Ann Luce

“Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media

BackgroundConsiderable debate surrounds the influence media have on first-time pregnant women. Much of the academic literature discusses the influence of (reality) television, which often portrays birth as risky, dramatic and painful and there is evidence that this has a negative effect on childbirth in society, through the increasing anticipation of negative outcomes. It is suggested that women seek out such programmes to help understand what could happen during the birth because there is a cultural void. However the impact that has on normal birth has not been explored.MethodsA scoping review relating to the representation of childbirth in the mass media, particularly on television.ResultsThree key themes emerged: (a) medicalisation of childbirth; (b) women using media to learn about childbirth; and (c) birth as a missing everyday life event.ConclusionMedia appear to influence how women engage with childbirth. The dramatic television portrayal of birth may perpetuate the medicalisation of childbirth, and last, but not least, portrayals of normal birth are often missing in the popular media. Hence midwives need to engage with television producers to improve the representation of midwifery and maternity in the media.

Newspaper Reporting on a Cluster of Suicides in the UK

Background: Media reporting may influence suicide clusters through imitation or contagion. In 2008 there was extensive national and international newspaper coverage of a cluster of suicides in young people in the Bridgend area of South Wales, UK. Aims: To explore the quantity and quality of newspaper reporting during the identified cluster. Method: Searches were conducted for articles on suicide in Bridgend for 6 months before and after the defined cluster (June 26, 2007, to September 16, 2008). Frequency, quality (using the PRINTQUAL instrument), and sensationalism were examined. Results: In all, 577 newspaper articles were identified. One in seven articles included the suicide method in the headline, 47.3% referred to earlier suicides, and 44% used phrases that guidelines suggest should be avoided. Only 13% included sources of information or advice. Conclusion: A high level of poor-quality and sensationalist reporting was found during an ongoing suicide cluster at the very time when good-quality reporting could be considered important. A broad awareness of media guidelines and expansion and adherence to press codes of practice are required by journalists to ensure ethical reporting.

PRINTQUAL – A Measure for Assessing the Quality of Newspaper Reporting of Suicide

BACKGROUND Many studies have demonstrated a relationship between newspaper reporting of actual or fictional suicides and subsequent suicidal behaviors. Previous measures of the quality of reporting lack consistency concerning which specific elements should be included and how they should be weighted. AIMS To develop an instrument, PRINTQUAL, comprising two scales of the quality (poor and good) of newspaper reporting of suicide that can be used in future studies of reporting. METHOD A first draft of the PRINTQUAL instrument was compiled, comprising items indicative of poor- and good-quality newspaper reporting based on guidelines and key sources of evidence. This was refined by team members and then circulated to a group of international experts in the field for further opinion and weighting of individual items. RESULTS The final instrument comprised 19 items in the poor-quality scale and four in the good-quality scale. Following training, agreement between raters was acceptably high for most items (κ ≥ .75) except for three items for which agreement was still acceptable (κ ≥ .60). CONCLUSION The PRINTQUAL instrument for assessing the quality of newspaper reporting of suicide appears appropriate for use in research and monitoring in future studies.

US 2012 Live: When the Classroom Becomes a Newsroom.

In November 2012, 300 students came together in the Media School at Bournemouth University in the UK to report the US Presidential Election. Over the course of 10 days, students published 176 articles on a rolling news website, garnering more than 20,000 hits. On election night itself, students produced 10 h of live coverage on both TV and radio, airing 30 pre-recorded video packages and 35 pre-recorded radio packages. This experiential project adopted a so-called ‘live case’ methodology that encapsulated a high degree of application and a certain level of structure, which allowed for the ‘variety and uncertainty’ or reality to intervene. It also empowered and enabled students to reflect on and evaluate their individual experiences in light of their own learning styles. This paper will discuss the challenges and successes experienced during this experiential project, and will provide a nine-step guide on how others could replicate a similar project.

