The Framing of Adoption: A Content Analysis of Print News Coverage 2014-2016
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32473/jpic.v3.i1.p27Keywords:
Media framing, Child adoption, Family planning, Print news, Content analysisAbstract
A qualitative content analysis method was applied to explore the frames associated with child adoption news coverage over a three-year period. The research questions examined the frame themes represented in print news stories about adoption and their prominence. An analysis of national print news publications found that child adoption coverage leaned toward regulatory and policy frames and frames about the child welfare industry. Absent from print news frames were themes that focused on the humanity of adoption, whether from the perspective of individuals and couples considering adoption or of children either waiting to be adopted or who were adopted successfully. The skew toward a small subset of themes on such a complex issue has implications for adopters and adoptees and the stigmas perpetuated across society.
References
Acosta, L. (2013). Adoption law: United States [Webpage.] Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/law/help/adoption-law/unitedstates.php
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. (2017). The AFCARS report: Preliminary estimates for FY2016 estimates as of Oct 20, 2017. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration of Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau, 24, 1-6.
Askeland, L. (2006). Children and youth in adoption, orphanages, and foster care: A historical handbook and guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Associated Press Newswire (2015, September). National briefing: Nationwide more children in foster care. Los Angeles Times, p. A14.
Barthel, M. (2016). Around half of newspaper readers rely only on print edition. Retrieved from Pew Research Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/around-half-of-newspaper-readers-rely-only-on-print-edition/
Budiman, A., & Lopez, M. H. (2017). Amid decline in international adoptions to U.S., boys
outnumber girls for the first time. Retrieved from Pew Research Center: http://pewrsr.ch/2kXimp6
Burns, B. J., Phillips, S. D., Wagner, H. R., Barth, R. P., Kolko, D. J., Campbell, Y., & Landsverk, J. (2004). Mental health need and access to mental health services by youths involved with child welfare: A national survey. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 43(8), 960-970. doi:10.1097/01.chi.0000127590.95585.65
Cision. (2016) Top newspapers. Retrieved from http://www.cision.com/us/?s=top%22Bnewspapers
Creedy, K. B. (2002). Rush to judgment: Media coverage still indicates much work ahead in “normalizing” adoption. Adoption Quarterly, 5(3), 73-80. doi:10.1300/j145v05n03_06
Elejalde-Ruiz, A. (2016, September 14). Abbott gets high ranking for adoption benefits. Chicago Tribune, p. 3.
Engel, M., Phillips, N. K., & Dellacava, F. A. (2007). International adoption: A sociological account of the US experience. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 27(5/6), 257-270. doi:10.1108/01443330710757285
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-59. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Faulkner, J. (2010). The innocence fetish: The commodification and sexualization of children in media and popular culture. Media International Australia, 135(1), 106-117. doi:10.1177/1329878X1013500113
Gamson, W. & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1-37. doi:10.1086/229213
Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Guo, L. (2012). The application of social network analysis in agenda-setting research: A methodological exploration. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(4), 616- 631. doi:10.1080/08838151.2012.732148
Hart, P. S. (2012). Little magazines and little wanderers: Building advocate networks for adoption during the progressive era. American Journalism, 29(1), 32-59. doi:10.1080/08821127.2012.10677813
Hague Conference on Private International Law [HCCH]. (1993, May, 29). 1993 Hague convention on protection of children and co-operation in respect of intercountry adoption. The Hague, Netherlands: The Hague Conference on Private International Law Permanent Bureau. Retrieved from https://assets.hcch.net/docs/77e12f23-d3dc-4851-8f0b-050f71a16947.pdf
Hard news (2016). In A Dictionary of Media & Communication. (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Hellerstedt, W. L., Madsen, N. J., Gunnar, M. R., Grotevant, H. D., Lee, R. M., & Johnson, D. E. (2008). The international adoption project: Population-based surveillance of Minnesota parents who adopted children internationally. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 12(2), 162-171. doi:10.1007/s10995-007-0237-9
Herman, E. (2012a, February 24). Timeline. The adoption history project. Retrieved from https://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/timeline.html
Herman, E. (2012b, February 24). Placing out. The adoption history project. Retrieved from https://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/topics/placingout.html
Hseih, H. and Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis.
Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288. doi:10.1177/1049732305276687
Jacobson, H. (2014). Framing adoption: the media and parental decision making. Journal of
Family Issues, 35(5), 654-676. doi:10.1177/0192513x13479333
Jones, J. & Placek, P. (2017). Adoption by the numbers: A comprehensive report of U.S. adoption statistics. National Council for Adoption. Retrieved from https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/files/large/249e5e967173624
Kinder, D. R. (1983). Diversity and complexity in American public opinion in A. W. Finifter (Ed.), Political Science: The state of the discipline (pp. 389-425). Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.
Kline, S. L., Karel, A. I., & Chatterjee, K. (2006). Covering adoption: General depictions in
broadcast news. Family Relations, 55(4), 487-498. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2006.00417.x
Kline, S. L., Chatterjee, K., & Karel, A. I. (2009). Healthy depictions? Depicting adoption and adoption news events on broadcast news. Journal of Health Communication, 14(1), 56-69. doi:10.1080/10810730802592254
Kracauer, S. (1952). The challenge of qualitative content analysis. The Public Opinion
Quarterly, 16(4), 631-642. doi:10.1086/266427
Kreider, R. M. & Lofquist, D. A. (2014). Adopted children and stepchildren: 2010. Current
Population Reports, P20-572, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC.
Krippendorff, K. H. (2013). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (2nd
ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Levine, M. (2014, July 9). Adoptee advocates decry 're-homing.' Los Angeles Times, p. A11.
Lewin, T. (2015, August 13). Final holdout on same-sex adoption. New York Times, p. A9.
Mabry-King, C. R. (2016). Outgoing adoptions: What should happen when things go wrong?
Capital University Law Review, 44(1), 1-30.
Maxwell, M. & Cook L. (2014). The portrayal of the adopted children in British newspapers and magazines. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 9(4), 318-322. doi:10.1080/17450128.2014.947350
McCombs, M. (1977). Agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Relations Review, 3(4), 89-95. doi:10.1016/S0363-8111(77)80008-8
McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1993). The evolution of agenda-setting research: Twenty-five years in the marketplace of ideas. Journal of Communication, 43(2), 58-67. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01262.x
McLeod, J. M., Kosicki, G. M., Pan, Z., & Allen, S. G. (1987, August). Audience perspectives
on the news: Assessing their complexity and conceptual frames. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, TX.
McKinley, J. C., Jr. (2014, January 29). Judge alarms gay parents in denying legal adoption. New York Times, p. A17.
McQuail, D. (2005). McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory (5th ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications.
Miall, C. (1987). The stigma of adoptive parent status: Perceptions of community attitudes toward adoption and the experience of informal social sanctioning. Family Relations, 36(1), 34-39. doi:10.2307/584644
Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., Shearer, E., & Lu, K. (2017, February 9). How Americans encounter, recall and act upon digital news. Retrieved from Pew Research Center: http://www.journalism.org/2017/02/09/how-americans-encounter-recall-and-act-upon-digital-news/
Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Pan, Z., & Kosicki, G. M. (1993). Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse. Political Communication, 10(1), 55-75. doi:10.1080/10584609.1993.9962963
Pew Research Center (2018). Newspapers fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/
Rabe, R. A. (2008). Inverted Pyramid. In S. L. Vaughn (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American
Journalism (pp. 223–225). New York, NY: Routledge.
Reese, C. O. (1998). Adoption in the media. Adoption Quarterly, 1(4), 109- 116. doi:10.1300/j145v01n04_08
Rushton, A. (2004). A scoping and scanning review of research on the adoption of children
placed from public care. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 9(1), 89-106.
doi:10.1177/1359104504039768
Savage, D. G. (2016, March 8). A new victory for gay rights; High court upholds adoptions by
same-sex parents, reversing an Alabama ruling. Los Angeles Times, p. A5.
