File(s) under permanent embargo
The "Rosie Batty effect" and the framing of family violence in Australian news media
journal contribution
posted on 2018-11-18, 00:00 authored by Erin HawleyErin Hawley, Katrina CliffordKatrina Clifford, C KonkesWhen 11-year-old Australian boy Luke Batty was murdered by his father, his mother Rosie Batty used her authority as a high-profile victim to orchestrate a sustained and nationwide campaign to address family violence. Her efforts informed public and political debate as well as policy change at state and federal levels in Australia. This study examines news coverage of the Luke Batty case over a 20-month period following Luke’s murder on 12 February 2014. It traces the “framing” of family violence within Australian media (particularly in relation to gender and attributions of responsibility) over this period and as Rosie Batty increasingly rose to prominence as a family violence campaigner. Our findings suggest that the discursive tensions around whether family violence is “a gender issue” played a crucial role in shifting the debate towards an emphasis on the responsibility of the perpetrators of such violence, which in turn helped to reframe family violence as a national problem rather than a private matter that happens behind closed doors to nameless, mostly female, victims.
History
Journal
Journalism studiesVolume
19Issue
15Pagination
2304 - 2323Publisher
RoutledgeLocation
Abingdon, Eng.Publisher DOI
ISSN
1461-670XLanguage
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2017, Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupUsage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC