Child abuse in New Zealand is a matter of ongoing concern for the government, public officials, health practitioners and wider society, with most information on the issue coming from mass media, which have played an influential role in forming public opinion. This study investigates the coverage of serious child abuse between November 2007 and November 2009 in three largest New Zealand newspapers: The New Zealand Herald, The Dominion Post and The Press. The analysis of 205 articles shows that three-quarters of the data described severe physical abuse and/or death, and one-quarter described sexual abuse. More than half of all media pieces (56%) represented reporting of ‘crime stories’, such as police and court reports, in addition to statistical data, recommendations and critique (44%). Two cases of Nia Glassie and the Kahui twins’ deaths were sensationalised by the media and were described or mentioned in 63 articles altogether. The dominant construction of child abuse as a ‘Māori issue’ was achieved through individual framing, focused on the personalities of the perpetrators and their inferred innate characteristics, such as being prone to violence and dysfunctional by nature, which were further generalised to Māori society as a whole.
While on-going COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased discrimination, stigma, and racism toward individuals of Asian descent, little research has concentrated on public perceptions regarding who is to blame for the spread of the virus. This study extends integrated threat theory and attribution theory by examining the extent to which prejudice against Asians is related to blame attribution in New Zealand. The paper employs a mixedmethod approach, including a series of measures analysed quantitatively and two additional open-ended questions analysed qualitatively. The findings suggest that to understand public stigma in ambiguous crises/events, it is significant to look beyond theoretic frameworks. Particularly, this research provides better understanding of how blame attribution has developed and linked with threats in the pandemic. First, fear of contact with COVID-19 is positively related to symbolic and realistic threats. Second, the more people believe COVID-19 is a public health risk, the more symbolic and realistic threats they have. Third, realistic threat is linked to blame attribution.
Among the processes cosmopolitan societies undergo at the present moment, is the unprecedented increase in mass migration across cultures. What challenges are faced by both immigrants, who have to settle in novel socio-cultural environments, and by the host populations accepting them? The current qualitative study investigates the nature of identity construction among Russian-speaking immigrants in New Zealand, applying thematic analysis for the interpretation of the data collected via 23 in-depth interviews. Among the most common themes articulated by the participants was the feeling of identity loss. A taken-for-granted sense of identity, brought by the participants from their culture of origin, was not validated by their new society of residence, mostly due to the lack of appropriate cultural resources. The participants were faced with a challenge of re-constructing their old identity, or constructing a new one, utilising the available resources in the community around them. At the same time, there was a sub-group for whom this challenge brought the realisation that the nature of their identity is cosmopolitan, rather than located within any particular culture or geographical space.
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