engleski

Presentation of Victims in the Press Coverage of Child Sexual Abuse in Croatia

Objectives: In this paper, the main objective was to determine how the newspapers present child sexual abuse (CSA) victims, whether there is a correlation between the victim-blaming, stereotyping, and endangering practices for victims and to determine the predictors of endangering practices while reporting on CSA victims. Method: A content analysis of printed Croatian daily newspapers was conducted. The original analytical matrix for assessing CSA media content was developed after conducting multiple reliability tests with independent coders. After relevancy coding of CSA news retrieved from the archive using keywords, content analysis was conducted on a random cluster sample of 1.159 CSA pieces of news published during ten years of media coverage (2007 – 2016). A binary logistic regression was conducted in order to detect predictors of endangering practices while reporting on CSA victims. Results: Victims presented in the news are mostly female, multiple victims, and victims’ background information is in line with gender stereotypes. About one-quarter of the news use consensual words to describe proven CSA, 20% of news shifts the responsibility for the abuse onto the victims, and 15% describe the victim as permanently damaged. Regarding endangering media coverage practices, 27% of the news disclose the victim's identity, mostly indirectly, while 21% of the news provide details of an abusive event. The research confirmed that the use of different endangering practices is associated, and the odds for identity disclosure were greater when details of the abusive event were reported, when describing the perpetrator’s method and when using sexually explicit material. Predictors of disclosing victim's identity and providing details of an abusive event are emphasized. Conclusions: Croatian daily newspapers do not fulfill their preventive role as most newspapers do not provide information on where to seek help when CSA occurs or how to protect from CSA. News reports still contribute to the stigmatization and victimization of the survivors. Such media coverage may discourage victims from reporting CSA to the authorities. Recommendations: 1) Background information on the victim should not be used in CSA news since it may serve to promote gender and age stereotypes ; 2) consensual words to describe abuse should not be used not even when the victims are teenagers or male victims of younger female perpetrators ; 3) a victim’s identity should always be protected, especially when the victim is described as permanently damaged by the abuse to avoid transfer of responsibility to the victim, stigmatization, and re-traumatization ; 4) the details of the abusive event, description of the perpetrator’s method and sexually explicit material should be omitted from the news since their presence increases the odds of the child’s identity being revealed and they may serve the perpetrator (or others) for sexual purposes.

child sexual abuse, media presentation, victims, content analysis method

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