Framing Child Neglect: A Content Analysis of
National and Regional U.S. Newspaper Coverage
Julie B. Arthur
A Capstone Project
Presented to the Faculty of the School of Communication in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in Public Communication
Supervisor: Prof. Caty Borum Chattoo
April 25, 2012
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ii
Copyright ©
2012
Julie Beth Arthur
All rights reserved.
To obtain permission to use material from this work,
please submit a written request via email to: julie.b.arthur@gmail.com.
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ABSTRACT
Child neglect occurs when a parent or caregiver fails to provide for a child's basic needs or
protect the child from harm. Similar to but distinct from child abuse, child neglect is a complex
societal issue that receives limited research and media attention. The communication theories of
agenda setting and framing explain the media's potential impact on public understanding of
topics covered and beliefs about their importance. As such, studying media portrayals of child
neglect can offer insight into public knowledge and attitudes on this topic. This study presents
the results of a content analysis of child neglect coverage in two national and two regional U.S.
newspapers using a constructed week sample of articles published during federal fiscal years
2009 through 2011. Major findings include: a) most articles used episodic framing that focused
on individual-level circumstances of child neglect; b) over-represented story elements include
child fatalities, non-family perpetrators, and serious perpetrator consequences; and c) national
newspapers used more thematic framing, and such articles were more likely to discuss long-term
child consequences, contributing factors to maltreatment and system-level issues. This study's
results can inform media and child welfare professionals' collaborative efforts to improve child
neglect portrayals and increase public understanding.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
Goals and Organization of Paper ................................................................................................. 4
Literature Review ......................................................................................................................... 5
Section I: Child Maltreatment and the Professional Response ................................................... 5
Overview of Child Maltreatment ................................................................................................. 5
Overview of Child Neglect .......................................................................................................... 7
Risks and Consequences of Child Neglect .................................................................................. 9
Professional Responses to Child Maltreatment ......................................................................... 10
Section II: Public Understanding of Child Maltreatment and the Media ................................. 13
Public Understanding of Child Maltreatment ............................................................................ 13
Media and the Role of Agenda Setting ...................................................................................... 14
Media and the Role of Framing ................................................................................................. 19
Episodic and Thematic Framing ................................................................................................ 21
Improving Media Coverage of Child Maltreatment .................................................................. 24
Methods ....................................................................................................................................... 26
Results .......................................................................................................................................... 30
Articles ....................................................................................................................................... 30
Maltreatment Type ..................................................................................................................... 31
Specific Cases ............................................................................................................................ 33
Perpetrators ................................................................................................................................ 34
Child Consequences and Fatalities ............................................................................................ 35
Contributing Factors to Child Maltreatment .............................................................................. 36
Blame ......................................................................................................................................... 37
Perpetrator and Family Consequences ....................................................................................... 37
Systemic Factors ........................................................................................................................ 38
National and Regional Coverage ............................................................................................... 39
Episodic and Thematic Frames .................................................................................................. 40
Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 44
Types of Neglect or Abuse ........................................................................................................ 44
Child Consequences and Fatalities ............................................................................................ 45
Perpetrators and Consequences ..................................................................................................46
Contributing and Systemic Factors ............................................................................................ 47
National and Regional Coverage ............................................................................................... 48
Episodic and Thematic Framing ................................................................................................ 49
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 51
References ..................................................................................................................................... 54
Appendix: Codebook .................................................................................................................... 61
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Percentage of Child Maltreatment Victims by Maltreatment Type, 2010.................... 6
Figure 2: The Vicious Cycle of Child Abuse Coverage in the Media ....................................... 16
Figure 3: Percentage of Articles Mentioning Areas of Analysis ............................................... 31
Figure 4: Percentage of Articles Mentioning Types of Neglect and Abuse .............................. 32
Figure 5: Types Reported in Articles Mentioning Perpetrators ................................................. 34
Figure 6: Consequences Reported in Articles Mentioning Child Consequences ...................... 35
Figure 7: Factors Reported in Articles Mentioning Contributing Factors to Maltreatment ...... 37
Figure 8: Consequences Reported in Articles Mentioning Perpetrator Consequences ............. 38
Figure 9: Factors Reported in Articles Mentioning Systemic Factors ....................................... 39
Figure 10: Significant Differences in Factors Reported in
National and Regional Newspapers ........................................................................................ 40
Figure 11: Thematically-Framed Articles by Newspaper ......................................................... 41
Figure 12: Types of Maltreatment in Episodically and Thematically-Framed Articles ............ 42
List of Tables
Table 1: Types of Child Neglect and Abuse Covered in the News ........................................... 32
Table 2: Factors Significantly Related to a Report of a Child Fatality ..................................... 36
Table 3: High-Level Comparison of National and Regional Newspapers ................................ 39
Table 4: Significant Differences in Factors Reported in National and Regional Newspapers .. 40
Table 5: Significant Relationships Between Types of Maltreatment in Episodically
and Thematically-Framed Articles ......................................................................................... 42
Table 6: Factors Significantly Related to the Use of a Dominant Thematic Frame .................. 43
Table 7: Factors Significantly Related to the Use of a Dominant Episodic Frame ................... 43
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INTRODUCTION
Seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown died at the hands of her stepfather in January 2006 in
Brooklyn, New York, but the fatal wounds she suffered that day told only part of her story.
While her stepfather and mother were both convicted of manslaughter and unlawful
imprisonment for tying Nixzmary up in the apartment they shared, Nixzmary's mother received
an additional charge: endangering the welfare of a child. The prosecution for the case proved she
ignored and at times encouraged her husband's beatings of her daughter. At the trial's conclusion,
the lead prosecutor declared that the verdict sent a message that Nixzmary's mother was guilty of
"acts of omission" and that for parents, sometimes "it's not just what you do, it's what you don't
do" (Fahim & Moynihan, 2008, October 18). Records later revealed Nixzmary came to the
attention of New York City's child welfare agency several times, but the supervisor and
caseworker assigned to those reports missed the signs of the parents' abusive and neglectful
behaviors. As a result, the city's court system made an unprecedented decision to charge both
workers with criminal negligence for failing to provide adequate services to Nixzmary and her
family, services which may have prevented her death (Buckley & Secret, 2011, March 25). The
case sparked public outrage and spurred efforts to overhaul the city's child welfare system. To
date, nearly 800 news articles have reported on or mentioned Nixzmary's case, including
international coverage in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Four years later on the other side of the country, two-year-old Joana Rendon was found
alone and crying one summer night in downtown Petaluma in Sonoma County, California. Too
young to know her address or parents' names, police canvassed the area and distributed her
picture to the media in search of her family. Joana's mother was not identified until the next
morning; she was found at her boyfriend's house, unaware for at least 11 hours that her child was
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missing from the bedroom where she slept and had wandered more than a mile away. The police
noted signs the mother had been drinking the night Joana went missing; she had a blood alcohol
level of 0.04 when she was tested that morning (Payne, 2010, September 13). To add to the
confusion of that night, an ex-girlfriend with a history of climbing into the window of the room
where Joana slept had recently confronted Joana's mother and her boyfriend. Joana's mother was
charged with a felony count of child neglect, but the charges were dropped after a preliminary
hearing resulted in inconclusive evidence. The last news report on the story indicated continued
uncertainty among authorities regarding how Joana ended up more than a mile from home, and
an assistant district attorney is quoted as reporting that the investigation is ongoing. "When we
receive information that somebody is putting children at risk, we need to act on it," she said
(Payne, 2010, September 13). Thirteen articles were published about Joana and her family—
none reaching beyond the local papers in the San Francisco bay area.
The parallels between these stories may not be obvious at first, but they both demonstrate
the need to improve media reporting and, thus, public understanding of the complex nature of
child maltreatment—and the ways in which child neglect and child abuse differ. Doing so would
contribute to societal support for children and families and improve community efforts to
identify and respond to warning signs to prevent child maltreatment before it occurs. Not until
Nixzmary's tragic death did the city's child welfare agency piece together the many indicators
that her family needed help. Though the evidence in Joana's case was not strong enough to take
legal action, the potentially troubling indicators of alcohol use and domestic disputes still could
have been addressed. Only one of the news reports of Joana's story briefly mentioned child
welfare services for her family to determine if she should be removed from home; there were no
larger discussions of the need to address the family's risks to try to make sure the incident
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wouldn't occur again. Meanwhile, Nixzmary received no news coverage before her death. If
more stories like Joana's accurately depicted the issues around neglect and ways to prevent it,
perhaps more children could be saved from experiencing a similar fate.
As Nixzmary and Joana's stories indicate, the neglect of children by their parents and
caregivers is a troubling and complex social issue that has the potential to be misunderstood by
individuals and misrepresented in the media. Neglect is closely related to child abuse and is often
discussed in conjunction with, and in fact eclipsed by, the larger topic of abuse. Together,
neglect and physical, sexual and emotional abuse are usually combined into the term "child
maltreatment," but it is important to note that all forms of maltreatment have their own unique
causes and consequences—as such, neglect is a distinct social issue that deserves its own
scholarly pursuits and public awareness efforts (McSherry, 2007). Child neglect is four and eight
times more common than physical or sexual abuse, respectively, yet neglect is much less studied
in research and covered in the media than abuse (Children's Bureau, 2011; Smith & Fong, 2004).
Given the power of the media to shape public perception through agenda setting and framing,
studying depictions of child neglect in the media is critical to exploring public understanding of
the issue.
By choosing which stories to publish on a daily basis, the media can set the agenda
regarding which issues the public believes are most important (McCombs, 2004). Beyond agenda
setting, journalists can also frame stories in certain ways to influence the audience's
understanding of the issue being covered (Druckman, 2011). There are many useful ways that
frames can help audiences make sense of an otherwise complicated issue, but when the issue is
framed in such a way that does not reflect reality, it can also be detrimental to the audience's
understanding (Aubrun & Grady, 2003). When episodic or thematic frames are used, they can
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even affect the audience's perception of responsibility for addressing an issue, that is, whether
individuals are solely responsible for their problems or the society as a whole is expected to help
them. (Nisbet, 2007).
Goals and Organization of Paper
Very little research exists on the way child neglect is portrayed in the media—this study
aims to fill that gap. The goals of this research are: a) to describe what types of neglect are
covered in U.S. newspapers and what circumstances surrounding child neglect and abuse are
addressed; b) to test for differences in national and regional newspaper coverage of child neglect;
and c) to examine the use of dominant episodic or thematic frames in stories about child neglect
and their potential impact on public understanding of the issue. This paper will present the results
of a content analysis of stories about child neglect in two national and two regional U.S.
newspapers over a three-year period. The results of this study will equip media and child welfare
professionals with information on frames being used to characterize the child welfare system that
serves at-risk children and their families and will help professionals improve the coverage of
child neglect. Ultimately, the public will benefit from a greater understanding of the issues
surrounding child neglect and support for the larger role society can play in preventing child
maltreatment and reducing its impact.
This research paper is organized in the following ways: First, the literature review that
opens the paper provides an overview of child maltreatment, child neglect, its causes and
consequences, and the systems that respond to and prevent maltreatment. This section then
reviews public understanding of child maltreatment and the impact of the media on the public.
To provide a theoretical framework to this research, particular attention will be paid to scholarly
literature on agenda setting and episodic and thematic framing in relation to depictions of child
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abuse in the media and the individual versus societal role for addressing the issue. Finally, this
paper details the methods for content analysis and presents results of the research. The paper
concludes with a discussion of significant findings and recommendations for practice and future
research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Section I: Child Maltreatment and the Professional Response
Overview of Child Maltreatment
Child maltreatment, or child abuse and neglect, is broadly defined by the federal
government as:

"Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death,
serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or

An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm" (Children's
Bureau, 2011, p. vii).
Within this broad framework, each state is responsible for defining child maltreatment in
law and enforcing criminal and civil penalties against parents and caregivers who commit child
maltreatment (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011b). The most common categories of
child maltreatment are physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. State child
protective services (CPS) agencies are responsible for receiving and responding to reports of
child abuse and neglect, in coordination with other state agencies and community-based
organizations (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011d). CPS agencies are usually located
within what are commonly known as child welfare services—the broader system of services that
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investigates reports of child maltreatment, supports maltreated children and their families and
coordinates foster care and adoption for those children who cannot remain with their families
(DePanfilis, 2006).
The federal government has collected national data on the prevalence of child
maltreatment annually since 1990 (Children's Bureau, 2011). According to the most recent
statistics, published in the report Child Maltreatment 2010, 3.3 million reports of suspected
maltreatment were made in federal fiscal year 2010 involving the safety of roughly 5.9 million
children. After screening the reports, state CPS agencies investigated nearly 1.8 million possible
cases of child maltreatment. As a result, states determined there were nearly 700,000 unique
child victims of maltreatment, or 9.2 victims for every 1,000 children in the population.
Figure 1 resents statistics on the percentage of children experiencing different types of
maltreatment in 2010 (children can experience more than one type).
Figure 1: Percentage of Child Maltreatment Victims by Maltreatment Type, 2010
Source: (Children's Bureau, 2011).
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According to the Children's Bureau (2011), neglect is by far the most common form of
child maltreatment—it is experienced by more than 78 percent of all maltreated children. In
comparison, less than 18 percent experience physical abuse and less than 10 percent of
maltreated children experience sexual abuse, meaning maltreated children are four to eight times
more likely to experience neglect than physical or sexual abuse, respectively. However, as
discussed below, numerous sources indicate there is a "neglect of neglect" in both professional
and public arenas. For example, a search for child abuse in a scholarly psychology index yielded
nearly 10 times more articles than for child neglect, and a basic Google search resulted in
roughly 26 times more results for child abuse than for child neglect.
Overview of Child Neglect
Beyond the broad federal definition, "neglect" is commonly defined in many states' laws
as the "failure of a parent or other person with responsibility for the child to provide needed
food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision to the degree that the child's health, safety,
and well-being are threatened with harm" (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011b, p. 3).
The most common categories of neglect are:

Physical neglect: Abandoning the child or refusing to accept custody; not providing for
basic needs like nutrition, hygiene, or appropriate clothing

Medical neglect: Delaying or denying recommended health care for the child

Inadequate supervision: Leaving the child unsupervised (depending on length of time and
child's age/maturity); not protecting the child from safety hazards, inadequate caregivers,
or engaging in harmful behavior
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
8
Emotional neglect: Isolating the child; not providing affection or emotional support;
exposing the child to domestic violence or substance abuse

Educational neglect: Failing to enroll the child in school or homeschool; ignoring special
education needs; permitting chronic absenteeism from school (Child Welfare Information
Gateway, 2012)
Professionals face a number of practical difficulties applying laws when working with
parents who may have neglected their children. Standards are subjective regarding what is
considered an appropriate level of child care and they also vary greatly depending on the social
norms of the family's culture and the community in which they live (Grayson, 2001). For
example, a culture in which shared caregiving is the norm may see no problem with leaving
young children in the care of their siblings, perhaps in a way that would be considered
inappropriate in the United States (Smith & Fong, 2004). In addition, some state laws include
exceptions for determining neglect, such as financial considerations for physical neglect and
exemptions for medical neglect based on religious beliefs (Child Welfare Information Gateway,
2011b).
Not only is it difficult to address legal exceptions to neglect and varying standards of
care, but performing an assessment and proving an instance of neglect is often more difficult
than investigating physical or sexual abuse (McSherry, 2007). Neglect usually involves the
absence, rather than the presence, of a certain behavior. Whereas abuse often manifests itself in
outward signs, such as a bruise on the child's arm or indications of sexual contact, neglect more
often results in harm to the child that may not be as easily identifiable except in severe cases
(McSherry, 2007). These practical limitations and assessment complications are unfortunate
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because the consequences of neglect are just as serious as those of physical or sexual abuse,
especially as the harm caused by neglect accumulates over time (DePanfilis, 2006).
Risks and Consequences of Child Neglect
Researchers have identified a number of factors related to the child, parent, family, and
larger community that place children at greater risk of neglect. Though one risk factor does
necessarily result in child maltreatment, the presence of multiple risk factors increases the cause
for concern. Common risks include:

