News media framing of women's issues : images of voluntarily childless women

This study examines the theory of media framing and its effects on American culture. Frames generated by the news media can have significant influence on how social issues are perceived by the public, and can also have extensive impact on government policy and cultural norms. The images of voluntarily childless women in the U.S., as presented by the news media, served as the policy issue. A Frame Mapping computer program was used to analyze the text of selected Associated press (AP) news stories to identify specific media frames about voluntarily childless women. The Frame Mapping process designated key terms and clusters of terms associated with designated stakeholders in the issue. A total of 91 stories produced multidimensional data, which was then mapped to illustrate the frequency and co-occurrence of the term clusters. The results demonstrated evidence of specific, differentiated frames by the issue stakeholders. The media frames included positions on the policy issue as articulated by religious fundamentalists, those in favor of the childfree lifestyle and those opposed; other frames related to the themes of working women, in addition to individual and group responses to changes in social structure during the last three decades. The study revealed a strong correlation between the increasing political and social power of religious fundamentalists from the late 1970s through 2000 and a rise in pronatalist values; both of which, subsequently, influenced a marked increase in negative framing of voluntarily childless women. An additional purpose of this study is to contribute to the increased awareness of the phenomenon of voluntarily childless women and its impact on American society.