No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Media representations of sexual abuse risks
Abstract
What are the risks associated with child sexual abuse? Who is at risk? From whom? For professionals working in the field of child abuse, the main answers to such questions are straightforward. There is a broad consensus that children are at risk from adults (and young people), often from men (and sometimes women) that they know. Fathers, step-fathers, uncles and brothers are often implicated. This is not, however, the focus of news coverage. Abductions, paedophile rings and abuse in children's homes attract intermittent but occasionally intense media attention. In contrast, sexual abuse of children within their own families is rarely front page news—except, that is, where the accusations are contested. Almost as soon as the existence of widespread abuse within ‘ordinary’ homes became public knowledge, this was over-shadowed by a series of high-profiled ‘scandals’, such as Cleveland, Rochdale and Orkney. The focus turned to questions of misdiagnosis, inappropriate intervention and the supposed coaching of children to make false accusations. More recently ‘false memory syndrome’ has hit the headlines suggesting that some adults’ accounts of abuse can also be discredited. The news coverage often gives the impression that the main risks are not tochildren, but to parents, particularly fathers. How has this come to be the focus of public debate? Why is it that these risks have proved so much more ‘newsworthy’? This paper examines the media profile of the risks associated with sexual abuse and draws on interviews with journalists to seek to explain the shape of the coverage.
... Coverage of these allegations raised questions about the credibility of children's testimony and the motives of those working in child protection. Organised abuse and the prospect of false allegations provided a novel and dramatic "twist" on the story of sexual abuse, which journalists felt had become "boring" over the course of the decade (Kitzinger 1996). However the narrowing of media attention also reflected a hardening of journalistic sentiment against sexual abuse allegations. ...
... Steeped in the masculine culture of news production, many journalists suspected that the issue of sexual abuse had been exaggerated by the women's movement and were incredulous at the claims being made by therapists and social workers (Kitzinger 1996). The effect of mass media coverage of "contested" cases such as Cleveland, McMartin and Mr Bubbles was that "care professionals, rather than abusers" became "identified as the main threat to children" (Kitzinger 1996, p. 320). ...
... Unproven allegations must be handled carefully by the press due to the possibility of defamation or interference in a criminal investigation while the barriers to covering the perspective of those denying the allegations are considerably lower. Third, there was a lack of due diligence on behalf of journalists, who evinced a high degree of certainty that they knew what was "really" going on in these cases (Kitzinger 1996). Kitzinger (1998: 200) documented instances in which journalists published information provided to them by men accused of sexual abuse without interviewing the alleged victim or checking the factual basis of the story. ...
Drawing on Kitzinger’s (2000) notion of media templates, the essay demonstrates how patterns of media reporting on organised abuse in the US came to inform reporting in the UK and Australia. The subsequent “echo chamber” reinforced a homogenised stereotype of organised abuse allegations that was highly conducive to the claims that the problem of sexual abuse had been exaggerated for ideological reasons. Recent trends in media coverage of sexual abuse have challenged such claims, and the essay closes by considering the uncertain and contradictory state of contemporary media coverage of organised abuse allegations.
... It has been suggested that individuals' attitudes about CSA may be biased because of media influences (e.g., Goddard, 1996). The news media have been observed to sensationalize CSA and perpetuate myths about it (Brewin, 2003;Collings, 2002a;Franklin & Horwath, 1996;Kitzinger, 1996). The media tend to feature novel, bizarre, and unusual cases of CSA, rather than the common intra-familial forms (Cheit, 2003;Collings, 2002a;Collings & Bodill, 2003;Goddard & Saunders, 2000;Kitzinger, 1996). ...
... The news media have been observed to sensationalize CSA and perpetuate myths about it (Brewin, 2003;Collings, 2002a;Franklin & Horwath, 1996;Kitzinger, 1996). The media tend to feature novel, bizarre, and unusual cases of CSA, rather than the common intra-familial forms (Cheit, 2003;Collings, 2002a;Collings & Bodill, 2003;Goddard & Saunders, 2000;Kitzinger, 1996). ...
... Hence, media-portrayed CSA is typified by stranger-perpetrated, bizarre cases (Kitzinger, 1996). This sensationalizing may serve to minimize the more common and mundane forms of CSA seen in cases of hidden incest. ...
... Different welfare organizations and academicians recommended media look into the root reasons for child abuse (Kitzinger, 1996). The media works as social advocates. ...
Media is the principal channel of communication that structures people’s consciousness. Such influence of media is often constructed through particular framing which reaches powerful organizations and encourages them to work on different social issues like child abuse. The present study is designed to assess the trend of episodic and thematic media framing on child-abusing news and its relation with the adaptation of The Children Act along with UNICEF’s reporting principles. With media framing theory this paper executed a quantitative study through content analysis. A total of 1091 news articles were studied from two broadsheets and one tabloid newspaper within a timeline of one year. Results revealed that episodic news has a higher tendency of violating reporting principles than thematic. Incidents of sexual abuse received most of the coverage in Bangladeshi newspapers where girls were found most likely to be the victims of misrepresentation. Finally, the tabloid newspaper was found guiltier of unethical reporting than the broadsheets which established a significant connection between the tendency of principles violation and newspaper type. The paper recommended policymakers, child welfare institutes, and mass media promote children’s rights to decrease the rate of abuse cases in Bangladesh. Keywords: child abuse, media framing, children act, UNICEF, Bangladesh
... Although the causes of child abuse and neglect have not been given adequate attention apart from the abuses itself, Child welfare professionals and academics have advised the media internationally to report on the underlying causes of child abuse and neglect (Kitzinger, 1996). Lindsey (1994, p.163) also asserts that: "media has a central role in mediating information and forming public opinion. ...
