Professor Robin Jensen and Her Research Team Explore Early Media Narratives Around the Birth Control Pill

We are excited to announce a new publication from Professor Robin Jensen and her research team: Dr. Madison A. Krall (PhD alum and Assistant Professor at Seton Hall University), Dr. Megan E. Cullinan (PhD alum and Assistant Professor at the University of Montana), and current PhD student Ghanima Almuaili in Public Understanding of Science, available via SAGE Journals.

Their article, titled "Indirect Audiences and Conflicting Narratives About Oral Contraception: Emergent Coverage of 'The Pill' in The New York Times, 1951–1965," critically examines how the New York Times covered the earliest developments surrounding oral contraception, long before such topics were commonly or openly discussed.

At a time when public conversations about sexual health were severely limited by obscenity laws, medical gatekeeping, and cultural taboos, mainstream newspapers became one of the only accessible sources of information about the pill. This study analyzed 292 articles published between 1951 and 1965 to uncover how these pieces shaped early public understanding.

This research reveals that the New York Times’ coverage framed the pill in conflicting and genre-specific ways: highlighting its perceived volatility, divisiveness and unpredictability, and scientific promise. Notably, these articles rarely addressed the needs or perspectives of women who might actually use the pill, treating them instead as unintended or secondary audiences. Women’s voices—whether as patients or professionals—were largely absent from the discourse.

The authors stated:

“Our team is very interested in how people obtain information about reproductive health issues, particularly during times when that information is not readily available. When the oral contraceptive pill was first approved for use in the United States in the 1960s, direct-to-consumer advertising was illegal, obscenity laws limited discourse about sex more broadly, and many physicians offered their patients little-to-no information about contraception in any form, in part because in some cases it was illegal to do so.  We realized that, in this context, mainstream newspapers such as The New York Times offered information about the pill that was not available anywhere else.”

This timely study not only sheds light on the early narratives of oral contraception but also explores the enduring legacy of indirect communication around reproductive health, a challenge that persists to this day.

Read the full article here:
Indirect audiences and conflicting narratives about oral contraception: Emergent Coverage of 'The Pill' in The New York Times, 1951–1965