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CHAPTER 1
Introduction
We live in a media saturated society. What does this mean for how we make sense of the world around us? How do the facts, stories, images and ideas presented in the mass media relate to our common-sense knowledge and critical judgements? What rhetorical strategies do journalists and their sources use to persuade people of their point of view? How do we respond to what we are told and come to our own conclusions? This book examines the mass media's role in defining, and sometimes transforming, social issues and influencing the way we think. It focuses on the media's role in relation to one of the major social problems of our time, child sexual abuse. The book combines analysis of media coverage with interviews with survivors of childhood sexual abuse and with journalists and their sources. In addition it presents a detailed analysis of 79 focus group discussions exploring people's assumptions and fears about sexual abuse, their opinions about controversial cases, and how they relate media representations to their own experience. This unique dataset permits an examination of the significance of media content and production processes and an examination of both the extent and the limits of media influence over time. The findings from this research engage with, but also challenge, many of the contemporary debates about audience reception processes and media power.
THE RESEARCH THAT INFORMS THIS BOOK
My work in this field stretches back over 20 years and evolved in parallel with commitments both within and outside the field of media studies. Like any research it is informed by the social, political and disciplinary context in which it was conducted. This introduction outlines the diverse research initiatives that inform this volume, provides a sense of the context in which each research project was carried out, and guides the reader through the book's structure.
I first started studying sexual abuse as a result of my involvement in the Women's Liberation Movement. One of the key aims of this movement was to challenge violence against women and children, especially abuse within intimate relationships. Before the rise of second wave feminism, these acts of violence were often not taken seriously. Wife battering was dismissed as a domestic dispute, rape in marriage was not a criminal offence and child sexual abuse within the family was hardly acknowledged as a problem at all. During the 1970s, for example, headline news was attracted by the occasional child abduction, rape or murder, but discussion of the broader category of sexual exploitation of children in all its forms was largely taboo. There were also very limited services available for those enduring such abuse.
In the early 1980s I was part of a feminist collective in Cambridge, England, which set up a helpline and subsequently a refuge for sexually abused girls. The young women who contacted us needed accommodation and emotional support; they also desperately wanted images that reflected the reality of their own lives and they wanted to learn about other survivors' experiences. At the time there were not many books on this subject. At the request of some of the girls in the refuge I started to record interviews with adult women survivors and also with some mothers of sexually abused children. Interviewees were recruited from self-help groups, through notices in community centres and waiting rooms, and through personal contacts. These interviews addressed women's experiences of abuse, its consequences and their strategies for survival. I explored how they had sought help (or not) as children and as adults, the responses of those around them and how they integrated the experiences of trauma into their political perspectives and life narratives. I conducted 40 interviews in all. This research was conducted over a time period which proved to be one of decisive social change - 1984 to 1989 - just as the media across the English-speaking world were beginning to confront the realities of sexual abuse. In the mid 1980s the topic started to be addressed in UK news and documentaries, women's magazines, discussion shows and TV dramas. (The latter were often imported from the USA where this issue had begun to attract interest a few years earlier.) Journalists, editors, programme producers and scriptwriters started to confront the sexual exploitation of children as a widespread social problem affecting all strata of society. They also began to recognise that when children are attacked it is usually by someone they know. These radical shifts in media attention had a profound impact on the women I was interviewing. Although media representation was not the focus of this research, in retrospect it is not surprising that it emerged as a crucial issue for my research participants and that, returning to these interviews now, they offer vivid testimony to the role of the media in cultural transformation.
In 1988 I moved to join the Glasgow University Media Group. This research group was already well known for its work on media bias, e.g. Bad News (1976) and More Bad News (1980). Some of the Glasgow team were now interested in looking at audiences too and I joined the group to work on a project examining the media coverage of AIDS and its impact on public understandings of the epidemic (see Kitzinger 1990; Miller et al. 1998). This was my first initiation into media studies as a discipline. I began to learn about the theoretical disputes and methodological issues involved in studying audiences and to integrate this with my previous training and research. Before moving to Glasgow I had been based in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge, examining hospital staffing structures and experiences of hospital care. In this research I had looked at people as citizens, as embodied beings and as people negotiating structured power relations (collegial and doctor-patient). Prior to that I had graduated in social anthropology through which I had been taught to approach people as bearers of culture, performers of ritual and members of kinship groups. Moving to Glasgow introduced me to a novel set of questions about audience-text relations and allowed me to combine media studies traditions with the approaches with which I was already familiar from other disciplines.