Widespread violations of children's rights take place in Nigeria just like in other emerging democratic societies. In the Northern region of Nigeria, children are denied access to functional education, while in the South, they are trafficked and in some cases branded witches and subjected to hallowing experiences. Nigerian government is signatory to myriads of international treaties on the rights of children. Despite all these laws, children are still deprived of enjoying the full benefits of their rights. There are various and varied opinions on the extent to which the mass media and the practitioners in particular have played manifest roles or otherwise in the promotion of child rights in Nigeria. In an effort to bring this debate to the fore and help resolve this debacle, this study was initiated. Research questions were raised and hypotheses formulated accordingly. Survey research method and descriptive research designs were adopted in the execution of this research. The study population was the entire journalists in Enugu metropolis; while a sample size of 150 journalists were randomly selected from media organisations and print media correspondents in Enugu metropolis. The questionnaire was adopted as the measuring instrument for the study. Findings show that journalists in Enugu State are aware of the existence of child right to a great extent, that journalists and their media organisations pay adequate attention to issues pertaining to child rights and that there is a relationship between media promotion of child right issues and public compliance with the provision of the Child Rights Act. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended among others that journalists should be constantly retrained on new dimensions as it pertains to the promotion of child rights through societal media.
... Moral panics are not necessarily irrational reactions but often a result of genuine concern (Lumby & Funnell, 2011). However, moral panics might occur as a result of miscommunication, misinformation, and a focus on exemplar cases, which include graphic deaths that elicit empathy, compassion, and outrage (Critcher, 2003;David et al., 2011;Kitzinger, 1996;Sheley & Ashkins, 1981;Wexler, 2011). Another aspect of these cases that might fuel moral panics is the virtue of the victim. ...
Background
Media reports of child deaths as a result of abuse and neglect can influence how children move throughout the foster care system. Using the theoretical frameworks of moral panics and street level bureaucracy, the current study examined how news reports of violent child abuse and neglect cases relate to foster care children with implications for decision-making among child welfare workers.
Methods
Data from the AFCARS were assessed to evaluate the potential relationship between news report of child death and subsequent changes in trends in referrals to entry into foster care and exits out of foster care. News reports were coded using content analysis.
Results
For foster care entries, there was a delayed (1–2 months after news stories) increase in foster care entries after an increase in the number of articles on child deaths. For foster care exits, there was an immediate (same month as news stories) decrease in foster care exits after an increase in the number of articles on child deaths. This relationship reversed after 1 month, with more articles resulting in increases in exits.
Conclusions
Based on these results, it is possible that child services workers might be sensitive to news reports of violence against children and possibly use their professional positions to make decisions to help protect children and enact their own discretionary “street-level policies.”
... In general, media coverage of "child abuse issues . . . is a recent phenomenon" (McDevitt, 1996, p. 264), with news coverage tending to focus on stereotypic aspects of the problem, e.g., that the abuse is perpetrated by a stranger (cf. Cheit, 2003;Kitzinger, 1996), as well as emphasizing the more outrageous cases of abuse (cf. McDevitt, 1998;Nelson, 1984). ...
Abstract
This study used the situational theory of publics to determine the extent to which residents of two state counties cared about childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and to explore whether local print media coverage of CSA generated “hot-issue” publics around this issue. Although the situational theory of publics has been used widely in public relations scholarship, no previous study has dealt with an issue as socially sensitive as the sexual abuse of children. Nor have earlier studies provided quantitative evidence regarding mass media exposure and public formation.
We administered phone surveys to randomly selected households (response rate=21%; n=80). Canonical correlation yielded two publics – a “technology public” likely to become active regarding violent children’s video games and children’s Internet use and an “abuse public” likely to become active regarding sexual abuse of children, physical abuse of children, child poverty, and lack of health insurance coverage for children. Analysis of variance indicated that respondents’ primary sources of information on child-related issues affected only their levels of involvement with CSA (F=2.398; p=.048). None of the other variables of the situational theory appeared to be affected by exposure to a particular mass medium, suggesting that interpersonal sources of information had a greater influence on respondents’ level of involvement with CSA, than did mass mediated sources of information.
We discuss the implications of these findings for the development of a public education campaign on CSA, as well as for the continued refinement of the situational theory of publics.
This paper became the initial base for the ongoing global campaign and programming on CSA prevention and mitigation by the non-profit organization Stop the Silence®: Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc.
... rarely reported on CSA, dealt with almost exclusively specific CSA cases, where the main reason for writing was a judicial process against the perpetrator. The findings are consistent with foreign research which found that media dominantly deal with specific cases, usually police or court reports (Kitzinger, 1996;Mejia et al., 2012;O'Neil et al., 2015). Interestingly, the only time Jutarnji.hr ...
