Functions of Mass Media in the Coverage of Reproductive Behavior of Young People

Abstract

The article is dedicated to a study of media communication strategies aimed at educating of the readership with regards to reproductive behavior. Nowadays, the journalists focus not only on traditional issues of marriage, parenthood, early sexual relations, birth of children by minor girls but also problems of biomedical technologies, surrogacy maternity, i. e. issues that cause an ambiguous reaction of the audience. Meduza and The Village publications which are especially popular among people aged 14 to 28 were chosen as the subject of the study. These publications were selected due to the fact that they are mass publications targeting a wide audience that could help to popularize the topic of reproductive health in general. The study included the following: structural and functional analysis of publications in order to identify the relationships between communicative, cognitive, value-orientating, socially-organizational, educational functions of the two publications; discourse and content analysis of publications in Meduza and The Village. The second stage of the study used the method of discourse analysis covering selection of journalistic materials that addressed the topic of reproductive health. We studied relevant publications over the period from January 1, 2019 to May 31, 2019, the selection covered 94 publications. The study proved that so far there is a stereotypical approach to coverage of topics related to different aspects of reproductive health. In particular, Russian mass media do not speak much about reproductive health. The reason for this silence may be the Russian mentality and conviction that this topic may not be discussed, not only publicly but even in conversations with close friends and relatives. We may assume that for competent coverage of topics related to reproductive health, additional training of journalists able to speak on taboo topics ethically sound and in a language understandable to the audience is required.

Keywords

• journalism
• mass media
• reproductive behavior
• media practice