Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica

News media shape public opinion on social issues such as child sexual abuse (CSA), using particular language to foreground, marginalize or legitimize certain viewpoints. Given the prevalence of CSA and the impact of violence against children in Jamaica, there is a need to examine the representation...

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Idioma:inglés
Publicado: 2022
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Acceso en liña:ONIX_20220916_9783036524672_18
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collection Directory of Open Access Books
description News media shape public opinion on social issues such as child sexual abuse (CSA), using particular language to foreground, marginalize or legitimize certain viewpoints. Given the prevalence of CSA and the impact of violence against children in Jamaica, there is a need to examine the representation of children and their experience of violence in the news media, which remain the main source of information about such abuse for much of the population. The study aims to analyze accounts of CSA in Jamaican newspapers in order to show how different representations impact public understanding of CSA. This study offers a new perspective around child abuse by using an eight-million word corpus from articles over a three-year period (2018- 2020). The study argues that media reports often fail to conceptualise and represent accurately children who have experienced abuse. Representations of children are generic, their experiences often reduced to statistical summaries. Corpus analysis uncovered the use of terms which normalize sexual abuse. From the reader’s perspective, there was little emotional connection to the child or the child’s experience. The newspapers rarely report first-hand survivors’ experience of abuse, depriving these children of a voice. Instead, a marked preference is given to institutional voices. An issue of concern is a tendency to sensationalism with disproportionate attention given to cases involving celebrities. By exposing these problems, the authors hope that news media in Jamaica can play a more positive role in heightening awareness around child abuse and allowing the voices of victims/ survivors to be heard.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-920322024-04-01T23:19:26Z Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica Karpenko-Seccombe, Tatyana Nelson, Kenisha Fray, Christine Harvey, Roxanne Powell-Booth, Karyl Jones, Adele Wager, Nadia Sheng, Xiaomin child sexual abuse, Jamaica, news media, discourse, corpus analysis thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues News media shape public opinion on social issues such as child sexual abuse (CSA), using particular language to foreground, marginalize or legitimize certain viewpoints. Given the prevalence of CSA and the impact of violence against children in Jamaica, there is a need to examine the representation of children and their experience of violence in the news media, which remain the main source of information about such abuse for much of the population. The study aims to analyze accounts of CSA in Jamaican newspapers in order to show how different representations impact public understanding of CSA. This study offers a new perspective around child abuse by using an eight-million word corpus from articles over a three-year period (2018- 2020). The study argues that media reports often fail to conceptualise and represent accurately children who have experienced abuse. Representations of children are generic, their experiences often reduced to statistical summaries. Corpus analysis uncovered the use of terms which normalize sexual abuse. From the reader’s perspective, there was little emotional connection to the child or the child’s experience. The newspapers rarely report first-hand survivors’ experience of abuse, depriving these children of a voice. Instead, a marked preference is given to institutional voices. An issue of concern is a tendency to sensationalism with disproportionate attention given to cases involving celebrities. By exposing these problems, the authors hope that news media in Jamaica can play a more positive role in heightening awareness around child abuse and allowing the voices of victims/ survivors to be heard. 2022-09-16T13:45:50Z 2022-09-16T13:45:50Z 2022 book ONIX_20220916_9783036524672_18 9783036524672 9783036524665 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/92032 eng application/octet-stream Attribution 4.0 International https://mdpi.com/books/pdfview/mono/5902 https://mdpi.com/books/pdfview/mono/5902 10.3390/books978-3-0365-2466-5 10.3390/books978-3-0365-2466-5 MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 9783036524672 9783036524665 98 Basel open access
spellingShingle child sexual abuse, Jamaica, news media, discourse, corpus analysis
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues
Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica
title Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica
title_full Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica
title_fullStr Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica
title_full_unstemmed Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica
title_short Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Jamaica
title_sort representations of child sexual abuse in jamaica
topic child sexual abuse, Jamaica, news media, discourse, corpus analysis
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues
topic_facet child sexual abuse, Jamaica, news media, discourse, corpus analysis
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues
url ONIX_20220916_9783036524672_18