Proceedings of the first international conference Child maltreatment & well-being consists of five original research articles, one professional article, and one previously published (translated) article with the permission from the publisher:
1. Violence against Children with Disabilities Committed by Staff in Residential Care (Friederike Lorenz, Meike Wittfeld)
2. Contributing Factors and Barriers to Inclusion and Resilience for Young People with Learning Difficulties in Rural Ireland (Lucienne Van Erwegen)
3. Secondary School Pupil’s Knowledge of Court Proceeding and Their Perception of Courts within Croatian Legal System (Vesna Katalinić, Jana Kujundžić, Božidar Nikša Tarabić & Lana Petö Kujundžić)
4. Characteristics of Child Sexual Abuse Cases Reported to the Croatian Police (Irma Kovčo Vukadin, Jadranko Mesić & Vedran Žgela)
5. Introducing a Restorative Justice Framework in Institutions Caring
for Children and Youth (Razwana Begum Abdul Rahim)
6. Children Refugees in Croatian Daily Newspapers: Dominant on Photographs, Neglected in Texts (Martina Soko, Dunja Majstorović)
7. Analysis of Online Child Sexual Abuse News Comments: The Role of Media Coverage in Supporting Attitudes about Child Sexual Abuse and Stereotypes against Victims and Perpetrators (Stjepka Popović)
... rarely reported on CSA, dealt with almost exclusively specific CSA cases, where the main reason for writing was a judicial process against the perpetrator. The findings are consistent with foreign research which found that media dominantly deal with specific cases, usually police or court reports (Kitzinger, 1996;Mejia et al., 2012;O'Neil et al., 2015). Interestingly, the only time Jutarnji.hr ...
The objectives of the research were to determine what attitudes towards child sexual abuse (CSA), victims and perpetrators are represented in the direct comments on child sexual abuse news, whether there is a difference in commenting with regard to the description of the victim, perpetrator and abuse in the news and whether there is an association between the specific attitudes. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis was used to analyze all CSA news published on the Jutarnji.hr news portal during
2015 (N = 78) and affiliated online Facebook comments (N = 531). The frequency of different attitudes and stereotypes within comments was recorded for each CSA news. The most prevalent were stereotypes about perpetrators, attitudes that shift responsibility from perpetrators to other persons and institutions, attitudes about CSA prevention and suppression and stereotypes about male victims. Use of the pejorative terms to describe a perpetrator, detailed descriptions of the CSA event, the disclosure of victims’ identities and consensual words to describe abuse have supported stereotypes about victims and perpetrators in the news comments. Such media coverage creates an unfavourable environment for detecting CSA and victims’ recovery.
... Kitzinger (2004) highlighted the masculine culture of news journalism, and suggests that, by the early 1990s, many (largely male) journalists and editors were already skeptical about abuse allegations and sympathetic towards accused men. Furthermore, she suggests that child abuse had become a 'boring' and repetitive issue for journalists, who found the 'false memory' story novel and appealing (Kitzinger, 1996). It is also useful to take political economy into consideration. ...
... In addition, the media can create a moral panic by using generalizations or premature conclusions and damage the reputation of a child, caregivers, social workers or institutions in authority. Today, when the guidelines for reporting on children are available, very few people would still argue that the media are in the business of selling "news" at any costs (Kitzinger, 1996). Balanced debate about what is good and what is bad for a child is missing in newspaper redactions between members of editorial board and journalists, so we often witness positive intentions of journalists that result in negative effects on a child. ...
Media reports of children in care and “out-of-home” care can have an impact on attitudes towards children, caregivers, institutions and people who work in the system of care. The main objective of this study was to determine to what extent and how Croatian daily newspapers presented children in care and various forms of “out-of-home” care during 2014. Quantitative content analysis of printed newspaper articles (Croatian national (1) and regional (3) daily newspapers) was conducted. Children in care and “out-of-home” care are rarely covered (n = 78), media coverage is mostly focused on negative stories, and “episodic” or “case based”. Children are predominantly portrayed as “poor children”, victims of parental conflict, neglect and domestic violence. News media still violate children’s right to privacy and participation in the media, often using sensational content and style. Of all forms of “out-of-home” care, only news of foster care are presented in a positive context.
... stoljeća potvrdila su da se najveći broj slučajeva uopće ne prijavljuje i da je riječ o ozbiljnom problemu koji predstavlja realnu prijetnju sigurnosti i zdravlju djece u svim zajednicama 2 . Time je raniji skepticizam 3 nas će se malotko složiti da su mediji u poslu prodaje vijesti pod svaku cijenu (Kitzinger, 1996.), zbog čega je i došlo do porasta interesa znanstvene i stručne zajednice za istraživanjem načina na koji mediji u doba smjernica, načela i preporuka za izvještavanje o djeci prezentiraju ovaj problem. ...
