Gender and Sexuality Studies

Abstract

How do young members of disadvantaged communities in countries like the US, which has been affected by political polarisation and attacks from far-right populist politicians on women’s rights, make sense of messages on reproductive health in the misinformation age? Following from the conclusion of a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)  funded project which examined how 52 NGOs from across the world are making use of communications tools for advocacy on sexuality and reproductive health (SRHR) , this study engaged with communities in Florida, US, in partnership with the NGO Open Arms, to assess how they consume media content on reproductive health, particularly on social media, within a context of proliferation of ‘fake news’.   

Applying a feminist methodological epistemology and a participatory approach which aims to ‘empower’ participants, two focus groups with males and females from diverse ethnicities, between 18 and 40 years of age, were conducted with Open Arms in July and August 2023. Findings revealed how groups are exposed to a lot of inaccurate news, misinformation and ‘myths’ around fertility treatments on the web, and how they feel there is a need for better scientific information on reproductive health in the media and on the Internet, one which is also more ‘entertaining’ and which speaks directly to their experiences. This study concludes in favour of improving health literacy approaches as well as communications on reproduction health. 

Biography

Carolina Matos is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Sociology at the Department of Media, Culture and the Creative Industries (MCCI) at the School of Communication and Creativity at City, University of London, and also a former visiting associate professor in Global Communications at the School of Communication, University of Miami, US. With more than 20 years experience in UK HE, Matos’ research is the area of gender, media and development, international journalism and media reform, as well as health communications and how communications can be used for social change. Matos has taught and researched at the LSE, University of Essex, Goldsmiths College, and UE in the Sociology, Politics and Media and Communications Departments. 

Matos investigates the role of media and communications in processes of democratisation and development, paying particular attention to structural inequalities of gender and race. She has conducted research in the global North as well as in the global South, from Latin America to India, and the US. Matos is the author of four books, various chapters and articles, including Gender, health communications and reproductive health in international development (McGill Queen’s University Press, 2023) and Media and politics in Latin America: globalization, democracy and identity (IB Tauris, 2013), which won the international Premio Jabuti prize, 1st category in Communications.