Younger children and those with developmental delays

Parents with limited parenting or child development knowledge and lack of social support

Parents experiencing stress, mental health or substance use problems

Families in poverty or those experiencing domestic violence

Unsafe or violent communities and those with limited access to supports like child care,
health care, and social services (DePanfilis, 2006)
Neglected children, especially those who are chronically neglected, may experience the
following short- and long-term consequences:

Impaired brain development, malnutrition and poor physical health

Intellectual or cognitive delays that may result in poor academic performance

Difficulty forming relationships and secure attachments to others

Behavioral or conduct disorders and delinquent behavior (DePanfilis, 2006)
The most tragic consequence of child neglect is death. Of the estimated 1,560 children
who died from maltreatment in 2010, neglect caused or contributed to more than 68 percent of
all child maltreatment-related deaths (Children's Bureau, 2011).
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Beyond the detrimental impact on the child and family, neglect affects the larger
community and, indeed, the larger society. A recent study funded in part by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention estimated that just one year of confirmed cases of child
maltreatment results in total lifetime costs to society of $124 billion (Fang, Brown, Florence, &
Mercy, in press). The estimate includes costs based on physical and mental health care for the
victim, services such as child welfare, criminal justice and special education, and lost
productivity of the victim and family, especially of children who die due to maltreatment. To
underscore the urgent need to address child maltreatment, Fang et al. (in press) noted the cost per
case is comparable to that of other prominent public health issues, such as stroke and type 2
diabetes.
The authors of the above study concluded that professionals and policymakers must
implement and steadfastly support intervention services to reduce the impact of maltreatment
when it occurs as well as preventive efforts to stop child maltreatment before it starts. As the
next two sections describe, the fields of child maltreatment intervention and prevention have
grown in size and effectiveness over the last 50 years, though much work remains to be done to
improve public awareness around the issue.
Professional Responses to Child Maltreatment
The most recent statistics clearly indicate child maltreatment is an issue that touches the
lives of millions of Americans. Although general children's aid societies were popular in urban
areas in the late 19th century, widespread professional and public attention to child maltreatment
only began in the last 50 years. Dr. C. Henry Kempe and colleagues coined the term "battered
child syndrome" in a 1962 article published in the journal of the American Medical Association.
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In the article, the authors described indicators of both abuse and neglect and discussed how
pediatricians should respond to signs of maltreatment during visits with families. About the
identification of battered-child syndrome, Leventhal (2003) mused some 40 years later: "The
authors' point was to inform the reader that physical abuse was not a rarely occurring
phenomenon, but rather a common problem that was already recognized (but likely seldom
spoken about) across the country."
As child maltreatment emerged in the public sphere, a flurry of legislation led to the rapid
expansion of research on and services to address the issue. Beginning with the Child Abuse
Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974, a number of laws have been passed and amended in the
last four decades that provide the foundation for state child welfare services for children and
families at risk or impacted by abuse or neglect. States providing child welfare services to
families must meet the requirements outlined in federal law to be eligible for certain types of
federal funding (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011d).
Most families found to be abusive or neglectful, or at risk of maltreating their children,
receive support and treatment services from the state child welfare agency to ensure child safety
and family stability; only in severe cases, usually involving sexual abuse or serious physical
abuse, may charges be filed or the police notified (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011c).
Neglectful families often face risks that also require the support of related service providers, such
as substance abuse and mental health services, public welfare, housing, training and workforce
development, schools, and community-based organizations. This last form of support is
particularly important; state agencies have limited amount resources to offer families, so most
professionals highlight the need to activate informal supports such as family, friends, neighbors,
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and the larger community to help neglectful families (Schene, 2001). In short, state child welfare
agencies alone cannot be expected to solve the problems families may face.
Beyond serving families after they have maltreated their children, preventing child
maltreatment before it occurs is key to reduce risks and increase strengths in families. When
responding to reports of child neglect, there is a recognized tendency for CPS agencies to screen
out cases of neglect in favor of responding to physical or sexual abuse because abuse appears to
present more urgent issues regarding the child's safety (DePanfilis, 2006; Schene, 2001). This
tendency poses a significant barrier to prevention, because families reported for neglect are more
likely to be reported to CPS again in the future (DePanfilis, 2006). Offering preventive services
when families first come to the attention of CPS gives professionals an early opportunity to
address the family's risks and reduce the chances of maltreatment. Broadly speaking, child
maltreatment prevention focuses on increasing the inherent strengths in families, often called
protective factors, in order to reduce risks like those mentioned earlier. Prevention programs
often raise awareness of child maltreatment, improve parenting skills and resilience, and increase
supports for families, especially those with young children (Child Welfare Information Gateway,
2011a).
Despite the promise of child maltreatment prevention and the array of services available
to parents who have abused or neglected their children, the size of the issue indicates that more
needs to be done. Improving the public's understanding of child maltreatment, its causes and
consequences, and ways to prevent it would likely benefit the efforts of child welfare researchers
and professionals, but in order to do so, a key public influence must also be examined: the media.
The next section discusses the public's understanding of child maltreatment and describes
relevant communication theories that impact the depiction of social issues in the media.
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Section II: Public Understanding of Child Maltreatment and the Media
Public Understanding of Child Maltreatment
Although the size and sophistication of child welfare and prevention services grew in the
last half century, public understanding of child maltreatment failed to match that growth. Many
researchers contend this failure is due in large part to the media's influence on public knowledge.
For example, Pfohl (1977) describes the media climate after “battered-child syndrome” was
introduced in 1962, when news and magazine outlets published sensational stories with, "titles
such as 'Cry rises from beaten babies' (Life, June 1963), 'Parents who beat children' (Saturday
Evening Post, October 1962), 'The shocking price of parental anger' (Good Housekeeping, March
1964), and 'Terror struck children' (New Republic, May 1964)" (p. 320). At that critical time
when child maltreatment was first entering the public sphere, the author suggests those types of
news stories subconsciously supported the labeling of abusive parents as "sick" and helped
Americans distance themselves from the issue of child maltreatment rather than garner support
for parents in need of help.
Since that time, the public's understanding of issues related to child maltreatment can best
be characterized as waves of panic in each of the decades that followed. The concern for battered
children in the 1960s gave way to incest, missing children, child pornography, and cults in the
1970s, followed by ritual abuse and maltreatment in child care institutions in the 1980s (Fister,
2003). In a sweeping review of the "molding" of child abuse in the last 50 years, Hacking (1991)
identified two main consequences of media coverage of child maltreatment: although it raised
public awareness of the issue, by labeling the abusive parent as evil, the media initiated the trend
that continues today which downplays the role of society in addressing child maltreatment.
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14
In 1984, the Washington Post published an op-ed by long-time columnist Richard Cohen
titled "The new anxiety over child abuse." In that op-ed, Cohen wondered whether the incidence
of child maltreatment is increasing, or society is just beginning to pay more attention to it than
ever before. He describes the stress experienced by families, particularly those in dual-earner
households, and discusses the potential causal relationship between stress and child
maltreatment. Cohen concludes: "instead of solving a problem, we simply preach an ethic of
overreach in which people are told they should be able to do it all -- and that failure, of course, is
their own fault." His op-ed is a harbinger for the problem we still face today: not that child abuse
exists, but whether we as a society will accept responsibility for responding to it.
Given the effect of the media on public understanding, particularly an issue as complex
as child maltreatment, how can communication theories inform our efforts to address it? The
following sections describe agenda setting and framing theories and how they apply to the field
of child maltreatment.
Media and the Role of Agenda Setting
Agenda setting theory can offer the field of child maltreatment critical insights into how
and why audiences care about certain issues while largely ignoring others. Through agenda
building, a function of the media that precedes agenda setting, news organizations have the
ability to control the public's agenda by choosing which topics to cover and with what frequency.
Although the issues related to agenda building go beyond the scope of this study, this description
of agenda building by Nisbet (2008) offers some context: "...news coverage is not a reflection of
reality, but rather a manufactured product, determined by a hierarchy of social influences that
