Child Maltreatment in the Media: Analyses of Media Coverage and Reader Comments on Child Maltreatment in Israel

Abstract

The media plays a significant role in our lives and constitutes a very powerful socialising agent with the potential to influence public opinion and policymakers regarding social issues, such as child maltreatment. The present study was designed to explore how child maltreatment is portrayed in the media and to examine public perception regarding this phenomenon, as expressed by reader comments. Articles about child maltreatment published on the five official news websites in Israel were assessed using descriptive and qualitative analysis. It was found that most of the coverage of child maltreatment could be characterised as episodic. The majority of news articles failed to provide information regarding the potential risk/causal factors and often missed opportunities to discuss solutions to maltreatment. Of the stakeholders presented in the articles, only rarely could the voices of child victims or their families be heard, whereas the presence of legal professionals was frequent. A high frequency of reader comments referred to rage and despair. The results demonstrate the need to develop various practices in order to narrow the gaps between findings and statistics about child maltreatment and the way in which the phenomenon is currently portrayed in the media, as such portrayals exert an impact on both public perceptions and policymakers' attitudes. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages The media is a significant tool with the potential to influence public opinion and policymakers regarding social issues. The study indicates that media coverage of child maltreatment often fails to present it as an extensive social problem and does not discuss possible solutions and prevention strategies for this phenomenon. Practitioners within the field of child maltreatment should be provided with training in working with the media. Joint collaboration between practitioners, the media and researchers is needed in order to narrow the gap between the worrisome figures regarding this phenomenon and its non‐proportional representation in the media.

Professional Knowledge, Skills and Beliefs in Safeguarding Children and Young People

“…Those taking lead roles in child protection in all organisations have to know how to deal with the media and engage in strategic communication around safeguarding and child protection (Royal College of Nursing, ). The paper by Carmit Katz and colleagues () from Tel Aviv University explores and analyses recent media coverage of child maltreatment across the five official news websites in Israel. Of 32 articles addressing child maltreatment in the study period 2014 to 2015, the majority (n = 18) were about sexual abuse incidents, while there was no coverage of emotional abuse or neglect.…”

“…By contrast, thematic framing is often found in feature‐style articles and tends to present issues in a more complex manner; it mentions, or even critiques, policies and solutions. This type of framing shows the larger social conditions behind the issue.’ (Katz et al ., , pp. 128–129)…”

“…Katz et al . () found that the majority of the media reports could be described as ‘episodic’, and that most of the articles failed to deal with the causes of the child maltreatment and made no reference to a possible solution or to prevention. The predominant voices in the articles were those of the legal profession (43%) and police (26%), while the voices of other professionals and victims and their families were rarely present.…”

“…Katz et al . () conclude that their study supports earlier research findings which suggest that the media tend to cover child maltreatment cases ‘in ways that emphasise dominant social stereotypes’, giving more coverage to ‘more extreme and bizarre incidents of maltreatment’ (Katz et al ., , p. 135). They describe too the ‘enormous gap’ between systematic review findings of the child maltreatment literature and media coverage, and suggest that this might be addressed by appropriately trained child maltreatment practitioners working more closely with media organisations ‘to provide the media with relevant and appropriate knowledge regarding their perceptions’ (Katz et al ., , p. 136).…”

Invisible children and non-essential workers: Child protection during COVID-19 in Israel according to policy documents and media coverage

“…From the legal, policymaker, and public point of view, it is considered the main actor in protecting children from maltreatment. This means that considerably more responsibility for CM is borne directly by social workers, compared to other professionals such as physicians and teachers ( Katz, Glucklich, & Piller, 2019 , 2020 ; Weiss-Dagan & Cnaan, 2020 ).…”