Using this cumulative experience I subsequently returned to my concerns about sexual violence. In 1992 the Economic and Social Research Council gave me a grant to study the role of media in covering child sexual abuse. This project involved three strands: first, interviews with journalists and their sources (e.g. the experts cited in the media), second, analysis of a whole year's media coverage and third, focus group discussions with ordinary people to explore their responses. It is these focus groups that provide the second core data resource for this book. A total of 49 focus groups (involving 275 research participants) were conducted with networks of people contacted via their work place, church, community centre or club. (The sample is described in the appendix and the rationale underlying my research approach is presented in Chapter 2.) I invited people to discuss their views about abuse with each other. How common did they believe it to be? What form did it usually take? What did they think motivated child molesters? What should be done to prevent it? What would they do if they suspected a child was being abused? They were also asked to reflect on why they believed what they did and to think about anything that had made them change their minds. In addition I invited research participants to comment on the media coverage of child sexual abuse in general and to discuss one news story in particular. The story selected for detailed examination was a scandal involving disputed allegations of sexual abuse (the 'Orkney case'). The groups were given a set of still photographs taken from the television coverage and invited to try to reproduce a typical news bulletin. They were then asked to reflect on this process, comparing the story they had produced with what they believed actually had happened. This task encourages people to engage actively in producing meaning and to deconstruct media reporting. Working with the photographs also helps the discussion to address the visual aspects of coverage as well as focusing on what has been said.
My interest in the representation of sexual abuse has continued in other forms since the two research projects outlined above. I have analysed the ideologies embedded in self-help books for incest survivors (Kitzinger 1992), interviewed journalists and their sources to examine the emergence of 'false memory syndrome' (Kitzinger 1998) and evaluated interventions in schools (Burton et al. 1998). Most relevant for the present volume is my research into grassroots demands for neighbourhood notification when convicted sex offenders are released into the community (Kitzinger 1999c). This book also presents my evaluation of the first UK public awareness campaign against sexual violence: an attempt to challenge public attitudes through a high-profile advertising initiative. This last piece of research involved a further 30 focus groups and a survey of public responses (Kitzinger 1994, 1995; Kitzinger and Hunt 1993).
The eclectic nature of this body of research offers diverse ways of approaching the question of media influence. Although each of these studies is already in the public domain in some form I hope that, by bringing them together in this book, I can better draw out some of the broader theoretical implications. The sheer quantity (and, I hope, quality) of interview and focus group material allows me to examine diversity in what people say and also to look at overlaps and patterns; the common themes which emerge in conversations in different groups and settings. My multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach (including interviews, focus groups and survey data) provides different ways of approaching key questions about audience-text relations. In addition, although focused on the news media, my research also addresses such diverse genre as documentaries, soap operas and advertising, in ways that allow for some exploration about the different ways in which these might operate.
Because I have interviews with journalists and their sources, as well as a comprehensive archive of media reporting, the analysis can also be linked back to struggles at the level of media production. Who speaks to the media and how do these sources present themselves? What rhetorical devices do they employ and do these achieve their ends? What factors influence how media practitioners present stories, how do they seek to evoke empathy or appeal to common sense, and how does all this relate to media impact?
Most important of all is the longitudinal nature of my work and how this developed alongside the evolution of child sexual abuse as a public issue. The fact that I conducted interviews before, during and after the period in which the media first (re)discovered child sexual abuse offers an almost natural experiment and provides a strong basis from which to reflect on the media's role and to track changes in real time.
Child sexual abuse is an ideal case study for an investigation of media influence because it is such a high-profile issue and the focus of attention has shifted so dramatically over the last few decades. Revelation has followed revelation as new ways of identifying the problem have been opened up and/or the media have sought ever more sensational angles. The original discovery of incestuous abuse was followed by allegations about abuse in nurseries, schools, sports clubs and children's homes. Allegations against celebrities hit the headlines alongside allegations about abuse perpetrated within (and covered up by) the Catholic Church. Fears about satanic networks were followed by concerns about predators in cyberspace stalking children via the Internet.
