Sex Education and the News: Lessons From How Journalists Framed Virginity Pledges

This research from the Journal of Health Communication examines United States (US) newspaper articles written on two topics: virginity pledges and a public health study of teen sexual behaviour. Through the analysis of how journalists frame their stories, it examines how media coverage of teen sexual behaviour can influence public opinion and affect policy.

The authors chose to study prominent news frames on sex education by focusing on reporting about True Love Waits (TLW) and about the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). TLW is a nationwide virginity pledge campaign created by the Southern Baptist Convention Sunday School Board in April of 1993. It encourages abstinence and, according to research, had unprecedented growth - involving one million adolescents by 2002. Add Health is a longitudinal study of sexual behaviours of 7th - 12th graders. In 1997 and 2001, it included questions to evaluate the effects of virginity pledges.

For their analysis of news presentations of this information, the authors viewed journalists as processors of information who produced "interpretive packages" that have influence on the issue on which they are reporting. The research analyses what journalists decide to include and exclude and how they choose to frame the issue. In addition to framing content, the authors examined news placement in publications, extent of coverage, headline and lead paragraphs, and the use of opinions from sources.

They found that reporting was often not grounded in science, and, in fact, that reporting "may have started a new culture of chastity", as a result of audiences reading stories about the TLW campaign that excluded information grounded in research. Reporting on the Add Health study was often limited to the "science" reporting frame, not often accessed by a wide readership. In addition, it did not reflect a link to the sex education policy debate. In this case, according to the authors, reporting may have encouraged support for abstinence-only programmes.

In conclusion, the authors recommend that when advocacy campaigns and scientific information create public, teachable moments about sex education strategies, experts should not simply provide reporters and news outlets with information. In choosing what to emphasise, they should be guided by their awareness of the lack of balance in frames and sources employed in previous news reports. The authors state that providing additional contextual information that adds to the newsworthiness of an event or a study supplies more incentive for journalists to be consistent in conveying a wider range of information, thus expanding the breadth of a typical frame of a particular issue. A concerted effort at collaboration with journalists might, they speculate, allow public health experts to gain more influence over public perceptions of societal problems like teen pregnancy.



They suggest that, by including a public health frame in stories like the virginity pledge - stories that focus on a religious perspective - the science aspects of this issue are more likely to inform audience views about sex education and resulting policy implications. Their additional recommendation is that public health experts, when interviewed, should link study results to policy options in order to support audience learning about research findings and their links to policy choices.

Finally, they observe that, despite consumer information-seeking through internet access, news organisations still hold much of the power of information dissemination, including health information, particularly in the United States, and advise that researchers need to supply a balance of information needed by journalists, policy-makers and the public to inform their decisions.