Porast interesa za istraživanjem medijske prezentacije seksualnog zlostavljanja djece tijekom posljednjeg desetljeća proizašao je iz činjenice da su mediji glavni izvor informacija o ovom problemu, žrtvama i počiniteljima, stoga imaju ključnu ulogu u oblikovanju stavova i znanja javnosti o seksualnom zlostavljanju djece. Spoznaje o pozitivnim učincima medijskog izvještavanja o seksualnom zlostavljanju djece sugeriraju da su upravo mediji osvijestili javnost o ovom problemu, olakšali otkrivanje i prijavljivanje seksualnog zlostavljanja, omogućili kreiranje javnih politika usmjerenih ka zaštiti djece te pridonijeli alokaciji resursa prema prevencijskim programima. S druge strane, deontologija medija prepoznaje štetni potencijal medijske prezentacije i izvještavanja o seksualnom zlostavljanju djece, pa medijski kodeksi i smjernice za izvještavanje ističu važnost izbjegavanja pretjeranih i senzacionalističkih izvješća koja pridonose stvaranju mitova o samoj pojavi te izgradnji stereotipa o počiniteljima i žrtvama. Naglasak nužnosti zaštite prava na privatnost aktera utemeljen je na spoznaji da otkrivanje identiteta ima potencijal sekundarne viktimizacije žrtava ili pak izlaganja počinitelja i njihovih obitelji opasnosti, čime sami medijski djelatnici mogu (re)viktimizirati aktere te otežati njihov oporavak i resocijalizaciju. Rad nudi sustavan pregled 20 relevantnih istraživanja medijskog sadržaja o seksualnom zlostavljanju djece na engleskom jeziku tijekom protekla dva desetljeća (1995. – 2015.) koji su zadovoljili kriterije pretrage u bazama Web of Social Sciences, Google Scholar, EBSCO, JSTOR, MEDLINE i Google, razvija okvirni model istraživanja medijskog sadržaja o seksualnom zlostavljanju djece te sistematizira najvažnije spoznaje u ovom području.
... stoljeća potvrdila su da se najveći broj slučajeva uopće ne prijavljuje i da je riječ o ozbiljnom problemu koji predstavlja realnu prijetnju sigurnosti i zdravlju djece u svim zajednicama 2 . Time je raniji skepticizam 3 nas će se malotko složiti da su mediji u poslu prodaje vijesti pod svaku cijenu (Kitzinger, 1996.), zbog čega je i došlo do porasta interesa znanstvene i stručne zajednice za istraživanjem načina na koji mediji u doba smjernica, načela i preporuka za izvještavanje o djeci prezentiraju ovaj problem. ...
Zbornik radova sa skupa:
1. Pravo djeteta na spolno zdravlje - gdje smo nakon 10 godina? (Maja Gabelica Šupljika, Ivana Milas Klarić, Davorka Osmak Franjić)
2. Razvoj rodnog identiteta i seksualne orijentacije (Goran Arbanas)
3. Kaznenopravna zaštita djece od seksualnog zlostavljanja u RH - potreba za daljnjom reformom? (Dalida Rittossa)
4. Suradnja stručnjaka u zaštiti djece i mladih od seksualnog zlostavljanja i nasilja - primjer dobre prakse (Gordana Buljan - Flander, Tea Breznišćak, Ana Marija Španić)
5. Tretman maloljetnih počinitelja seksualnog nasilja - prikaz rada u Dječjem domu "Tić" Rijeka (Nataša Makarun i Ljiljana Bubnić)
6. Prevencija seksualnog zlostavljanja djece s intelektualnim teškoćama (Martina Šendula Pavelić i Nataša Tomljanović)
7. Seksualno zlostavljanje djece: Pravovremena intervencija i stručni tretman (Tamara Žakula Desnica)
8. Kako razgovarati sa žrtvom spolnog zlostavljanja (Ljiljana Bubnić i Nataša Makarun)
9. Uloga medija u povredi prava djece i mladih na seksualno zdravlje (Gordana Vilović)
10. Istraživanja medijske prezentacije seksualnog zlostavljanja djece (Stjepka Popović)
... Because news coverage of abuse continued to be shaped by the dominant inferential structures of 'predatory paedophiles', little attention was paid to more prevalent problems of institutional and familial abuse (Critcher, 2002;Silverman and Wilson, 2002). However, a succession of scandals since the 1980s exposed the sexual abuse of children in care homes, private schools and religious institutions, and forced the problem of institutional abuse onto the political agenda (Davidson, 2008;Franklin and Parton, 1990;Jenkins, 1992;Kitzinger, 1996;Moore, 1996;Silverman and Wilson, 2002). Institutional scandals resulting from silence, stonewalling, denial and deception led to the establishment of official inquiries that raised further public awareness of this previously hidden crime (Barter, 1998;Corby et al., 1998;Department of Health, 1991;Waterhouse, 2012). ...
