Gendered discourses of control in global journalism: women’s bodies in CNN’s Zika reporting

Abstract

Drawing on feminist, globalization, and journalism studies this article examines discourses about the recent Zika virus outbreak on CNN online from December 2015 through February 2016. Findings show that the coverage displays the hallmarks of international reporting in the US, including representing the West in a more favorable light than affected non-Western nations. Additionally, women are afforded less agency than men in the reporting, but among women, US women are more privileged, in terms of controlling their own bodies, than women from South America. Further, institutions of the West—health agencies and the Catholic Church—are afforded an undue level of authority by CNN in shaping discourses of control over women’s bodies. Though media reinforcement of difference is not new, coverage of the Zika outbreak shows how both a virus and the discourses of hegemonic control permeate borders between developing and developed nations, reiterating, through globalization, structures of power based on geography, race, and gender.