Changing Media Coverage of Violence Against Women

Abstract

This article reports on recent research on some of the factors that may have led to changes in the way journalists report Violence Against Women (VAW) in Australia. Until recently, VAW has been largely reported by focusing on seemingly isolated events, rather than reporting VAW as a social problem, which has complex causes and requires a society-wide response. We report here on intensive interviews in two Australian newsrooms, both of which made decisions to campaign for social change on the issue of VAW. Two major themes that were evident in the interviews were, first, the influence of individual cases and, secondly, the important role of individual journalists and editors in driving coverage. We then examine the extent to which participants in our research saw VAW as an issue of gender inequality. We conclude with a brief discussion that places this journalism within the context of the work over more than 40 years of VAW activists and others to have VAW recognised as a social problem.