This study advances research on scandal through an empirical examination of one of the most extraordinary UK institutional child sexual abuse (CSA) scandals in the post-war period. Sir Jimmy Savile (1926-2011) was a BBC celebrity, showbiz friend of the establishment and philanthropist. In October 2012, one year after his death, an ITV documentary alleged that Savile was also a prolific sexual predator who for decades had exploited his BBC status to abuse teenage girls. As we demonstrate, this incendiary documentary triggered a news media feeding frenzy that in less than one week destroyed Savile's reputation and thrust the BBC - the institution that made him a star - into a multi-faceted, globally reported CSA scandal. This study has four purposes. First, we propose a model of institutional CSA scandals that can account for critical transitions between key phases in the scandal process. Second, we apply this model to analyse the transition between the 'latent' and 'activated' phases of the Savile scandal. This transition corresponded with a dramatic transformation in the inferential structuring of Savile from 'national treasure', who had devoted decades to working with children, to 'prolific sexual predator', who spent decades abusing them. Third, we demonstrate how the BBC's denial of responsibility for Savile's sexual offending and its subsequent institutional cover-up triggered a 'trial by media' which in turn initiated the next phase in the scandal's development - 'amplification'. Finally, we consider the significance of our analysis of the Sir Jimmy Savile scandal for understanding the activation and development of scandals more generally.
... In addition, by blaming 'strangers' for child abuse (or in extreme cases the pathology of individual parents) no further examination is required of the cultural, political and ethical systems of the broader society and how they are implicated. Child welfare professionals and academics have advised the media internationally to report on the underlying causes of child abuse and neglect (Kitzinger, 1996) and these recommendations are relevant to Malaysia. ...
Since the early 1990s, Malaysian society has displayed a deepening concern over steady increases in reported cases of child abuse in the country. For many Malaysians, knowledge of this issue comes from the mainstream media. This research analyses media coverage of child abuse in two mainstream English-language daily newspapers throughout 2010. The analysis focuses on how this issue is presented and ‘framed’ in the media. Through the use of simple episodic framing and a distorted focus on extreme cases of child abuse, media coverage internationally obscures the reality of child abuse as it occurs within the context of contemporary social, cultural, religious or political systems. This hinders any genuine understanding of the problem, leading to flawed solutions. We find these international patterns largely replicated in Malaysia. Furthermore, gendered socialization processes in Malaysia make women and mothers principally responsible for family life and there is a tendency to blame and punish mothers for child abuse even when they are not the perpetrators. Internationally, child welfare experts and academics have advised the media to focus reporting on the underlying causes of abuse so that the issue can be better understood and addressed and this advice is pertinent for Malaysia today.
... The qualities of immediacy and drama required of news stories inevitably slant the selection of stories towards the more sensational. Analysis by McDevitt (1996McDevitt ( , 1998 of media coverage of abuse in the United States and in Ireland demonstrates a clear preference for acute and exceptional manifestations such as lurid child sexual abuse and child murder to the extent that chronic forms of abuse like neglect or emotional abuse are almost invisible, though their consequences for the child can be no less devastating (Fitzgerald, 1995;Iwaniec, 1995). This might cause us less concern if we did not know that, where people have little direct personal knowledge, the image portrayed by the media becomes for them their image of the issue in question (Hutson et al., 1994;Robinson, 1992). ...
During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, sensationalist coverage of a series of celebrated child abuse scandals in England and Wales resulted in the repeated vilification in the mass media of those child welfare agencies deemed culpable for the deaths of the children involved. This paper explores the contribution of the media to the creation of the climate of fear, blame and mistrust which seems to have become endemic within the field of child protection. It suggests that damaging distortions have been introduced into the child protection system as a result of the defensive responses of the relevant authorities at both national and local level to the media onslaught. A more strategic approach to understanding and managing media coverage of this difficult field is outlined.
... The relationship between stereotype congruency and attributional thinking, which emerged in the present research, has relevance to research on media representations of child abuse. Studies of the way in which child abuse is depicted in the printed media (e.g., Atmore, 1996;Costin, Karger, & Stoesz, 1996;Goddard, 1996;Hesketh & Lynch, 1996;Kitzinger, 1996;McDevitt, 1998;Nelson, 1984) have found that media reports tend to typify abuse in terms of restrictive stereotypes (i.e., more extreme forms of abuse, stranger as abuser, abuse location as a public place). The present findings suggest that such restrictive stereotyping should be construed not simply as a distortion of professional/scientific understandings of the problem but also as a practice that has a potential for minimizing social perceptions of offender culpability. ...
The purpose of the study was to investigate the extent and nature of spontaneous attributional activity elicited by a newspaper report of child sexual abuse.
One hundred and seventy-six respondents, who were recruited through appeals placed in the letters column of a local newspaper, were presented with a newspaper report that described either a stereotype-congruent (rape by stranger in a public place) or a stereotype-incongruent (indecent assault by father at home) abuse incident. Respondents were asked to provide written descriptions of their thoughts and feeling about the abuse incident, which were analysed for attributional content.
Ninety-three percent of respondents provided one or more attributional statement, with attributional statements comprising 27% of all statements. Statements implying offender culpability were the most frequently employed attributional category (78% of all attributional judgments) while statements implying victim culpability comprised less than 2% of attributional judgments. Respondents who read the stereotype-incongruent description made more unsolicited causal and moral attributions than did respondents who read the stereotype-congruent description.
The results suggest that newspaper reports of child sexual abuse do elicit spontaneous attributional activity, that statements implying offender culpability are the most frequently employed attributional category, and that attributional activity is inhibited by stereotype congruent depictions of abuse. Implications for research and for prevention are discussed.