span levels of analysis" (p. 1). It is important to remember that simply by choosing the topics
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
15
addressed in the news on a daily basis, the media impact which topics the public believes are
important.
Agenda setting involves the media's ability to control the topics the public perceives as
important (McCombs, 2004; McLeod, Kosicki, & McLeod, 2009). According to agenda setting
theory, the frequency with which the media cover certain topics causes the audience to care more
about those topics or believe they are more salient in their lives. One key contributor to the
agenda setting effect is the audience's limited capacity to attend to multiple topics; since the
public cannot pay attention to every topic at all times, the media's choices influence which topics
are on the "public agenda" (McCombs, 2004). Agenda setting results in priming the audience to
think about the topic in question: through priming, the topic becomes more accessible in the
audience's mind when the information is first processed and when it is recalled later (McLeod et
al., 2009).
In one of the earliest studies demonstrating the effects of agenda setting, McCombs and
Shaw (1972) surveyed voters on what they believed to be important issues during the 1968
presidential election and found that the results fluctuated closely with the issues the media
covered. The authors noted that simple correlation without causation could not be the reason for
the similarities because the media was the primary source of information about the campaign,
since at the time it could not be gathered through other means. Although the number of
opportunities for the public to gather information has exploded since the article was published,
research over the past four decades has confirmed that the media nonetheless continue to have an
effect on what topics the public deems important (McLeod et al., 2009).
McCombs and Shaw's insights into the audience's information sources are particularly
relevant to the issue of child maltreatment, because it remains at times a private topic, one that
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
16
many Americans are not exposed to except through the media. Thus, the media may be
particularly influential when covering child maltreatment. Only in the last two decades have
communication scholars begun to examine the idea of agenda setting as it relates to child
maltreatment. To gain an overall understanding of depictions of child maltreatment in the media,
Chenot (2011) described the "vicious" cycle of child abuse stories and how it influences both
public concern and official responses to the issue (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: The Vicious Cycle of Child Abuse Coverage in the Media
Source: (Chenot, 2011).
Chenot (2011) explains that after a grievous case of child abuse or neglect, public
pressure to address the issue spikes. The pressure is due in large part to media coverage and,
often, a local politician who takes advantage of the concern by demanding investigations of the
agencies responsible. The child welfare agency's internal investigations may temporarily change
the way services are provided (e.g., a spike in foster care placements to protect children from
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
17
abuse by their parents), but, after concern dies down, agencies largely return to "business as
usual" until a grievous case of abuse occurs again. Chenot concludes that this cycle of media
coverage and public concern only serves to give child welfare agencies a bad reputation without
seeking lasting changes to improve services for children and families and reinforces the notion
that agencies are the only institution responsible for addressing child maltreatment.
Although a number of studies support the idea that the media cover the most "grievous"
cases of child abuse in a sensationalistic way (Altheide, 2002; Aubrun & Grady, 2003; Barnett,
2006), some researchers question if the media's coverage of child abuse is as inaccurate as those
studies imply. For example, to examine the accuracy of child abuse depictions in the media,
Cheit (2003) studied the amount and content of all media coverage of child molestation
defendants in one Rhode Island newspaper over five years. Among Cheit's results, he found over
50 percent of the defendants' cases were not covered by the media at all, and he identified a few
key aspects of the case led to a greater likelihood of being covered: first-degree or multiple
charges; multiple victims; additional violence; and long prison sentences.
However, overall Cheit found coverage of the cases was brief and the abuse itself was
rarely described in detail—findings that contradict the idea that child maltreatment coverage is
sensationalistic. The only distortion of coverage the author noted was that the media exaggerated
"stranger danger" by more frequently covering abuse perpetrated by strangers instead of intrafamilial abuse even though the latter accounts for more of cases of maltreatment. This study is
limited by the fact that only one newspaper in one relatively small state was examined—thus,
coverage may be more straight-forward since there is little competition with other newspapers
for attention (Cheit, 2003). In the study, Cheit refers to a similar study performed in Western
Australia that also found distortions due to excessive coverage of non-familial abusers, as well as
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
18
of child sexual abuse (thus under-reporting cases of neglect, physical abuse, or emotional abuse)
(Wilczynski & Sinclair, 1999, as cited in Cheit (2003)).
As the above studies imply, the agenda-setting function of media can also be examined in
terms of the way the media cover different types of child maltreatment. Particularly when it
comes to the issue of child neglect, the term "child abuse" itself can be troubling. Abuse and
neglect are similar in many ways, but they still involve significantly different actions on the part
of the caregiver as well as the resulting harm to the child. However, neglect is frequently
included under the umbrella term of "child abuse." In fact, the popular media search tool
LexisNexis® does not have a separate subject term for child neglect—items that mention neglect
are simply labeled with the subject term "child abuse." LexisNexis includes the sub-term
"negligence," but the term is not specific to negligence as it relates to child care. Furthermore, it
appears a number of articles that discuss child neglect are not labeled with the term "negligence";
they are simply labeled "child abuse." This lack of acknowledgment of child neglect through the
use of a separate subject term indicates the news bias toward reporting child abuse.
Several researchers have also noted the tendency to combine types of maltreatment into a
single term. Beginning with the emergence of battered child syndrome in the early 1960s,
Hacking (1991) reviewed indices of newspapers and journals and found that by the late 1960s,
the idea of cruelty to children had morphed into the general term "child abuse." The term "incest"
was created when concerns about it rose in the 1970s, but by the early 1980s that term ceased to
exist and incest was instead considered a subset of child abuse. More recently, McKee (2010)
wrote about his concerns with an Australian government inquiry into the "sexualization of
children," which he felt included too wide a variety of offenses against children (e.g., marketing
to young children, sexual material in the media) under the same umbrella of "child sexual abuse."
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
19
The author noted that each offense is very distinct, with different contributing factors as well as
ways to prevent or respond to them. McKee (2010) concluded that talking about abuse as an
umbrella term results in a misunderstanding of abuse and the severity of true child sexual abuse.
This misunderstanding harms society as a whole and detracts from the ability to properly respond
to abuse. Finally, a study of three subtypes of neglect by Dubowitz, Pitts, and Black (2004)
concluded that while there is an overlap among types of neglect, the evidence indicates they
represent unique experiences that should be approached differently by both professionals and the
public.
To summarize, the media's ability to accurately cover child maltreatment and the many
nuances of the issue appears average at best. Although studies show the media can cover
straightforward stories of abuse, there is an overrepresentation of more serious cases of
maltreatment, sexual abuse, and strangers as predators. In addition, the different types of child
maltreatment are often combined under the term "child abuse" instead of being treated
separately. In terms of agenda setting, this sub-standard coverage can lead to public confusion
and lack of concern. But beyond these high-level issues, the next section will discuss the
specifics of how child maltreatment is characterized in news stories and how that further impacts
audience understanding.
Media and the Role of Framing
Going beyond agenda setting and priming of certain topics, communication scholars must
also take the issue of framing into consideration. According to Nisbet (2007), frames are
"'schemata of interpretation' that allow individuals to 'locate, perceive, identify, and label' issues,
events, and topics" (p. 12). McLeod et al. (2009) explains that framing involves not only telling a
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
20
news story in a way that makes it accessible in the audience's mind, but also making aspects of
the story applicable to the larger topic being addressed. Framing helps the audience understand a
topic in the short term, and also gives them a way to think about the topic that they can draw on
later when thinking about the topic in the future. To understand how framing works, Druckman
(2011) further explains that there are "frames in thought" (i.e., how audiences think of an issue)
and "frames in communication" (i.e., how a speaker or the media describe an issue). If the frame
in communication influences the audience's frame in thought around a particular issue, then there
is said to be a "framing effect" (Druckman, 2011).
The framing effect is important when addressing child maltreatment, as with many other
complex social issues, because the way audiences think about abuse can influence how they
understand the causes of abuse or neglect, who is responsible for preventing and responding to it,
and how they address it in their own lives. Studies have examined framing of a wide variety of
issues, but it has only recently started gaining attention in the field of child maltreatment.
One review of frames around child maltreatment by Aubrun and Grady (2003) examined
120 news articles and several dozen TV news stories to identify the key frames used in stories
about child abuse and neglect. A list and brief description of those frames is provided below:

