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

ABSTRACT

A content analysis of Croatian daily newspapers was conducted to clarify how these media outlets present CSA victims, any correlation between the use of victim-blaming, stereotyping, and endangering practices for victims, and to determine the predictors of endangering practices while reporting on CSA victims. The analytical matrix for assessing CSA media content was developed after conducting multiple reliability tests with independent coders. After relevancy coding of CSA news stories, content analysis was conducted on a random cluster sample of 1.159 CSA pieces of news published between 2007 and 2016. A binary logistic regression was conducted in order to detect predictors of reporting practices that endanger victims. Victims presented in the news are mostly female, multiple victims, and victims’ background information are in line with gender stereotypes. About one-quarter of the news stories used consensual words to describe proven CSA, 20% shifted the responsibility for the abuse onto the victims, and 15% described 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. Predictors of disclosing victim’s identity and providing details of an abusive event are emphasized. News reports still contribute to the stigmatization and victimization of the survivors.

KEYWORDS:

• Child sexual abuse
• media presentation
• victims
• content analysis method

Notes

¹ The keywords were defined on the basis of previous research (the most common keywords in foreign research) and the analysis of the headlines of newspaper articles on CSA in the Croatian online news media during 2015. Keywords: child sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children, sexual violence against children, sexual assault of a child, rape of children/minors, sex with a child/minors, sexual intercourse with a child, sexual harassment of a child, child molestation, child seduction, grooming, satisfying lust in front of a child, pedophilia, child pornography, child prostitution, incest, child trafficking, online sexual exploitation of children, underage prostitutes, pedophiles, sexual abusers, child rapists, sexual predators, sexual lechers or perverts.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stjepka Popović

Stjepka Popović is a postdoc at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Health Studies, Rijeka, Croatia. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in sociology, university specialist degree in political science and PhD at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, Social Work and Social Policy, Zagreb, Croatia. Her current research interests are child sexual abuse, media coverage of social problems and health issues, and medical sociology.