Mass Media and Maternal Healthcare: A Critical Discourse

Abstract

The mass media have a role to play in raising awareness about issues and calling attention to whatever threatens our well-being. Maternal and child health, the focus of this critical study, is one of such issues to which the mass media must call the attention of all – government, men, women, children and all other stakeholders. As the fifth of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations (UN), maternal health is thus a key development issue because matters relating to wellness are central to human development; the quality of a country’s healthcare system impinges on the level of social conditions available to citizens, and determines its rating on the global human development index. Exploring health, healthcare, maternal heath, this critical study, which drew from global and local statistics on the success achieved in curbing maternal mortality rate (MMR) globally, found that the extent to which the mass media have been reporting women and children’s health in Nigeria and other countries is not yet desirable. Therefore, in order to set the necessary agenda for maternal health, the study recommends that mass media organisations, health agencies and institutions as well as media educators collaborate to devise strategies on how best they can equip journalists with specialized knowledge and skills to enable them write articles on health problems based on their expertise on such issues.

Keywords: mass media, health, maternal health