Criminal atrocity: A horrible case of child abuse is perpetrated by a monstrous parent
with no rational causes

Failure of child protective services: Bureaucratic organizations and incompetent
caseworkers are unaccountable and cannot be trusted to protect children from abuse

Sexual predators: Perpetrators are outside the family, reinforcing the idea of "stranger
danger"
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT

21
The confusing line between discipline and abuse: It is difficult to determine if/when a
parent has crossed the hard-to-define line of discipline and abuse

The sanctity of the family: Organizations responding to abuse must find the balance
between respecting families' parenting decisions and protecting children
Aubrun and Grady (2003) conclude the way child maltreatment is discussed in the media
limits the audience's ability to understand the issue because it is not as interesting to talk about
the nuanced factors that contribute to abuse or neglect (e.g., parenting knowledge, the family's
social or economic situation), and it is more difficult for reporters to place child maltreatment
within the context of the larger community's role to prevent and respond to it.
Beyond the overarching frames that are used in the media to describe child maltreatment
stories, one key aspect to consider is whether stories are episodically or thematically framed.
Research shows these types of frames, described in the next section, can greatly influence the
audience's attribution of responsibility for an issue, that is, whether the individual or society is
responsible for addressing a particular issue.
Episodic and Thematic Framing
Put simply, an episodic frame for a news story focuses on one individual's experiences or
one specific event, while a thematic frame explains the issue within a larger societal context
(Iyengar, 1991). One common finding regarding the effect of episodic versus thematic frames is
that they influence the audience's beliefs about whether the issue being discussed is an individual
or societal problem. Iyengar (1991) explains: "exposure to episodic news makes viewers less
likely to hold public officials accountable for the existence of some problem and also less likely
to hold them responsible for alleviating it" (p. 2).
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
22
Scholars have examined the use of episodic or thematic frames for news stories on a wide
range of issues, such as poverty or domestic violence. While exploring the issue of poverty,
Iyengar (1990) found that audiences who saw a story about poverty framed around one person's
experience (episodic frame) were more likely believe the individual was responsible for his
situation; audiences who saw a story about poverty that discussed the larger factors that
contribute to poverty (thematic frame) were more likely to believe society as a whole is
responsible for addressing poverty. Examining media coverage of domestic violence before and
after a case that gained national attention, Maxwell, Huxford, Borum, and Hornik (2000)
measured the use of episodic versus thematic frames in relevant new stories. The authors found
that the amount of socially-focused media coverage of domestic violence remained steady after
the high-profile case, and that the case did not significantly improve the quality of the national
conversation on domestic violence despite advocates' attempts to address the issue. The results of
these studies indicate episodic frames of stories about social issues not only influence audience
understanding, but can be difficult to change.
Since a large portion of audiences are likely unfamiliar with the topic of child abuse and
neglect, particularly the many factors that contribute to its occurrence, it is critical to examine
episodic and thematic framing around stories about child maltreatment. Returning to Chenot
(2011), he contends that the grievous stories of child abuse told by the media are partly to blame
for the vicious media cycle, because within those stories, the larger child welfare system is never
truly addressed; it is usually blamed solely for the problem of child maltreatment. As a result,
audiences do not believe society as a whole is responsible for addressing abuse.
Barnett (2006) published a series of articles examining episodic frames used in news
stories about mothers who abuse their children, particularly those who kill their children. First,
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
23
she analyzed 10 cases of maternal infanticide over a 12-year period in the United States. She
performed a narrative analysis of 250 news articles using a rhetorical framework that examined
"events, characters, settings, narrator, temporal relationships, and causal relationships" (Foss,
1989, as cited in Barnett, 2006, p. 414). Among the key themes, she found:

The stories were told as "mysteries" (e.g., Why would a mother kill her child?), with the
narrator playing the role of the "shocked observer."

Mothers were depicted as flawed caregivers in two distinct, extreme ways:
o "Superior nurturers driven to insanity because they cared so much, or
o Inferior caretakers who shirked their maternal duties because they cared so little"
(p. 411).

Although infanticide is not an infrequent occurrence in the United States, each case was
treated as "rare" and "spectacular."
Barnett (2006) concluded that journalists prefer to tell child fatality stories in line with
myths about perfect motherhood; as a result, the mothers were depicted in such extreme ways in
order to indicate to audiences that the abusive mothers are deviants, and most normal mothers
would never commit such crimes. In addition, even though the stories were framed as
"mysteries," only superficial attention was paid to possible causal factors for the child's death.
Delving further into one of the cases explored in the above study, Barnett (2005) also
published an article examining media depictions of Andrea Yates, beginning immediately after
she drowned her five children in 2001 in Texas and continuing through her trial and sentencing
phases. The author found that Yates' story was addressed in two ways: 1) describing Yates as a
"traitor" who betrayed her children and her role as a mother; and 2) following the saga of a
community "quest" to seek legal punishment for Yates. In both cases, the news stories' narratives
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
24
sought to distance Yates from the community by indicating she fell outside the "norm." Again,
the author blames these depictions as journalists' attempts to adhere to the myth that all mothers
are natural caregivers.
It is clear from these studies that the media play a key role in the way stories of child
maltreatment and maltreatment-related fatalities are depicted, which influences audiences'
perceptions around the issue. The largely misleading frames used in child maltreatment stories
reduce the chances that the public will understand the causes and consequences of maltreatment,
especially when episodic frames are used more than thematic frames. By making parents and
children the focus of the story and failing to describe the larger context in which the
maltreatment occurred, the public also fails to see the role society plays in preventing child
maltreatment and supporting at-risk families. The next section acknowledges these faults and
begins to identify opportunities to improve media coverage and, as a result, public understanding
of child maltreatment.
Improving Media Coverage of Child Maltreatment
Less than two years ago, a coalition of experts from several prominent child welfare
advocacy groups reprimanded the media for many of the faults described above, particularly
failing to report about the more than 1,500 children who die each year from abuse or neglect
(Aldrich, 2010). The experts described media coverage of child maltreatment and fatalities as
seeming to use a template; that is, coverage is largely perfunctory from the time of the incident to
the parents' conviction and rarely probes contributing factors or consequences. They urged the
media to improve standards for reporting child maltreatment, provide more context in stories,
and raise awareness of fatalities related to maltreatment. More recently, another child welfare
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
25
expert, dismayed by the results of a study of traumatic brain injury and serious damage to
physically abused children, called for a national campaign to address the issue (Joelving, 2012).
He noted that although physical abuse occurs at a much higher rate than sudden infant death
syndrome (SIDS), a robust campaign exists to prevent the latter, but not the former. Both articles
highlight the consequences of child maltreatment and the need to address it more responsibly and
comprehensively in the media to increase public understanding and prevention efforts.
Taking a broader look, Kunkel, Smith, Suding, and Biely (2002) examined coverage of
five child-related topics: child abuse and neglect, child care, child health insurance, teen
childbearing, and youth crime and violence. The study's goals were to determine not just how
frequently, but how thoroughly the media reported on these topics. The authors found although
child abuse and neglect and youth crime/violence together accounted for the majority of all
coverage, only 11 percent of child maltreatment stories used a thematic frame. The vast majority
of child maltreatment stories simply reported individual incidents and legal actions being taken
against the perpetrator. Among the other findings in stories about child abuse and neglect:

Only 5 percent of the stories offered any contextual information, and parents and
children were used as sources less than half the time

Statistics and public policy concerns were mentioned only 9 and 17 percent of the
time, respectively

Almost none (2 percent) of the information was determined to be useful to parents
(e.g., parenting tips, sources of support)
Kunkel et al. (2002) concluded that the media must strive to reduce the number of stories
published on children's issues in isolation. The authors suggested reporters should put the stories
in context regarding the communities in which families live and the public policy climate for
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
26
children's issues—doing so will help the reader place the incident within broader patterns and
trends.
The literature indicates there is reason for hope that reporting of child maltreatment can
be improved. Both Maxwell et al. (2000) and Fister (2003) determined that stories published in
newspapers, particularly those with a national audience, tended to provide more balanced
reporting and were more likely to use a thematic frame. In addition, in an article published in the
Columbia Journalism Review titled "The lives we would like to set right," journalist Michael
Shapiro (1996) expressed many similar concerns regarding the sensational and inaccurate
reporting of child maltreatment stories, particularly the negative impact such reporting has on the
child welfare system and the children and families it serves. For the benefit of those families as
well as the larger society the media informs, Shapiro called on other journalists to be more
realistic and accurate in their reporting of child maltreatment.
This study aims to contribute to these efforts to improve reporting of child maltreatment
by examining how child neglect is portrayed in the media. The next section discusses the
methods used to examine newspaper articles addressing child neglect at the national and regional
levels in the United States, followed by results and a discussion of the findings.
METHODS
A quantitative content analysis was performed to generate findings on the overarching
topics that are addressed and predominant frames that are used in newspaper coverage of child
neglect in the United States. There were three primary goals of this research: 1) to summarize the
types of neglect covered and the circumstances and consequences of cases of neglect in the
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
27
news; 2) to determine differences in national and regional newspaper coverage of child neglect;
and 3) to compare the use of episodic and thematic frames when covering child neglect. In
keeping with framing theory, the results of this analysis will better inform our understanding of
public perception of issues surrounding child neglect. Regarding thematic frames, this study
focused particularly on systemic factors related to child maltreatment, such as programming for
neglectful or at-risk parents and the role of the community in supporting parents.
Using publishers' circulation statements (Audit Bureau of Circulations, 2012), four
newspapers that fell within the top fifteen highest circulations in the U.S. were selected for
inclusion in the study. Two newspapers considered to have a national scope or audience (New
York Times, Washington Post) and two newspapers with a more regional focus (San Jose
Mercury News, Houston Chronicle) were chosen for comparison purposes; they were also
selected for their geographic variety within the United States. The weekday average circulation
ranged from 369,000 to 1,150,000 copies; the Sunday edition average circulation ranged from
602,000 to 1,645,000 copies.
Articles were collected over three federal fiscal years (FFYs), from October 1, 2008 to
September 30, 2011. FFYs were used as the time sample because the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services reports state-by-state statistics on child abuse and neglect using FFYs in its
annual Child Maltreatment report (Children's Bureau, 2011). Articles were obtained through the
LexisNexis academic database. Because the database contained no clear and relevant subject
terms related to child neglect, a unique combination of search terms was used to generate a large
sample of articles mentioning child neglect:
(infant OR toddler OR child! OR youth OR adolescent OR teenager OR kid) w/3
(neglect! OR negligen! OR endanger! OR abandon! OR unattended OR (left w/2 alone)
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
28
OR starv! OR manslaughter OR emaciat! OR malnourish! OR (fail! w/2 (protect OR
thrive!)))
The original search yielded 1207 articles. The San Jose Mercury News yielded 339
articles, followed by 304 articles from the New York Times, 291 articles from the Washington
Post, and 271 articles from the Houston Chronicle. The three main types of articles included in
the study were news, opinions or editorials, and feature or "lifestyle" stories. To narrow the
results, book and movie reviews, letters to the editor and reader comments were excluded, as
well as articles with a geographic focus outside of the United States. Because "news briefs" and
other short articles would not provide enough detail on elements addressed in this study, articles
with fewer than 97 words were excluded.
Each article in the original sample was scanned for relevance; articles that did not
primarily focus on child neglect were excluded from the study, particularly articles in which only
one sentence mentions children. Topical examples of articles excluded due to the subjective
relevance scan include illegal child immigration or the international adoption of orphaned
children; reimbursement payments for foster care providers; benefit events for children’s
organizations; and fatal car crashes involving teen drivers. A total of 528 relevant articles
remained after exclusions were applied and the relevancy scan was performed, including 185
articles from the San Jose Mercury News, 138 articles from the Houston Chronicle, 132 articles
from the New York Times, and 73 articles from the Washington Post.
Given the large number of relevant articles, a sampling procedure was used to generate a
reasonable number of articles for inclusion in the study. Rather than selecting a simple random
sample of articles, a constructed week sample was created. Constructed week procedures help
generate samples more representative of weekly coverage of a topic because the news coverage
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
29
depth and variety often vary by day of the week. A constructed week sample helps control for
day-to-day variation by randomly selecting the same number of articles for each day of the week
within each year in the study. Research indicates that as little as two constructed weeks of
articles is reliably representative of a year of one newspaper’s coverage (Lacy, Riffe, Stoddard,
Martin, & Chang, 2001; Luke, Caburnay, & Cohen, 2011). Given four newspapers and three
years of coverage each, two constructed weeks were randomly selected from the original relevant
sample from each newspaper for each year, for a total of 168 articles. On eight occasions, two
articles were not available for each day of the week, in which case random articles were chosen
from an adjacent day of the week.
For each article, a codebook was used to collect 78 different data points for each article;
see the Appendix for the complete codebook. Listed below are the main types of information
collected:

Basic article information;

Type of child abuse or neglect;

Case circumstances regarding the perpetrator and blame, consequences for the child
and family, and factors contributing to maltreatment;