... A number of studies in the last decade and earlier have examined the way in which health and social issues have been represented in the mass media, from television soap operas, cartoons and films to newspapers (King & Watson 2005, Seale 2002. Although a few studies have looked at the way in which child abuse has been represented in the print media (Goddard & Liddell 1995, Goddard & Saunders 2000, Kitzinger 1996, no research studies were found in the nursing, sociological and anthropological literature that analysed media representation of legitimate violence towards children by parents. The literature has not provided an explanation of how this phenomenon has become an acceptable part of parenting in the social context of the UK. ...
This paper reports a study of how issues around the use of smacking by parents are represented in the print media. Our purpose was not to state a case for or against the use of smacking. Rather, within the contemporary social context we sought to answer the question, 'Why is smacking considered to be a legitimate part of parenting in the United Kingdom?'
Although a number of government proposals aiming to ban the use of smacking by parents have been presented in the United Kingdom parliament and Scottish Executive, current legislation allows parents to use this form of physical discipline as long as it does not result in physical injury to the child. For the purposes of this discussion, smacking is considered as a social phenomenon rather than an activity simply to be favoured or to be opposed.
A sample of 244 articles from five different United Kingdom newspapers was examined during 2004. Schema analysis that drew upon semiotics was used to analyse these print media representations about the use of legitimate violence by parents towards children.
Newspaper reportage about the parental use of physical discipline has increased over the past 20 years. Only one newspaper (The Independent) published on this topic prior to 1994. The discourse about the use of physical discipline by parents has changed over time from one that focuses on the effectiveness of smacking to one that about the human rights of the child. The main themes identified in the print media discourse were the rights of the child, the effectiveness of smacking, long-term effects and consequences, and the role of the state.
Media texts can influence and reinforce social dimensions of the label. The beliefs and attitudes of healthcare professionals and parents about smacking may be influenced by such representations.
Previous research indicates that approximately 40% of child sexual abuse media reports areambiguous in the sense that information relating to the nature of abuse, the identity of the perpetrator,and/or the location of abuse is not specified. This research examined the impact of suchcontextual ambiguity on the recall and interpretation of child sexual abuse media reports. The189 respondents were recruited through media appeals and presented with one of three versionsof a child sexual abuse press report (stereotype congruent, stereotype incongruent, or contextuallyambiguous). Respondents were asked to provide written descriptions of their thoughts andfeelings about abuse incidents, which were analyzed for attributional content. Recall wasassessed after a 2-week interval. Results indicate that stereotypes affect the recall and interpretationof child sexual abuse media reports in the presence of contextually ambiguous individuatinginformation but not in the presence of nonstereotypic information that is contextuallyunambiguous.
Online Child Sexual Abuse: Grooming, Policing and Child Protection in a Multi-Media World addresses the complex, multi-faceted and, at times, counter-intuitive relationships between online grooming behaviours, risk assessment, police practices, and the actual danger of subsequent abuse in the physical world. Online child sexual abuse has become a high profile and important issue in public life. When children are victims, there is clearly intense public and political interest and concern. Sex offenders are society's most reviled deviants and the object of seemingly undifferentiated public fear and loathing. This may be evidenced in ongoing efforts to advance legislation, develop police tactics and to educate children and their carers to engage with multi-media and the internet safely. Understanding how sex offenders use the internet and how the police and the government are responding to their behaviour is central to the development of preventative measures. Based on extensive ethnographic research conducted with the police and a specialist paedophile unit, here Elena Marellozzo presents an informed analysis of online child sexual abuse: of the patterns and characteristics of online grooming, and of the challenges and techniques that characterize its policing. Connecting theory, research and practice in the field of policing, social policy, victimology and criminology, this book adds significantly to our understanding and knowledge of the problem of online child sexual abuse, the way in which victims are targeted and how this phenomenon is, and might be, policed.
Sex crime has become one of the most intense areas of public and political concern in recent decades. This book explores the complex influences that shape its construction in the press. Media representations give important clues as to how we should perceive the nature and extent of sex crime, how we should think and feel about it, how we should respond to it, and the measures that might be taken to reduce risk. Understanding the media construction of sex crime is central to understanding its meaning and place in our everyday lives. Unlike much of the existing research, this book explores the construction of sex crime at every stage of the news production process. it then locates the findings within a wider context of cultural, economic and political change in late modernity. The book; shows how increased market competition and tabloidisation has altered fundamentally the way in which news is produced, communicated and consumed discusses representations of the full range of sex crimes from consensual homosexual offences and prostitution to serial rape and sex murder draws upon extensive empirical research in Northern Ireland, while addressing issues relevant to advance capitalist societies across the globe.
In 2009 in Hobart, Australia, a 12-year-old ward of the state was advertised in a metropolitan newspaper as an 18-year-old prostitute. The decision to prosecute only one of the 100-plus men alleged to have paid her for sex made national headlines and gave rise to allegations of a conspiracy involving the highest levels of government and the judiciary. It also resulted in reform of the state’s laws relating to the ‘mistake as to age’ defence. This paper examines news coverage of the institutional responses to this criminal matter in order to theoretically understand the relationship between contemporary journalistic representations of crime and politicised controversy about social problems such as child sexual exploitation. Drawing on an analysis of problem framing in news coverage and interviews with journalists and their sources, it investigates how the news value of the story was identified and seeks to identify the point at which news coverage tipped beyond social usefulness towards public outrage and conspiracy.
