Gender Bias in Media Coverage of Maternal and Child Health: A Critical Analysis of Nigerian Newspapers

ABSTRACT The media is a powerful mechanism for creating public awareness and impacting every sector including health. But the framing of Maternal Child Health (MCH) issues is also subject to systematic gender bias. Thus, this paper focuses specifically on how maternal and child health is gendered in Nigerian newspaper coverage with regard to issue framing […]

ABSTRACT
The media is a powerful mechanism for creating public awareness and impacting every sector including health. But the framing of Maternal Child Health (MCH) issues is also subject to systematic gender bias. Thus, this paper focuses specifically on how maternal and child health is gendered in Nigerian newspaper coverage with regard to issue framing and gender role portrayals and the potential consequences for public perception and health outcomes. Through an analysis of media content and guided by feminist media theory, the analysis highlights the ways in which women’s voices are marginalised, stereotyped, or underrepresented within the MCH discourse. These include gender visibility, issue framing, source citation, language and tone, agenda- setting, geographical imbalance in media treatment, and advocacy of certain policies. These results highlight the important, immediate need for gender-sensitive journalism aimed at improving MCH in Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION
Maternal and child health (MCH) continues to be a public health priority in Nigeria where both maternal and infant mortality rate are some of the highest in the world, standing at 993 deaths per 100,000 live births according to recent reports by the World Bank 2023 and WHO 2022 . Despite the injection of other forms of media, media coverage of MCH concerns continues to exhibit gender imbalances that compromise the power and effectiveness of public health messaging. Nigerian newspapers are also instrumental in “public agenda setting,” the establishment of public issues, social norms, and health behaviours (McCombs, 2014; Uwakwe et al., 2020). For these reasons we need to unpack the portrayal of gender in MCH coverage within Nigerian newspapers, and the potential impacts these representations have on public perceptions of, and policies around, the issue.

Gender Representation in Newspaper Coverage
An analysis of gender portrayals in the health journalism of Nigerian newspapers confirms the dominance of patriarchy. As shown in the analysis of the prominent Nigerian dailies, the coverage of MCH issues often relegates women to passive role of health consumer rather than health agent or change maker and decision-maker (Nwachukwu & Okoye, 2021). Women are represented as lacking autonomy or life experience and “reliant upon, or in need of, male guardians or the medical community”. Also absent from most child health messaging are fathers and male caregivers, which further reinforces gendered beliefs that child care is solely a woman’s job (Okorie & Batta, 2016).
The absence of this balance continues to transmit negative gender stereotypes while drowning out the voice of both parent’s multifunctional involvement in children’s lives and healthcare. It also excludes women as evident agents and activists within the healthcare system.

Framing of Maternal and Child Health Issues
According to framing theory, newspaper frames affect audience interpretations of the issues presented within them (Entman, 1993). MCH-related content in Nigerian newspapers tends to have a deficit- rather than empowerment- focus; angry or sad themes of tragedy, mortality rates, or government failure as opposed to strength and capacity among and within children and communities (Ajibola, 2019) . These frames can be alarming, though they may also leave the public feeling helpless or apathetic.
What is important to note is that maternal health concerns are often problematised at an individual level, with structural forces like poverty, gender disparity and a collapsing healthcare system absent from the analysis (Ibrahim & Abdullahi, 2022). This framing lets policy makers off the hook for responsibility and endorses stereotypes of women as somehow vulnerable or ignorant.

Source Attribution and Gendered Voices
There is a clear bias in sourcing voices in MCH news reports. Rather, predominantly male health professionals, government representatives, and policymakers are cited, while mothers, midwives and female community health workers are destigmatised or sidelined altogether (Bamidele & Akinyemi, 2021). The shift can also be seen in national newspapers like The Guardian, Punch, and THISDAY.
This process of source attribution shifts the narrative to a top-down perspective of healthcare while grassroots perspectives are marginalised, also through gender bias. It is important for an inclusive and complete view of the challenges and solutions for MCH to include perspectives of diverse actors in the field.

Language, Imagery, and Tonal Bias
There is often an unconscious gender bias in the language and imagery of Nigerian newspaper articles surrounding MCH. Women are further caricatured as “poor mothers”, “uneducated women” or “helpless mothers” perpetuating an image of vulnerability and incapacity that stigmatises women themselves (Obi-Ani & Chukwu, 2020). Images accompanying articles follow this pattern, with visual imagery associated with articles also showing women in crisis rather than in control or empowered.

Once more, we see emotionally-charged, dramatised language that sensationalises MCH concerns rather than framing them with the sophistication necessary to introduce or initiate meaningful policy debate. These images not only skew public perception but they detract from efforts of many to create systemic change.

Agenda-Setting and Prioritisation of MCH Topics
Nigerian newspapers play a role in the agenda-setting function, determining what health issues are brought to the public and political consciousness. Maternal and child health issues tend to follow similar patterns, with limited consistent coverage of MCH as a standalone topic, often covered only in times of crisis, such as outbreaks or political campaigns (Ukwuoma & Edogor, 2021).
Further, urban over rural MCH issues are prioritised in newspapers, indicating the relative invisibility of the problems faced by rural women and children who are facing greater health disparities. The inordinate focusing on this issue skews the terrain of public discussion and results in policies that ignore the existence of people on the margins.

Regional Disparities and Sociocultural Contexts
Significant regional, cultural, and contextual gaps exist in the reporting of MCH from Nigeria. More reports and coverage appears to come from Southern media, as opposed to Northern media whose comprehensive reporting is hampered by sociocultural taboos and restricted press freedom (Adebayo & Onwukwe, 2023).
Some areas are less covered due to cultural sensitivities, political instability, or lack of access for the media. Tackling the issue of regional imbalance in the media coverage is, therefore, relevant in order to advance a more inclusive national health discourse.

Policy Advocacy and the Role of Media in Gender-Sensitive Health Reform
The potential of Nigerian newspapers as catalysts for policy reform in MCH is significantly curtailed by gender bias. Advocacy journalism remains underutilised in advancing gender-sensitive health policies. When newspapers engage in advocacy, they often do so in reaction to donor-driven campaigns rather than as a consistent editorial stance (Ezeah & Nwammuo, 2017).
Nevertheless, a few progressive outlets have begun integrating gender-sensitive reporting frameworks, championing policy dialogue that centres around women’s health rights and agency. Such models should be scaled through media training and regulatory frameworks that prioritise gender equity in health communication.

CONCLUSION
Despite the important role newspapers play in advancing public health discussions, Nigerian newspapers also reflect existing gender biases in their coverage of maternal and child health. Among other things they are unequal in representation, the voice of women, articulating stereotypes and failing to represent regions. This has resulted in incomplete and prejudicial understandings of these issues in the public and in turn, policy and health-related outcomes.
Solutions to these issues can take multiple forms, but include institutionalisation of gender sensitive journalism, greater media literacy for journalists, and enhanced cooperation between media, healthcare, and civil society. Nigerian newspapers but, need to acknowledge that their role should not just be as disseminators or deliverers of information, but as participants in the struggle for gender equity and better maternal and child health in Nigeria.

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