Networks of mass communication: reporting science, health and medicine in the 1950s and '60s.

Policy analysts routinely identify the media as a key player in the post-war policy process. However, we know little about the way this role has developed over time and in relation to different fields of interest. This chapter focuses on the emergence of institutions, mechanisms and professional groups which have served to manage the flow of public communication in relation to science, health and medicine. These are closely connected areas of practice and knowledge production. However, when they are examined as media sources or areas of media interest, each has a different cargo of historical associations.