‘Use these strategies to advocate for yourself at your next doctor's appointment’: a snapshot of Australian online news framing of endometriosis in 2024

Hannah Adler, Kieran McGuinness
In: Media International Australia · 2025 · doi:10.1177/1329878x251407719 · W4417507853
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Australian online news from 2024 framed endometriosis as an individual suffering requiring self-advocacy, focusing on symptoms like pain and infertility while underemphasizing systemic issues and solutions.

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Abstract

This paper reports on findings from a framing analysis of 98 Australian online news reports published in 2024 about endometriosis drawn from a variety of news publications. Using an approach informed by framing theory, biocommunicability and Dan and Raupp’s systematic review of health news frames, the study includes deductive and inductive frames. The analysis reveals how in the news, endometriosis is represented as a cause of individualised pain and suffering that patient-consumers must address through self-advocacy and self-education. While articles did consider thematic framings through reporting of wider issues such as medical gaslighting in endometriosis related care and widespread diagnostic delays, these issues were discussed as regrettable yet ultimately normal consequences of individual medical practitioner failures. Further, these issues were often told through narrative stories and attached to actions everyday people can take to address them, rather than considering wider, systemic-level changes or proposed solutions that could be addressed. Along with this prevalence of narrative reporting, and while pain was foregrounded as a serious symptom, infertility caused by endometriosis was commonly reported despite existing research which highlights the detriment of colluding these two issues. These findings echo existing media research, demonstrating that when reported in news media, endometriosis remains discussed as an individual condition, focused on symptoms such as fertility, and solutions related to self-advocacy. We argue that through this there is an agentless responsibility in this news reporting of endometriosis; while systemic issues are discussed, systemic solutions remain unaddressed, and the audience is left unknowing what to do beyond individual solutions.
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Abstract

Endometriosis and its impacts Theoretical frameworks – framing and biocommunicability The framing of endometriosis in media In major magazines and newspapers, endometriosis appeared as a serious but always debilitating disease with consistently negative consequences. Moreover, in their focus on individual ‘victims’ of endometriosis, mainstream accounts continued to obscure the social and political dimensions of the disease. Like women's magazines, general and special interest magazines and newspapers framed endometriosis as a personal trouble demanding individual attention. (Sanmiguel, 2000: 172) Methodology Sample and data gathering Data analysis

Results

News outlets Deductive frames Inductive frames

Discussion

Agentless responsibility and human-interest focus A narrative of pain and suffering “I was in so much pain and fighting an invisible battle daily,” she tells 9honey.“I spent so much of my time trying to keep a happy exterior while I was struggling to stay afloat.” (Leach, 2024) Inadequate care: Who is to blame? Conversations at every level–from the upper echelons of medicine, science and politics to doctors’ offices, dinner tables, workplaces, health clubs and everywhere in between. (Davies, 2024) Endometriosis and its impacts Dr Yazdani said it was common for women with endometriosis to not want children, as they were worried about experiencing pain again when they went off birth control. But he said women could work with medical professionals and clinics to figure out a pain management plan while trying to conceive. ‘When the time comes for [a woman with endometriosis] to conceive, it's not OK for [her] to just be left like any other woman who hasn't been diagnosed with endometriosis’, he said. ‘Women need to have individualised endometriosis plans … for both the pain and for fertility’. (Searson, 2024)

Conclusion

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References

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Keywords

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Condition tags

endometriosisinfertility

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (31)

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