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Research

Our research

Violence against women and children affects everybody. It impacts on the health, wellbeing and safety of a significant proportion of Australians throughout all states and territories and places an enormous burden on the nation’s economy across family and community services, health and hospitals, income-support and criminal justice systems.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

News and events

ANROWS hosts events as part of its knowledge transfer and exchange work, including public lectures, workshops and research launches. Details of upcoming ANROWS activities and news are available from the list on the right.

ANROWS

About ANROWS

ANROWS was established by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments of Australia to produce, disseminate and assist in applying evidence for policy and practice addressing violence against women and their children.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Resources

To support the take-up of evidence, ANROWS offers a range of resources developed from research to support practitioners and policy-makers in delivering evidence-based interventions.


RP.14.09

Media representations of violence against women and their children

Completed
June 2016

This project provides evidence to understand and improve how violence against women is reported in the media and how services can work more effectively with the media.


The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022 and academic literature identify the importance of engaging the media in efforts to prevent violence against women and their children. The media have a powerful role to play in helping to shape attitudes, perceptions and behaviours that enable, minimise or excuse violence against women and their children.

In collaboration with Our Watch, this project provides a robust analysis of the nature of violence against women representations which will be used as the basis of building industry engagement with the issue. An underpinning premise of this project is recognition that the onus for improved reporting of violence against women does not lie exclusively with the media industry. Responsibility also falls with violence-prevention agencies and those called on by the media to provide “expert” opinion to provide information and resources in a way that facilitates effective and quality reporting.

This project provides initial national baseline data on media representations of violence against women. It is intended to inform the development of strategies to effectively engage the media to report in a way that supports prevention efforts and does not cause further harm. It will inform and support work being done by a number of organisations across Australia to work with media to prevent and respond appropriately to violence against women. Key components include a “state of knowledge” (literature review) report on media representations of violence against women; content analysis of media representations of violence against women; and a discourse analysis of media representations of violence against women.

 


Researchers

Principal chief investigator:

Dr Georgina Sutherland, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne.

Quantitative analysis chief investigators:

Mr Angus McCormack, Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

Professor Jane Pirkis, Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne.

Dr Cathy Vaughan, Lecturer, Gender and Women's Health Unit, Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne.

Qualitative analysis chief investigators:

Dr Michelle Dunne-Breen, Faulty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra

Professor Patricia Easteal, Faculty of Business, Government and Law, University of Canberra

Dr Kate Holland, Faulty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra


Downloads

Research summary

Media representations of violence against women and their children: Key findings and future directions

Download

Research report

Media representations of violence against women and their children: Final paper

Download

State of knowledge

Media representations of violence against women and their children: State of knowledge paper

Download

Media release

New research: Improvement needed in reporting on violence against women in Australia

View more
see also

Word document

Media representations of violence against women and their children: Key findings and future directions

Download

Word document

Media representations of violence against women and their children: Final paper

Download

Word document

Media representations of violence against women and their children: State of knowledge paper

Download

 

Budget

$150,000

In partnership with Our Watch.

find out more

Contact ANROWS

PO Box Q389, Queen Victoria Building NSW 1230
Email: enquiries@anrows.org.au      

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