Scheufele, D. A. (1999), Framing as a theory of media effects, Journal of Communication, 49(1), 103-122. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02784.x
Shields, T. (2015, April 9). Schechter couple adopts Ethiopian brothers. Chicago Tribune, p. 5.
Soft news (2016). A Dictionary of Media & Communication. (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Streeter, K. (2014, November 23). On adoption day, judge hands down the news adults and 200 kids have awaited. Los Angeles Times, p. AA3.
Suter, E. A., Reyes, K. L., & Ballard, R. L. (2011). Adoptive parents' framing of laypersons'
conceptions of family. Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 12(1), 43-50. doi:10.1080/17459435.2011.601524
Therolf, G. (2016, March 27). The child welfare system; Broken bonds; Court delays and keeping children in foster care longer set the stage for deeper heartbreak and wrenching
removals. Los Angeles Times, p. B1.
Tyebjee, T. (2003). Attitude, interest, and motivation for adoption and foster care. Child Welfare, 82(6), 685-706.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (2000). Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (Publication. L. 106-279). Retrieved from https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/PUBLAW/HTML/PUBLAW/0-0-0-21811.html
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Children’s Bureau (2017). The AFCARS Reports: Preliminary FY’ 2017 Estimates as of August 10, 2018 (Publication No. 25). Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport25.pdf
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Consular Affairs. (n.d.). Adoption statistics. Retrieved from travel.state.gov/content/adoptionsabroad/en/about-us/statistics.html
Vu, H. T., Guo, L., & Mccombs, M. E. (2014). Exploring "the world outside and the pictures in our heads": A network agenda-setting study. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 91(4), 669-686. doi:10.1177/1077699014550090
Waggenspack, B. (1998). The symbolic crisis of adoption: Popular media’s agenda setting. Adoption Quarterly, 1(4), 57-82. doi:10.1300/j145v01n04_04
Wegar, K. (2000). Adoption, family ideology, and social stigma: Bias in community attitudes, adoption research, and practice. Family Relations, 49(4), 363-370.
doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2000.00363.x
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
By submitting to the Journal of Public Interest Communications, the author(s) agree to the terms of the Author Agreement. All authors retain copyrights associated with their article contributions and agree to make such contributions available under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY NC) 4.0 upon publication.
Author Agreement
This agreement takes effect upon acceptance of the Submission for publication in JPIC.
- I hereby grant to the University of Florida (“the University”) the non-exclusive right to retain, reproduce and distribute the Submission in whole or in part, in print and electronic format and in any medium. This agreement does not represent a transfer of copyright to the University.
- The University may make and keep multiple copies of the work for purposes of security, backup, preservation and access; and may migrate the work to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation and access.
- I represent and warrant to the University that the work is my original work and that I have the authority as sole author or I have the authority on behalf of my co-authors to grant the rights contained in this agreement. I also represent that the work does not, to the best of my knowledge, infringe or violate any rights of others.
- I further represent and warrant that I have obtained all necessary rights to permit the University to reproduce and distribute the work, including any third-party material. Alternatively, I represent that my use of any third-party material is allowed because the material is not in copyright or I have performed a fair use analysis and reasonably believe my use is permitted. Any content owned by a third party is clearly identified and acknowledged within the work.
- I grant these same rights to the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. Additionally, I grant the right to both the University and Smathers Libraries to enter into agreements with third-party entities and the rights necessary to host, print, index and abstract the Submission.
Open Access and Self-Archiving
JPIC follows an open-access publishing model, meaning that all articles will be publicly accessible on the Internet immediately upon publication. I understand that I may share the submitted manuscript (preprint) of the Submission on the Internet at any point before or after publication, with a citation and link to the final version of record to be added as soon as the issue is available. I may disseminate the final peer-reviewed version at any point after publication.
Creative Commons License
JPIC applies a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY NC) 4.0 to encourage sharing and reuse of content and to maximize the impact of published research. By publishing in JPIC, I agree that the terms of this license will be applied to the Submission. Smathers Libraries (copyright@uflib.ufl.edu) may be able to offer additional information.
By granting this license, I acknowledge that I have read and agreed to the terms of this agreement.
