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Framing Celebrity Miscarriage: A Textual Analysis

Pant, Meagan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton161608093175056

Abstract Details

2021, Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, Communication.
Textual analysis of four articles in which celebrities discuss their miscarriages, published in popular women’s magazines between 1987 and 2017, finds the coverage serves the media’s core function of generating empathy and creating a public conversation, both of which are important for advancing social norms surrounding taboo topics such as pregnancy loss. However, the analysis reveals that the news coverage can be inadequate in fully communicating the emotional and medical realities of miscarriage. The framing makes salient the sadness women feel and recognizes their grief through exclusive use of familial language instead of clinical terms for the baby, but it leaves silent medical details important to understanding pregnancy loss. The coverage also exclusively uses episodic framing, focused on the individual women without broader context from sources like doctors, which encourages readers to view miscarriage as an individual issue rather than one that could be affected at the societal level through research, health care practices or public policy.
Chad Painter (Committee Chair)
68 p.
Communication
miscarriage; framing; celebrity; news; pregnancy loss

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Pant, M. (2021). Framing Celebrity Miscarriage: A Textual Analysis [Master's thesis, University of Dayton]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton161608093175056

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Pant, Meagan. Framing Celebrity Miscarriage: A Textual Analysis. 2021. University of Dayton, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton161608093175056.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Pant, Meagan. "Framing Celebrity Miscarriage: A Textual Analysis." Master's thesis, University of Dayton, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton161608093175056

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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