Framing of maternal and child healthcare issues in Nigerian newspapers

Abstract

The mass media are important for wide dissemination of health information. The frame of reference adopted in the reportage of health issues tends to influence people’s perception towards health-related issues. Studies examining framing of health issues have found the media wanting in their reportage of health. This study extends the frontier of framing analysis of health coverage in the media by examining framing of maternal and child healthcare (MCH) issues in Nigerian newspapers. Using the content analyses method, two categories of frames - public health frame, and coping versus alarm message frame - were examined in the study. Four national newspapers were purposively sampled over a 12-month period resulting in the analysis of 1,235 MCH-related editorial items. The study found minimal adoption of public health frame with only 12% adoption rate, and dominant adoption of coping frame over alarm frame with rare combination of both. The findings reflect the implication of greater reliance on official sources for health stories in the media, resulting in lack of context in reported stories to aid proper understanding of issues. The study calls for better framing of health-related issues in the media to generate appropriate attention to possibly drive development in the health sector.