Rural maternity and media discourse analysis: Framing new narratives

Introduction: Continued rural maternity closure across Australia has seen impacts on women and families such as financial pressures, quality and safety concerns, and emotional pressure. This review aimed at understanding how media coverage of rural maternity and closure are presented and what impact this may have on maternity service sustainability. Objective: This research seeks to examine media discourse and characteristics of online newspaper articles related to rural maternity services. Design: A narrative review was conducted using thematic discourse analysis to examine online newspaper content published in Victoria, Australia from 2010 to June 2021. Findings: Local maternity services were a source of community interest for rural people. Coverage of negative outcomes for mothers and babies was highlighted by rural newspapers; however, increased content over the last 12-month period focused on community support for the sustainability of rural maternity services. Recent community support in newspaper articles coincided with maternity services reviews and retaining some of these rural services. Discussion: Community support in media may provide a protective social pressure, leading rural health services to consider this when reviewing the sustainability or closure of rural maternity services. Conclusion: Media attention about sustaining local maternity services by highlighting issues and representing community voices may influence health executive to consider opportunities to remodel and sustain high-quality and safe maternity care in rural settings. Knowing how rural health executives consider media, community pressure, and how it impacts expediency of maternity service closure decisions is unknown and an important gap in knowledge to explore and understand.