This edited volume emerged from the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference of 2014. In the introduction, the editors detail some commonalities across the developing world regarding health and communication. Four themed parts follow, consisting of eleven stand-alone studies that are rounded off with a short conclusion. On a general level, the volume is enjoyable and valuable as it covers a multitude of issues and encompasses a diverse range of developing countries, including Papua New Guinea, India and Russia. As all the authors live in or originate from their subject countries, they are able to identify challenges to health communication and new media that are often overlooked by people with less first-hand experience.

The themes covered are: ‘Health communication: discourses from tradition to modernity’, ‘Health communication in the changing media landscape’, ‘Framing of health in media’ and ‘Emerging issues’. These divisions, however, seem to have been applied as an afterthought as individual studies do not directly address the themes in question. This makes it difficult to draw thematic conclusions. The majority of the studies rely on desktop research, some of which draws on textual analysis or case studies to support the argument. Only a few authors directly refer to their fieldwork. Most chapters focus on health communication and media at the country level, with a few discussing specific community-level studies.

At the country level, Carolina Acosta-Alzuru focuses on Venezuela, using textual analysis to discuss how former President Hugo Chávez's illness and eventual death were reported (or not) in the mass media. Although Chávez acknowledged that he had ‘cancerous lesions’, the details of his illness, treatment and death have not been forthcoming. The chapter offers a compelling account of the president's final two years in power. The author suggests that, given his charisma and influence, had Chávez and the government been more candid in their reporting of the president's illness, this could have had positive effects on other cancer ‘victims and survivors’ (p. 149). The inclusion of information on how the public received the discourse and how it affected the ‘victims and survivors’, along with a discussion around what more candid coverage of the events could have offered such individuals, would have added value to the chapter.

Focusing on India, SubbaRao M. Gavaravarapu is concerned with the effect of television on audiences’ behaviour. He argues that an increased proliferation of screens, channels and advertising of junk food, coupled with more time spent watching TV, has contributed to health problems such as obesity. Although the argument is persuasive, it is based on correlations, without sufficient interrogation of how these particular media communication strategies have been so successful in effecting negative behaviour change regarding nutritional intake. Notably, positive health messages, also delivered via TV, have failed to motivate individuals to change their behaviour for the better. Such counterevidence needs to be considered to enable a better understanding of what constitutes an effective mass media communication strategy targeting behavioural change.

Turning to community-level concerns, Verena Thomas and Mark Eby argue for the benefits of locally relevant, culturally specific small media (short films) to educate populations in Papua New Guinea about HIV/AIDS. This is the only chapter that is explicitly and directly informed by fieldwork conducted by the authors. Audiences reported that the short films were educational, as intended, with many respondents stating that the content of the films had changed their attitudes. The research, however, did not determine whether the films resulted in behaviour change, meaning that the proclamation of the project as a success may be premature. Feedback from village cinema owners indicated that they were enthusiastic to continue screening these films; however, it was noted that the youths’ appetite for action movies may discourage this. The authors have confidence in the fact that the local locations and languages featured in the films will counter this desire for action movies.

Overall, the volume is full of interesting and well-researched studies, and does fulfil its rather general aim to investigate ‘how the field of health communication has responded to rapid changes and innovations in the media context in developing countries’ (p. 2). Some authors offer general recommendations that may be new within the particular context in which they are located, but such recommendations are not new to the field. Some studies could have strengthened their arguments through engagement with existing material and ideas, some of which are noted above. While the generality of the volume and the diversity of studies is one of its strengths, it is also a weakness, as it is hard to draw more than the very general conclusions provided by the editors. The reader is left struggling to determine the thematic or specific overall conclusions. It is more honestly a conference proceeding, as it lacks the interconnected threads of a good edited volume.