This paper aims to understand the vocabulary and coverage of child adoption in print media. The paper looks at Indian journalistic pieces, popular women’s magazines, films and advertisements which specifically are built around the ideas of motherhood, family, parenting and child adoption. It also tries to understand how child adoption is depicted in media and ways in which such depictions influence the understanding of adoption in Indian society. Frames assigned by media to adoption and its consequent representation helps in identifying those issues that contribute to public perceptions and policy frameworks around the issue. (Shelton, 2019) The study undertaken has selected a sample size of 140 urban, educated, people aged between 18 and 55. The approach to the study used the methods of content analysis, survey, interviews and a study of existing literature.

adoption, bias, media frames, motherhood, social constructs