News coverage of child sexual abuse: "prevention is rarely addressed"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22809050

J Child Sex Abus. 2012 Jul;21(4):470-87.

News coverage of child sexual abuse and prevention, 2007-2009.

Mejia P, Cheyne A, Dorfman L.

Source

a The Berkeley Media Studies Group , Berkeley , California , USA.

Abstract

News media coverage of child sexual abuse can help policymakers and the public understand what must be done to prevent future abuse, but coverage tends to focus on extreme cases. This article presents an analysis of newspaper coverage from 2007 to 2009 to describe how the daily news presents and frames day-to-day stories about child sexual abuse. When child sexual abuse receives news attention, the stories focus primarily on the criminal justice details of a specific incident rather than contextual information about causes of and solutions to child sexual abuse, and prevention is rarely addressed. We offer suggestions for strategies that advocates can use to help reporters improve news coverage so that it better contextualizes child sexual abuse and links it to prevention policies.