Sociological objectivism argues that what defines social deviance is the existence of areal, concrete, damaging or threatening state of affairs. In other words, what turns a state of affairs into a problem is that it actually harms or endangers human life and well-being. Politicians, educators, social workers, law enforcement agents and mental health specialists may claim that an increase in cases of crime, for example, reflects a genuine rise in the behavior itself. Sharper rises in such rates can naturally lead to stronger societal reactions. Functionalists who adhere to this view, as exemplified by Talcott Parsons and others, considered that customs and institutions that persist over time tend to be those that are good for society because they prohibit harmful activities and encourage beneficial ones that maximize societal preservation. This book explores the dynamics of this social and complex problem.
In 1987, in Cleveland County, United Kingdom, the pediatricians Marietta Higgs and Geoffrey Wyatt diagnosed 121 cases of child sexual abuse by using a hitherto little known diagnostic method. In large parts, this diagnosis proved wrong. This caused an ideological and political motivated media scandal, which framed British child care institutions as well as the relation of the public towards these institutions in the long-term. Historically, the intensity of this scandal can be traced to changes in the understanding of child care within the British system of child care. Using the method of historical discourse analysis, this paper will depict ideological structures of argumentation and locate them in ongoing processes of sociocultural change.
This paper reports on an analysis of representations of child abuse in English-language newspapers in Malaysia. Certain media images of mothers recur: bad mothers who are unable to protect their children; and good mothers, who are feminine representatives of a maternalised national government which is charged with interceding on behalf of abused children. Mothers implicated in child abuse are harshly judged by the maternalist regime. Our findings resonate with previous feminist analyses of child abuse but manifest differently in a non-Western, non-Christian context. In Malaysia, motherhood plays a crucial role in nationalist political culture; women and mothers carry increasing economic, social and political burdens in the rapidly modernising state. Fathers are largely marginal or absent in media reporting of child abuse, while mothers are represented as fully responsible for the care of children, particularly when problems occur. The media's blaming of child abuse on social changes while valorising traditional families reflects a conservative, patriarchal perspective, occluding discussion of the contexts of child abuse and thus mitigating against comprehensive solutions.
In recent years there have been several culturo-criminal discursive shifts, which have oriented political and public concerns away from ‘real world’ sex crimes against children and the people most likely to commit them. These include the construction of the dangerous stranger as the primary threat to children; the widespread use of the terms ‘paedophile’ and ‘child pornography’ in the common lexicon and the placing of both the paedophile and pornography in virtual rather than real space. Such discourses not only fail to protect children, but may even work to fetishize youth and youthful bodies colluding with the widespread commercial sexualization of children. In the ‘cyber-paed’ the news media have created the monster of our age and orchestrated what some criminologists might term a moral panic about both ‘cyber’ and ‘paeds’. This has occurred in a culture that, simultaneous with the castigation and outrage of the ‘cyber-paed’, routinely sexually objectifies children and infantilizes women to sell products, or pleasure as product; a culture that also largely ignores the evidence that most sexual crime against children happens in families. This article explores the contradictions and deflections inherent in contemporary constructions of sexuality and childhood and assesses the panic about paedophiles in cyber-space.
MOST CITIZENS OF THE Republic of Ireland describe themselves in their census returns as Roman Catholic, although attendances at church have been declining. Irish Catholics long endured religious discrimination and persecution under British Protestant rule. Partly for that reason, the Irish media tended to treat the Catholic Church very respectfully or deferentially after the foundation of the independent Irish Free State in 1921. However, by the closing decade of the twentieth century, Ireland had passed through a period of rapid and remarkable change. Economic, social and cultural factors made it more likely than before that Irish broadcasters would produce programmes critical of clergy and bishops. Irish Catholics still make a major contribution to social and educational services
In 2005, the Toronto Police Department’s Sex Crime Unit embarked upon the unprecedented move to go public with forensic evidence related to an on-going child pornography investigation. This strategy provided the public with exceptional glimpses into the taboo arena of child pornography. In this article, I trace the media coverage of this investigation to highlight the rhetorical and aesthetic components that, I posit, are related to a pedophilic logic. My goal is to reveal the latent but omnipresent desire encoded in the media narratives to imagine children and childhood in sexualized contexts. In particular, my analysis maps the literary and photographic aspects of the coverage to highlight the “performative contradiction” of the texts; though the media articulated a one-dimensional story of outrage and condemnation, the rhetorical and pictorial aspects of the story produced meanings that undermined the purported censure of child sexualization.