The whole topic is also profoundly contested. Certain claims, about ritual abuse, for example, have been systematically deconstructed and reasserted (De Young 1997; LaFontaine 1998; Scott 1998, 1999). Adults' memories of childhood sexual assault have been subject to scrutiny and challenge (Feminism and Psychology 1997; Loftus and Ketchum 1994; Ofshe and Watters 1994; Pendergrast 1995). Protagonists in high-profile cases have organised to protest their innocence. Police, therapists, lawyers, doctors and state social services stand accused of acts of injustice, besmirching the names of innocent men and women, destroying careers or tearing happy families apart (Bell 1988). The controversies mobilise conflicting interest groups, and sometimes produce unexpected alliances involving families' rights groups, religious organisations, neighbourhood action groups, feminist activists, abuse survivors, therapists and social workers. Few lives or professions remain untouched by a debate which bridges the public and the private, involves questions about sexuality, power and childhood, and touches on key institutions: the family, religion and the state.
There are many accounts that analyse the public controversies around this topic and theorise about the media's role in promoting new cultural awareness, myths or anxieties. (See, for example, Atmore 1999; Hechler 1988; Jenkins 1992, 1996; Myers 1994, Reavey and Warner 2003; Richardson, et al. 1991.) There is a large literature that traces moral panics around issues such as ritual abuse or day care scandals (e.g. De Young 2002, 2004). Some books chart shifts in media coverage of sexual violence in general (Cuklanz 2000; Moorti 2002; Soothill and Walby 1991). Others critically address particular case studies. Depending on their perspective, critics have blamed the media for going too far, or not going far enough, for exaggerating, or for obscuring the true extent of sexual violence, or failing to place it in context. Although journalists are sometimes praised for championing the little people (e.g. parents whose children have been taken away) they are also accused of social work bashing, pursuing trial by media and of gross misrepresentation (Campbell 1988). There is a particularly rich body of feminist literature which analyses and critiques media coverage. This highlights problems of racism, victim blaming and scaremongering and criticises the media for a disproportionate focus on certain types of crime and for feeding on incest as entertainment fodder. (See, for example, Armstrong 1994, Atmore 1996, 1998; Benedict 1992; Carter 1998; Carter and Weaver 2003, Cuklanz 1996, 2000; Hirsch 1994; Kelly 1996; Kitzinger 1988, 2004; Meyers 1997; Moorti 2002; Morrison 1992; Weaver 1998.)
My approach here is rather different from most existing work in the field. My focus is on how ordinary people interpret, recall, relate to and use media coverage in making sense of child sexual abuse. I also examine how ideas derived from the media interact with other sources of knowledge. I use detailed analysis of how people discuss child sexual abuse as a theme through which to gain a more detailed understanding of the role the media might play in reproducing the status quo, or contributing to social change.
A GUIDE TO THE BOOK'S STRUCTURE
Readers primarily interested in the substantive topic of sexual violence may wish to skip the chapter that reviews academic theories of media influence (Chapter 2). They will, however, be interested in the chapters that address:
• the history of sexual abuse as a public issue, the different social constructions of the problem and struggles to define it over the last 100 years (Chapter 3)
• the rise of the 'incest survivor' as a private and public identity and the implications of changing discursive repertoires (Chapter 3)
• the role of the media in representing disputed allegations and influencing how people recall and make judgements about such scandals (Chapters 4-6)
• the representation of child protection professionals and how this influences people's willingness to seek help and their reactions to state interventions in family life (Chapters 4-6)
• how the media report stranger-danger and perpetuate stereotypes about 'paedophiles'. This chapter also maps out how this intersects with parents' everyday experiences of worrying about their children (Chapter 7)
• the ways in which press campaigns influence demands for policy change such as public notification about convicted paedophiles in the community and how this intersects with pre-existing community concerns (Chapters 7 and 8)
• public reactions to advertisements designed to promote awareness about child sexual abuse and challenge persistent myths (Chapter 9)
• recommendations for child protection strategies and guidelines for journalists (Epilogue).
Readers concerned more broadly with debates about the media's role in contemporary society will be interested in the general methodological and theoretical lessons that can be drawn from this work as a whole. The main narrative structure of the book is as follows:
Chapter 2 summarises debates about media influence. It introduces the different theories and research approaches that have evolved since the very beginnings of mass media studies, and links these to the socio-political context in which such work developed. In particular, this chapter maps out the different European and North American traditions and summarises the current controversy about the nature of media power. It concludes by outlining how my research approach tries to bridge some of the gaps.
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Excerpted from "Framing Abuse"
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Copyright © 2004 Jenny Kitzinger.
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