"My dear unwanted": media discourse on sex-selective abortion in Montenegro

Beliefs based on patriarchy have different manifestations, from gender-insensitive language to discriminatory and prejudiced behavior. While the consequences of patriarchal beliefs are observable and well-studied, more attention is required to unravel the role of societal actors that contribute to both their development and their suppression. The present research applies the novel Socio-cognitive Discourse Studies to investigate how the media acts as a significant mediating public structure that has the potential to enable or disable the reproduction of patriarchy. I investigate the media discourse on sex-selective abortion (SSA)-the practice of the targeted elimination of female fetuses. The study takes the case of Montenegro, listed among the leading countries in the world with a significantly distorted sex ratio at birth. Besides confirming that the majority of the media encourage the status quo through its passive approach to SSA, the socio-cognitive analysis also established the relationship between the media and consumers, revealing how the different discourse strategies the journalists use trigger different cognitive responses among their audience. This study discovered discursive patterns in the public presentation of women while pointing out the crucial role the media plays in disseminating analytical and balanced information on significant and worrisome tendencies, such as SSA.