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Framing Adoption: The Media and Parental Decision Making

Journal of Family Issues

Published online on

Abstract

How is international adoption framed in the popular press? Do those framings shape adoption decision making? Using a multimethod approach of content analysis of newspaper reportage and in-depth interviews with international adoptive parents, this article examines the past two decades of popular press stories on international adoption and explores links between media frames and adoption decision making. Findings reveal that, although the majority of media frames on international adoption are negative, variations exist depending on the sending country profiled. Reportage on Russia adoption consists of more negative frames, whereas China adoption is more likely to be framed positively. These differences in media framings on Russia and China, the two most popular countries for international adoption into the United States from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, emerged in adoptive parents’ narratives of adoption decision making.