Gender Issues in Nigerian Newspapers Coverage of Maternal and Child Healthcare Issues

Raheemat Adeniran

doi:10.21039/cca.24

Abstract

This study examines emergent gender issues in the analysis of newspaper coverage of maternal and child healthcare (MCH) in Nigeria over a one-year period. MCH is a major challenge in Nigeria as the country is among the highest contributors to maternal and child mortalities globally. Even though this pattern has wider implication to society at large, it may be regarded as being more relevant to women. Premised on gender bias and journalistic norms hypotheses, the study combines content analysis and in-depth interviews (IDI) to determine the dominant gender leading in the newspaper coverage of such a womencentred issue, and underlying reasons for the dominance. The study thus examines the dominant gender of journalists, and other voices projected in the newspaper reports on the issues. It also compares views of male and female health journalists for possible differences of opinion regarding media coverage of MCH. The study finds male dominance amongst journalists and voices quoted in the coverage of MCH issues and related stories, though there was minimal influence of gender in the overall coverage of issues. The study thus deviates from the media gender studies attributing underrepresentation of women in the media to gender bias; noting that gender imbalance is often rooted in journalistic norms pervading media operations.

Highlights

The representation of women in the news media has been a subject of inquiry for many years
In many of these studies, women were often found to be underrepresented. Global surveys, such as the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Reports, Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media, have consistently reported wide disparities in the representation of women in the media with minimal progress being made over decades (GMMP, 2015; IWMF 2011)
This paper examines gender issues that emerged in an earlier analysis of newspaper coverage of maternal and child healthcare (MCH) issues in Nigeria (Adeniran, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

The representation of women in the news media has been a subject of inquiry for many years. In many of these studies, women were often found to be underrepresented. Their voices, especially as expert sources on pressing public issues, are hardly projected (GMMP 2015). Advocacy groups have argued that the dominance of male sources over women, denies women the opportunity of shaping national discourse and the public continues to “miss important points of view” (Groch-Begley 2014, cited in Baitinger, 2015), and “perspectives of women” (Oppenheim, 2019)

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion