Broadcast Media and Women’s health

Coverage of Maternal Health by Liberty and DITV Stations in Kaduna State

Abstract

This study content-analyzed 3000 news bulletins of Liberty TV and DITV stations in Kaduna to examine the frequency of the coverage of maternal health issues, ascertain the prominence the stations give to maternal health issues and determine the aspect of maternal health issues the stations covered from January to April 2018 when there was a call to action by the World Health Organization(WHO). Findings revealed low coverage of maternal health issues by both Liberty TV (n= 33, 2.48%) and DITV (n=19,) in their news bulletins within the period under study. Liberty TV station mostly allots from three minutes (n=8, 24.24%), four minutes (n=7,21.22%) and five minutes (n=5, 15%) while DITV gives less allotting only 1 (5.26%) 4 minutes and 2 (10.53%) five minutes to maternal health bulletins.  Also, Liberty TV station placed most of the news on maternal health at the middle (n=10, 30.30%) and end (n=19, 57.57%) of its news hours signifying average prominence and low prominence while DITV station placed maternal health news bulletin at the beginning (n=11, 57.89%) and middle (n=6,31.575) of its news hours signifying more prominence in terms of placement of the news. Furthermore, pregnancy/antenatal care is the most dominant maternal health issue covered in the Liberty TV news bulletins; however, DITV gave more focus on family planning and less coverage to issues of postnatal care and child care. Based on these findings, the study recommends that the two media organizations should increase their coverage of maternal mortality issues to create awareness through additional news coverage, as well as the prominence given to the maternal news bulletins in their news hours.