Abstract
BackgroundOn December 16, 2012 a 23 year old female was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. We systematically reviewed professional online media sources used to inform the timing, breadth of coverage, opinions and consistency in the depiction of events surrounding the gang-rape.MethodsWe searched two news databases (LexisNexis Academic and Factivia) and individual newspapers for English-language published media reports covering the gang-rape. Two reviewers screened the media reports and extracted data regarding the time, location and content of each report. Results were summarized qualitatively.ResultsWe identified 534 published media reports. Of these, 351 met our eligibility criteria. Based on a time chart, the total number of reports published increased steadily through December, but plateaued to a steady rate of articles per day by the first week of January. Content analysis revealed significant discrepancies between various media reports. From the 57 articles which discussed opinions about the victim, 56% applauded her bravery, 40% discussed outrage over the events and 11% discussed cases of victim-blaming.ConclusionsThe global media response of the December 16th gang-rape in India resulted in highly inconsistent depiction of the events. These findings suggest that although the spread of information through media is fast, it has major limitations.
Highlights
On December 16, 2012 a 23 year old female was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi
On December 16th, 2012 a 23-year-old female student was the victim of a gang-rape on a moving bus in Munirka, South Delhi
The boyfriend was physically assaulted while the female student was gang-raped before being thrown out of the moving bus approximately 45 minutes later in Mahipalpur- a neighborhood in New Delhi [1]
Summary
On December 16, 2012 a 23 year old female was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. On December 16th, 2012 a 23-year-old female student was the victim of a gang-rape on a moving bus in Munirka, South Delhi. The victim and her boyfriend had boarded the bus around 9:15 PM, where the six men on the bus, including the driver, attacked them. Phillips et al BMC Women's Health (2015) 15:3 at the event [9] The news of this event spread throughout the world, resulting in protests against the current treatment of women and laws against rape in India [10]
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