Paid family leave on local television news in the United States: Setting the agenda for policy reform

Tait, Margaret; Bogucki, Colleen; Baum, Laura; Fowler, Erika Franklin; Niederdeppe, Jeff; Gollust, Sarah E.

doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100821

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…A content analysis of local television news coverage of paid family leave in 2018-19 revealed that just 13.5% of stories included an exemplar (Tait, et. al, 2021 ). The higher percentage of exemplars in ECE coverage suggests that ECE-related issues could be conducive to the narrative-based frameworks that could be used in ECE policy advocacy (Niederdeppe et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

News Media Coverage of Childcare: How U.S. Local TV News Framed the Problem Before and During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tait

Bogucki²,

Baum

et al. 2023

J Child Fam Stud

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Early care and education (ECE), or the care young children receive before entering formal schooling, can take multiple forms and is delivered in different settings, such as a center, church, or public school. Federal and state governments regularly fund ECE programs and policies through the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG). Many families, however, face significant challenges in access, cost, and quality of ECE programs, and ECE professionals report substantial challenges in the workplace (e.g., inadequate training) and beyond (e.g., low wages). Policies addressing issues related to ECE were proposed in 2021, but stalled on the U.S. federal policy agenda. In this study, we examine the ECE content of local television news coverage both for its representations of and for its potential influences on ECE policy agendas. We use data from local stations affiliated with the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX) in media markets across the U.S., airing before and during the pandemic. We analyze elements of coverage that could affect public recognition of ECE-related issues, including how problems were framed (e.g., news coverage highlighting scandals or adverse events at ECE facilities) and solutions identified (e.g., public policy). We find that during 2018 and 2019, more coverage highlighted scandalous activity than public policy. The reverse was true, however, during the early period of the pandemic (from mid-March through June of 2020). Researchers and health professionals were seldom included in stories in either sample, and very few stories offered context about the benefits of ECE for health and well-being. These coverage patterns have implications for the public’s understanding of ECE policy and the perceived need for reform. Policymakers, advocates, and researchers looking to advance support for ECE should consider ways to use local television news to present health and policy-relevant information to broad segments of the public.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

News Media Coverage of Childcare: How U.S. Local TV News Framed the Problem Before and During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tait

Bogucki²,

Baum

et al. 2023

J Child Fam Stud

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The relatively high proportion of female journalist contributions can be understood considering the global proportions of women in media, and the topic of parental leave is often framed as a women’s or social issue. For example, an analysis of local television stories about paid leave in the US showed that where an identifiable individual was included, these were overwhelmingly mothers (91.3%) 32 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of national media coverage of a parental leave reform investigating sentiment, semantics and contributors

Vermillet,

Krejberg,

Nielsen

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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While paid leave for fathers after the birth of a child has become increasingly available, mothers still take most of the parental leave. A recent European Union (EU) reform addresses the unequal sharing of leave between parents via earmarking of paid, non-shareable leave to each parent. Given that the reform’s success will depend on uptake by families, we analysed Danish national media coverage to understand how journalists were writing about the reform. We assessed the sentiment and semantics of leave reform coverage compared to general news from the same period, also considering the inferred journalist gender and newspaper political orientation. Parental leave reform articles were slightly more emotional than general news, independent of who authored the article, or the newspaper where it was published. We found a robust difference in the semantics of how female journalists wrote about the reform, relative to male journalists, and that female journalists contributed to media coverage at a higher-than-expected rate. The tendency for media coverage to be written with a non-neutral sentiment can be understood in terms of the enduring political tensions over gender equality, the role of the EU and families’ rights to self-organization. That female journalists over-contributed to media coverage is interesting in understanding topic assignments or interest in parental leave.

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Paid family leave on local television news in the United States: Setting the agenda for policy reform

Cited by 4 publications

References 21 publications

News Media Coverage of Childcare: How U.S. Local TV News Framed the Problem Before and During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic

News Media Coverage of Childcare: How U.S. Local TV News Framed the Problem Before and During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic

An analysis of national media coverage of a parental leave reform investigating sentiment, semantics and contributors

Serving the public? A content analysis of COVID-19 public service announcements airing from March – December of 2020 in the U.S

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