Club der roten Bänder [Red Band Society] – Addressing the Topic of Cancer in a Fictional Entertainment Format

Young cancer patients and their needs find little consideration in both medical areas and media representation. Being in the age between child and adult, young cancer patients are often treated as children. However, adolescence can be seen as a meaningful phase, in which young people are coping with age-specific development such as dealing with physical changes or developing social relationship networks. This alone requires strength and perseverance but with a life-changing disease like cancer combined with long stays in hospitals, it becomes highly sensitive issue.

The VOX series “Club der roten Bänder [Red Band Society]”, based on the novel “El mundo amarillo [The Yellow World]” by Albert Espinosa, is the first fictional television programme focusing on the perspective of young cancer patients. Against this backdrop, taking up age-specific development issues in the mass medium television seems like an opportunity to sensitise different groups, e.g. (healthy) peers, relatives, medical staff, for the needs of young cancer patients. To what extent and how these for their development relevant issues have been addressed is analysed in a qualitative content analysis of the first season.