Systemic factors related to child maltreatment; and

Whether the article used a dominant episodic frame (a rich narrative that focused
heavily on individuals and/or involved a particular case), or a dominant thematic
frame (a rich narrative that heavily discusses larger systemic/societal issues related to
maltreatment)
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
30
RESULTS
Results were obtained by analyzing the coded data in SPSS and cross-tabulating for
relationships among the data. The results presented below address articles included in the study,
maltreatment type, specific cases and perpetrators, child consequences and fatalities, contributing
factors, blame, perpetrator and family consequences, systemic factors, national versus regional
coverage, and the use of dominant episodic or thematic frames.
Articles. As a result of the constructed week sampling, 168 total articles were coded for
analysis: two constructed weeks (14 days total) for each of the three years (FFY 2009-2011,
October 1, 2008-September 30, 2011) from each of the four newspapers (New York Times;
Washington Post; Houston Chronicle; San Jose Mercury News). The word count per article
ranged from 97 to 2639, with an average of 545 words per article. News accounted for 78.0
percent of all articles; 11.3 percent were feature stories and 10.7 percent were opinions/editorials.
Figure 3 displays the percentage of all articles that mention the high-level areas analyzed
in this study and discussed in the results that follow, including: maltreatment type, specific case
of child maltreatment, perpetrator type, child consequences, contributing factors, reason for
maltreatment, perpetrator or family consequences, and systemic factors related to child
maltreatment.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
31
Maltreatment type. A specific maltreatment type was mentioned in 86.9 percent of
articles; articles could mention more than one maltreatment type. The remaining 13.1 percent of
articles mentioned abuse or neglect generally with specifying a type of maltreatment. Among
those articles mentioning a specific maltreatment type, 57.1 percent of the articles only addressed
neglect, while 42.9 percent addressed both neglect and abuse.
A caregiver’s failure to protect a child from harm and/or exposing a child to a hazardous
situation was the most common form of maltreatment, mentioned in more than a quarter (26.8
percent) of all articles. The other most common forms of maltreatment mentioned were physical
abuse (20.2 percent); abandonment (15.5 percent); and failing to provide for basic needs (13.7
percent). Endangerment due to domestic violence and emotional neglect or abuse were the least
mentioned types of maltreatment (0.6 percent each). Figure 4 displays the percentages of each
type of maltreatment mentioned; Table 1 lists them along with examples of each type.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
32
Table 1: Types of Child Neglect and Abuse Covered in the News
Type
Neglect Only
General neglect
Failure to
protect, exposing
to hazardous
situation
Percent
57.1
20.8
26.8
Abandonment
(i.e., custody)
15.5
Not providing
basic needs
13.7
Endangerment
due to substance
abuse
11.9
Locking up (i.e.,
chains or not
allowing outside)
11.3
Examples
“In the weeks before 4-year-old Emma Thompson died of abuse, prosecutors say, her
mother worked harder at keeping her outlaw boyfriend from public scrutiny and the
law than she did protecting her preschool daughter from him. Abigail Young, 34, is
accused of failing to protect Emma, who arrived dead at an emergency room ... with
80 bruises and a fractured skull.” (Langford, 2010, June 30)
“A man abandoned his 4-year-old son along a West Texas highway, and the injured
boy spent several hours alone in the dark before a passing motorist picked him up.”
(Associated Press, 2011, June 30)
“Though Kayvon Lewis could not speak, his body told a horror story... He was 3
years old, but was the size of a 6-month-old baby, weighing just 17 pounds... Doctors
determined he had been starved, and on Tuesday, his mother ... remained in the Harris
County Jail, charged with injury to child causing serious bodily injury by omission, a
first-degree felony.” (O'Hare, Hewitt, & Glenn, 2009, October 21)
“A father fled the scene of an overnight crash in Dallas, leaving his 5-year-old
daughter bleeding in the street and his 6-year-old son injured in the vehicle... Two
other children were in the SUV - an 11-month-old girl, Emma, and a 9-year-old,
Miguel Jr., who was unhurt. Miguel Jr. flagged down police and told them his father
had been drinking heavily.” (Peterson, 2010, November 13)
“They lived outside society, hidden from the world in a squalid row house with no
heat, electricity or running water. They had no birth certificates, no schooling, no
immunizations or evidence of medical care... Police ... are still piecing together how
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
Unsupervised /
alone
8.3
Educational
neglect
7.1
Medical neglect
6.5
Inadequate
supervision
6.5
Left in car
4.8
Endangerment
due to domestic
violence
0.6
Emotional
rejection
0.6
Other neglect
Neglect & abuse
General abuse
Physical abuse
3.6
42.9
20.2
20.2
Sexual abuse
7.1
Emotional abuse
0.6
33
the parents of five children - ranging in age from 2 to 13 - managed to conceal them
for so many years.” (Rubinkam, 2010, November 29)
“Tata is accused of leaving seven children unattended at a Houston in-home day care
with a pot of oil heating on the stove and went shopping at Target.” (Hassan &
Carroll, 2011, March 21)
“The 11-year-old beaten to death, allegedly by her mother with a mop handle, came
to Brooklyn from Mexico about a month ago but was hidden -- never enrolled in
school, and unseen by child-welfare officials who visited her family's apartment, even
as she suffered repeated abuse...” (Kaufman & Zraick, 2008, October 28)
“Wisconsin law, he noted, exempts a parent or guardian who treats a child with only
prayer from being criminally charged with neglecting child welfare laws, but only ‘as
long as a condition is not life threatening.’ Kara's parents, Judge Howard wrote, ‘were
very well aware of her deteriorating medical condition.’” (Johnson, 2009, January 21)
“Emmett is believed to have trekked more than three miles in his bare feet...before
ending up about a mile from the rural home where on Monday night he wandered off
from his mother, who was napping, and his three siblings.” (Lacey, 2010, August 6)
“The second time Murphy forgot to drop Ryan at day care, she ... did not see her 2year-old for about seven hours. Her husband went to the day-care center to pick up
Ryan and discovered that he was not there. ...by the time Murphy raced out to her
minivan on Gentle Shade Drive last month, Ryan was unresponsive in the back seat.”
(Roberts, 2011, July 17)
“An argument between a husband and wife... ended with both of them being arrested
on charges including domestic violence and child endangerment... The couple's two
boys... were both taken to the Department of Social Services, and three firearms were
confiscated from the home.” (Bay City News Service, 2010, September 20)
“The researchers have also identified some superb practices, already proven in other
states or in pilot form here in Texas, that specifically attack some of the pipeline's key
components: a broken correctional system, emotional neglect and physical abuse.”
(Houston Chronicle, 2008, December 29)
Restraints in school; Co-sleeping with infant; Midwife performing dangerous delivery
“A suburban Phoenix woman has been charged with child neglect and aggravated
assault after she reportedly told police that she wanted officers to take her children so
she could ‘have fun and play.’ ... Christina Muniz, 29, told officers she was ‘sick of
her children.’ She allegedly punched the 11-year-old as he attempted to hug his
mother goodbye.” (Associated Press, 2010, June 16)
“A man suspected of fathering four children with his teenage daughter faces charges
of killing at least one after remains were discovered at the rural home where the
family once lived, authorities said Friday. The man, 47, is charged with seconddegree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, statutory rape, two counts of
incest and two counts of abandoning a corpse.” (News Service, 2009, January 24)
“‘Every child is not abused physically, a lot of times it's emotional or neglect,’
Collins said. ‘I had a child who had 17 broken bones, a brain fracture and bleeding on
the brain, but he didn't have any bruises.’” (Williams-Dennis, 2009, April 23)
Specific cases. A specific case of child maltreatment was mentioned in 71.4 percent of all
articles in the sample. Specific cases were mentioned in 84.7 percent of news articles, 31.6
percent of feature stories and 16.7 percent of opinions/editorials. The San Jose Mercury News
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
34
published the most articles mentioning specific cases (81.0 percent), followed by the Houston
Chronicle (71.4 percent), the New York Times (69.0 percent), and the Washington Post (64.3
percent).
Perpetrators. Regardless of whether a specific case was discussed, a specific type of
perpetrator was mentioned in slightly more than three-quarters of all articles (75.6 percent);
articles could mention more than one perpetrator. Among articles mentioning perpetrators,
mothers were the most commonly mentioned perpetrator type (56.7 percent), followed by fathers
(28.3 percent), other family members (7.1 percent, most commonly grandparents), and nonfamily members (37.0 percent). Most non-family members mentioned were a
boyfriend/girlfriend of the child’s caregiver, a neighbor, or a child care provider, though other
non-family members mentioned include a bus driver, doctor, religious leader, or stranger. See
Figure 5 below.
*Totals more than 100 percent because articles could mention more than one perpetrator
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
35
Child consequences and fatalities. Regarding consequences for maltreated children,
67.3 percent of articles mentioned any type of consequence experienced by children; articles
