What is it about?
Media not only creates social awareness about child sexual abuse through news coverage, analysis and intervention but also places the problem of child abuse in the minds of public and on the political and social agenda. The media coverage of the issue has a major impact as it helps people understand what child sexual abuse is and why child protection and safeguarding policies and services are required. The study analyses the coverage, representation and advocacy role of media in initiating a dialogue about prevention in terms of building collective responsibilities for public safety of children. It further helps to understand the social and cultural changes taking place in the society, emphasizing Indian media and how these changes helps the institutions of alternative care to focus on broader solutions by improving the climate for prevention.
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Why is it important?
The reporting and coverage of child abuse cases in media helps the policy makers to re-visit institutional responses in the form of social and political discourse. In their study on the media coverage of child sexual abuse prevention strategies, Kitzinger and Skidmore (1995) emphasized that media representation of child abuse cases are important as it creates a public attitude to formulate and implement child protection policies and urges the need for appropriate methods to address the issue within social and legal frameworks. Child-rights activists in India observes that besides creating awareness about child abuse, media also defines what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘deviant’ in a society and thus contributes to the identification of abuse (Carson, Foster & Tripathi, 2013 ). Most people in India become aware of incidences of child abuse only when it is published in a newspaper or broadcast on television. Media not only constructs the social understanding of child abuse but also helps people to develop a general perception of it (McDevitt, 1996).
Perspectives
In some child abuse cases reported from India, it was found that sensitive details like the identity of the child and the family were unnecessarily published or posted on social media, to sensationalize the story. Rather than representing the crime in the right perspective, such reporting adds to social stigma of shame or secondary victimization of the non-offending family members, which also becomes one of the reasons for not reporting the abuse cases (Cote & Bucqueroux, 1996). The media coverage of abuse lacks the progression or repetitiveness of the abuse. It only reports the case as an isolated incident or a momentary act of violence. Several criteria like ethics and legalities observed, facts, presentation, terminology, language, objectivity, topical information and follow up are mostly overlooked by both the mainstream and regional media (Finkelhor, 1994). Even though certain child protection agencies have proposed proper guidelines for journalists covering child abuse cases, the awareness has not reached most of the journalists especially working in vernacular press. Some other complex issues like factors intersecting with child sexual abuse, treading the thin line between journalism and activism, and covering stories in a way that can impact public policy and serve the best interest of the child care are further overlooked or less covered (Collings, 2002b).
Prof. Pradeep Nair
Central University of Himachal Pradesh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Child sexual abuse and media: Coverage, representation and advocacy, Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, January 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.5958/2349-3011.2019.00005.7.
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