's healthy living media. University of Toronto (Canada).
Rossi, E. (2021). The social construction of gender in medical interactions: A case for the perpetuation of stereotypes? Health Communication, 36(9), 1125–1135. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1735698.
Seluman, I., Eguono, A., Gbenga, A. P., & Aimiomode, A. (2024). Stereotypical portrayal of gender in mainstream media and its effects on societal norms: A theoretical perspective. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Growth Evaluation, 5(1), 743–749.
Sharp, P., Bottorff, J. L., Rice, S., Oliffe, J. L., Schulenkorf, N., Impellizzeri, F., & Caperchione, C. M. (2022). "People say men don't talk, well that's bullshit": A focus group study exploring challenges and opportunities for men's mental health promotion. PLOS One, 17(1), e0261997. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261997.
Sørensen, K. (2024). Fostering digital health literacy to enhance trust and improve health outcomes. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine Update, 5, 100140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpbup.2024.100140.
Stienstra, B. (2022). Discourses of self-care in women's online media (Doctoral dissertation, University of Calgary). https://coilink.org/20.500.12592/3hpxtgg.
Tamplin, N. C., McLean, S. A., & Paxton, S. J. (2018). Social media literacy protects against the negative impact of exposure to appearance ideal social media images in young adult women but not men. Body Image, 26, 29–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2018.05.003.
Temmann, L. J., Wiedicke, A., Schaller, S., Scherr, S., & Reifegerste, D. (2021). A systematic review of responsibility frames and their effects in the health context. Journal of Health Communication, 26(12), 828–838. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.2020381.
Tomczyk, S., Barth, S., Schmidt, S., & Muehlan, H. (2021). Utilizing health behavior change and technology acceptance models to predict the adoption of COVID-19 contact tracing apps: Cross-sectional survey study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(5), e25447. https://doi.org/10.2196/25447.
Vera, L. F. (2020). The (mis)shaping of health: Problematizing neoliberal discourses of individualism and responsibility. In The Routledge handbook of transformative global studies (pp. 218–230). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429470325.
Vicari, S. (2021). Digital media and participatory cultures of health and illness. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429469145.
Vraga, E. K., & Bode, L. (2021). Addressing COVID-19 misinformation on social media preemptively and responsively. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 27(2), 396–403. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2702.203139.
World Economic Forum. (2023). Global gender gap report 2023. https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2023/.
Xu, X., Li, H., & Shan, S. (2021). Understanding the health behavior decision-making process with situational theory of problem solving in online health communities: The effects of health beliefs, message credibility, and communi-cation behaviors on health behavioral intention. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(9), 4488. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094488.
Zhao, X., Lynch, J. G., Jr., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and truths about mediation analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 197–206. https://doi.org/10.1086/651257.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Farzana Nizam Prity, Parboti Das, Tamim Anowar, Sapan Bepari (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Chat with us