‘I Wouldn’t Be a Victim When It Comes to Being Heard’: Citizen Journalism and Civic Inclusion

For disabled people, the UK political landscape has in recent years provided a particularly harsh backdrop of austerity and ongoing cuts to welfare and disability benefits. In November 2014, for example, a 39-year-old woman who was unable to work due to chronic pain following two road traffic accidents took her own life. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had sent several letters threatening to cut off her disability benefits and also demanding that she pay back £4,000 she had already received. During the inquest into her death in March 2015, the county coroner, Anne Pember, noted that she believed the ‘upset caused by the potential withdrawal of her benefits had been the trigger for her to end her life’ (cited in Jones, 2015). According to freedom of information requests by the Disability News Network, the DWP had investigated some 49 cases where benefit claimants had died from February 2012 to February 2015 — 40 of these followed suicide or apparent suicide by the claimant, and 33 contained recommendations for improvements (Pring, 2015).

Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media

I was very excited to receive this book for review as it covers a topic which is just beginning to receive sustained critical attention – that of representations of birth in the media and the impact of these on women’s perceptions. Over recent years there have been sporadic attempts to explore the way that media portrays birth, covering print media and television programmes, both fiction and ‘reality’ TV. The consensus among commentators has been that media portrayals of birth are almost universally negative. This is because the demands of the media for eyecatching headlines and dramatic storylines require the telescoping of labour duration and its progress into a catchy narrative. This means emphasising problems and difficulties, and more broadly, focussing on the concept of risk in childbirth.

Midwives’ Engagement with the Media

Historically, women have learned about childbirth from their mothers and sisters, and from seeing childbirth in the family or community. In the more recent past, women would have gone to books for advice. Today, we see that women are turning to media to learn about what the experience of childbirth is like. This poses an interesting dilemma for midwives who support mothers during their pregnancy. This chapter will discuss the findings from two closely linked research projects that speak to midwives about their experience with women who are allegedly influenced by the media in their decisions about childbirth. The chapter will explore how midwives understand their profession to be depicted in the media and will also explore how midwives engage with the media. We will provide some suggestions for midwives moving forward who wish to create more positive representations of childbirth and early labour in the media.

Citizen Journalism at The Margins

Amidst burgeoning literature on citizen journalism, we still know relatively little about how and why genuinely marginalised groups seek to use this form of reporting to challenge their exclusion. In this article, we aim to address this gap by analysing two UK citizen journalism initiatives emanating from The Big Issue Foundation, a national homeless organisation, and Access Dorset, a regional charity for disabled and elderly people. These case studies are united by the authors’ involvement in both instances, primarily through designing and delivering bespoke citizen journalism education and mentoring. Based on over 40 hours of interviews with participants of the workshops and 36 hours of participant observation, we analyse the challenges participants faced in their journey to become citizen journalists. This included: low self-esteem, physical health and mental wellbeing, the need for accessible and adaptable technology, and overcoming fear associated with assuming a public voice. We also analyse marginalised groups’ attitudes to professional journalism and education, and its role in shaping journalistic identity and self-empowerment. Whilst demonstrably empowering and esteem building, our participants were acutely aware of societal power relations that were seemingly still beyond their ability to influence. Those who are marginalised are, nevertheless, in the best position to use citizen journalism as a conduit for social change, we argue—though challenges remain even at the grassroots level to foster and sustain participatory practices.

Foundation for a Suicidal Culture

This chapter explores the relationship between notions of childhood and how suicide is reported and framed by the British press. Opening with theoretical frameworks of childhood, Luce slowly builds the chapter, exploring how childhood is constructed and reported. She defines suicide, tackles the big questions about why it happens, looks at stigmatized societal views around suicide and gives a rather detailed look into the reporting of suicide, historically. She concludes the chapter by exploring how childhood suicide is framed and reported and gives some shocking insights into the overarching stigma around suicide and how this is framed in terms of childhood.

Bridgend in Film

The Bridgend suicides captured the attention of media outlets around the world. Thousands of journalists descended on the borough of Bridgend in South Wales in 2008, all trying to figure out why these suicides were happening. More recently two films have been produced on the events in the town—a documentary (2013) (which Luce points out follows the same categories of stigmatization as newspaper articles of the time) and a feature film which will be released in UK cinemas in 2016, which closely follows categories of stigmatization, but deliberately refuses to offer any explanations as to why the suicides occurred—a very different attitude when it comes to how suicide is most commonly framed.