Previous research indicates that approximately 40% of child sexual abuse media reports are ambiguous in the sense that information relating to the nature of abuse, the identity of the perpetrator, and/or the location of abuse is not specified. This research examined the impact of such contextual ambiguity on the recall and interpretation of child sexual abuse media reports. The 189 respondents were recruited through media appeals and presented with one of three versions of a child sexual abuse press report (stereotype congruent, stereotype incongruent, or contextually ambiguous). Respondents were asked to provide written descriptions of their thoughts and feelings about abuse incidents, which were analyzed for attributional content. Recall was assessed after a 2-week interval. Results indicate that stereotypes affect the recall and interpretation of child sexual abuse media reports in the presence of contextually ambiguous individuating information but not in the presence of nonstereotypic information that is contextually unambiguous
The extent and representativeness of child sexual abuse reporting in the South African English-language press were examined. Baseline data for the study comprised a complete record of all cases of child sexual abuse reported to the police in the North Durban Policing area (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) from January 2001 to December 2004, with newspaper reports of child sexual abuse being obtained from the 2004 online archives of a South African English-language newspaper. Study findings indicate that press coverage of child sexual abuse is negligible (i.e., an index of crime-news coverage of less than 1%), with the nature of cases covered by the press being largely representative of the types of cases reported to the police.
This article examines an extraordinary cultural transformation in public and private knowledge: the discovery of child sexual abuse. It draws on interviews and focus group discussions conducted over eleven years to explore how dramatic changes in mass media coverage influenced public and personal perceptions of this issue. Focussing on the experiences of women and girls in the UK, my research highlights the media's special role, quite distinct from other cultural resources, in helping to confront and name sexual abuse. Media coverage made a crucial contribution to a spiral of recognition. It encouraged the formation and expression of private identities around this very fragmented and silenced experience. It helped sexual abuse, particularly incest, to enter public discourse. This article highlights the value of feminist media studies engaging with the 'public knowledge project' and vice versa. I argue that campaigns to address private, interpersonal violence and make it a public, political issue provide crucial case studies for analysing how media coverage impacts on society. Through such studies we can explore the media's role in constructing experience, identity, and social dialogue and also examine the potential and limits of audience creativity. Such case studies can help to identify how the media contribute to, rather than merely reflect, social change.
This paper explores the way Israeli newspapers disseminate and reproduce cultural beliefs about the personalities of fathers who kill. Based on textual content analysis, it examines forty-five articles from the three most popular Israeli daily newspapers that reported 12 cases of filicide between 1991 and 2002. The press coverage during the first few days, at the critical initial stages of the process of definition and designation of the events, receives more in-depth treatment. Analysis of these 12 cases shows that the press, drawing on retrospective interpretation, tended not to use descriptors reflecting purported madness or social distress of the perpetrators. Thus, rather than discussing extenuating circumstances based on mental disorder or social distress, it portrayed all fathers' filicides as premeditated and rational. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Women's Liberation Movement and the Feminist Analysis of Sexual ViolenceProducing Cultural Change: The Media and Feminist TransformationsNew and Ongoing Criticisms of Media CoverageThe Focus on Controversial AllegationsConclusion
Questions for DiscussionNotesReferences
Child sexual abuse myths comprise incorrect beliefs regarding sexual abuse, victims, and perpetrators. Relations among myth acceptance, responses to disclosure, legal decisions, and victims' subsequent psychological and health outcomes underscore the importance of understanding child sexual abuse myths. Despite accurate knowledge regarding child sexual abuse among many professional and other individuals, child sexual abuse myths persist. A Google search produced 119 child sexual abuse myths, some with overlapping themes. Coders grouped myths into four categories: (a) minimizations or exaggerations of the extent of harm child sexual abuse poses, (b) denials of the extent of child sexual abuse, (c) diffusions of perpetrator blame, and (d) perpetrator stereotypes. This review provides available data regarding the prevalence for these myths, empirical research that refutes or confirms myth categories, and considerations of cultural contexts and implications.
This article offers a critical discursive analysis of contemporary media accounts of controversial New Zealand legislation designed to provide counselling and monetary compensation to sexual abuse victims/survivors. Analysis of newspaper texts from 2002 to 2005 located a heated debate, with opposition to and defense of the legislation. Opposition was articulated through strong emotional talk and perpetuation of a `big scam' discourse that positions sexual abuse survivors as potentially untrustworthy, fraudulent claimants. Counsellors/therapists are positioned as part of a predatory, money-hungry industry, which uses questionable practices to create false memories or reports of sexual abuse. The persuasive function served by this emotionally laden big scam discourse has a higher profile than arguments defending the legislation. The dominance of the big scam discourse arguably contributes to the suffering of sexual abuse survivors, more often women and children, by maintaining attention on authenticity and entitlement. Humanitarian attempts to address the deleterious effects of sexual abuse are undermined. Yes Yes
The term "false memories" has been used to refer to suggestibility experiments in which whole events are apparently confabulated and in media accounts of contested memories of childhood abuse. Since 1992 psychologists have increasingly used the term "false memory" when discussing memory errors for details, such as specific words within lists. Use of the term to refer to errors in details is a shift in language away from other terms used historically (e.g., "memory intrusions"). We empirically examine this shift in language and discuss implications of the new use of the term "false memories." Use of the term presents serious ethical challenges to the data-interpretation process by encouraging over-generalization and misapplication of research findings on word memory to social issues.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.