could mention more than one consequence. Among articles mentioning child consequences, a
child fatality was mentioned in 62.0 percent of articles, followed by physical harm (25.7
percent), cognitive or intellectual delays (8.0 percent), emotional or relational harm (7.8 percent),
and behavioral or conduct disorders (7.8 percent). In 12.4 percent of articles, the child was
described to be unharmed or minimally harmed by maltreatment. See Figure 6 below.
*Totals more than 100 percent because children can experience more than one consequence
Because fatalities were mentioned in nearly two-thirds of all articles that addressed child
consequences of maltreatment, and more than 40 percent of all articles in the study, a separate
cross-tabulation was performed to determine factors significantly related to reports of child
fatalities in the news. Articles including certain factors were significantly more likely to also
mention a child fatality, listed in Table 2, below.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
36
Table 2: Factors Significantly Related to a Report of a Child Fatality
Factor
Percentage of Articles Also
Mentioning Fatality
Physical abuse
58.8* (n = 20)
Neglect: Inadequate supervision
72.7* (n = 69)
Medical neglect
72.7* (n = 8)
CPS involvement with family
58.0** (n = 29)
** p < .01; * p < .05
Contributing factors to child maltreatment. Slightly less than one-half of the articles
(49.4 percent) mentioned any factors that may have contributed to an incident of child
maltreatment; articles could mention more than one contributing factor. Among articles
mentioning contributing factors, the most common factors were caregiver substance use (33.7
percent), child health/disability or other problems requiring additional care (25.3 percent), poor
mental health of the caregiver (22.9 percent), and family poverty or low income (22.9 percent).
Contributing factors such as homelessness, caregiver history of maltreatment, and limited
experience or access to child care/support were mentioned in only three to six percent of articles.
The majority of the "other" contributing factors were related to religious beliefs or the recession.
See Figure 7 below.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
37
*Totals more than 100 percent because more than one factor may contribute to child maltreatment
Blame. Less than one-third of articles (29.8 percent) gave any indication of blame for
maltreatment, that is, whether the incident was an accident or the caregiver intended to harm the
child. Of those articles that addressed blame for an incident of maltreatment, 36 percent indicated
the caregiver intentionally maltreated the child, 24 percent indicated the maltreatment was
accidental, and 40 percent depicted both sides without indicating blame for the incident.
Perpetrator and family consequences. More than four-fifths of articles (83.9 percent)
mentioned the consequences experienced by the perpetrator and/or family of a maltreated child.
Among the articles mentioning any consequences for the perpetrator and/or family, the most
common consequences were legal charges (74.5 percent) and imprisonment (52.5 percent);
services or support being provided to the child/family was the least common consequence
reported (12.8 percent). See Figure 8 for details.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
*Totals more than 100 percent because the perpetrator or family may experience more than one consequence
Systemic factors. Less than half (48.8 percent) of articles mentioned any systemic
factors related to child maltreatment and support for families. Among articles mentioning
systemic factors, the most common factors were child welfare and other programs for families
(62.2 percent) and statistics (56.1 percent); the least common were raising awareness of
children’s issues and providing contact information for where to go for help or to help others
(both 12.2 percent). See Figure 9 below.
38
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
39
National and regional coverage. Though the findings were not significant, Table 3 lists
some high-level comparisons between national and regional newspaper coverage.
Table 3: High-Level Comparison of National and Regional
Newspapers
Percentage
Factors
National Regional
News articles
73.8
82.1
Opinion/editorials
14.3
7.1
Feature articles
11.9
10.8
Report on specific case of maltreatment
66.7
76.2
Report on child fatality
47.6
34.5
Upon performing a cross-tabulation of national and regional newspaper coverage, certain
factors within different areas of analysis were found to be significantly related to the two levels
of coverage; Table 4 and Figure 10 list and depict those differences.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
40
Table 4: Significant Differences in Factors Reported in National and
Regional Newspapers
Percentage
Factors
National Regional
Neglect only
48.8
65.5*
Neglect and abuse
51.2*
34.5
Child consequence: physical harm
10.7
23.8*
Perpetrator: father
14.3
28.6*
Contributing factor: child disability or other problems
17.9*
7.1
Systemic factor: child welfare/other programs
41.7**
19.0
Systemic factor: contact information
1.2
10.7**
**p < .01; *p < .05
**p < .01; *p < .05
Episodic and thematic frames. A dominant episodic frame was used in 69.6 percent of
articles; 30.4 percent used a dominant thematic frame. When examining dominant frames in
different types of articles, only 18.3 percent of news articles used a thematic frame, in contrast to
63.2 percent of feature stories and 83.3 percent of opinions/editorials.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
41
Of all New York Times articles, 38.1 percent used a dominant thematic frame, followed
by the Washington Post (35.7 percent), the Houston Chronicle (26.2 percent), and the San Jose
Mercury News (21.4 percent). Overall, 36.9 percent of national newspaper coverage used a
dominant thematic frame (n = 31), compared to 23.8 percent of regional newspaper coverage (n
= 20), although this finding did not reach significance (p < .065). Figure 11 shows the percentage
of all thematically-framed articles by newspaper.
Frames and types of maltreatment. Articles reporting certain types of maltreatment were
significantly more likely to be episodically or thematically-framed. Table 5 lists the types of
maltreatment significantly related to the use of a dominant episodic or thematic frame and the
percentage of articles addressing each type, while Figure 12 graphically depicts the differences
between frames used for all types of maltreatment and marks those which are significantly
related.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
42
Table 5: Significant Relationships Between Types of Maltreatment in
Episodically and Thematically-Framed Articles
Percentage
Type
Episodic Thematic
Neglect Only
65.8**
37.3
General neglect
4.3
58.8**
Failure to protect, exposing to hazardous situation
32.5*
13.7
Endangerment due to substance abuse
16.2**
2.0
Neglect and Abuse
34.2
62.7**
General abuse
4.3
56.9**
Physical abuse
24.8*
9.8
**p < .01; *p < .05
** p < .01; * p < .05
Factors related to thematic framing. More than half (56.8 percent) of thematicallyframed articles mentioned any child consequence as a result of maltreatment (n = 29, p < .058),
however, there was no significant relationship between articles mentioning a child fatality and
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
43
the use of a dominant frame. Table 6 lists the factors within different areas of analysis that were
significantly more likely to be thematically-framed.
Table 6: Factors Significantly Related to the Use of a Dominant Thematic Frame
Percentage of Articles Also
Factor
Using a Thematic Frame
Child consequences: cognitive/intellectual
66.7* (n = 6)
Child consequences: emotional/relational
62.5* (n = 5)
Child consequences: behavioral/conduct disorder
100.0** (n = 8)
Contributing factor: poverty/low-income
73.7** (n = 14)
Contributing factor: unemployment
66.7* (n = 4)
Contributing factor: inexperienced caregiver
80.0* (n = 4)
Contributing factor: lack of child care/support
80.0* (n = 4)
Contributing factor: child disability or other problem
57.1**(n = 12)
Family consequence: receiving services
55.6* (n = 10)
Systemic factor: child welfare and other programs
78.4** (n = 40)
Systemic factor: budget and funding
100.0** (n = 23)
Systemic factor: prevention
74.1** (n = 20)
Systemic factor: raising awareness
60.0* (n = 6)
Systemic factor: Role of community/support
64.0** (n = 16)
Systemic factor: Statistics
78.3** (n = 36)
**p < .01; *p < .05
Factors related to episodic framing. A dominant episodic frame was used in 97.4 percent
of articles reporting on a specific case (n = 114, p < .000). Articles mentioning certain factors
were significantly more likely to be episodically-framed, listed in Table 7, below.
Table 7: Factors Significantly Related to the Use of a Dominant Episodic Frame
Factor
Percentage of Articles Also
Using a Episodic Frame
Family consequence: legal charges
93.3** (n = 98)
Family consequence: imprisonment
98.6** (n = 73)
Family consequence: court
81.7* (n = 49)
**p < .01; *p < .05
The following section highlights major findings and discusses implications for the field
of child welfare and the media in improving public understanding of child neglect.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
44
DISCUSSION
This study described U.S. newspaper coverage of child neglect and circumstances of
cases of neglect covered in the news and demonstrated differences in the use of dominant
episodic and thematic frames in national and regional newspaper coverage of child neglect. The
discussion that follows first addresses agenda setting by reviewing accuracies and inaccuracies in
the reporting of maltreatment types, child consequences and fatalities, perpetrators and
consequences, and contributing and systemic factors. It then discusses differences in national and
regional newspaper coverage as well as the use of dominant episodic and thematic framing,
followed by suggestions for the field of child welfare and the media based on the lessons learned
in this study.
Types of neglect or abuse. Despite this study's emphasis on collecting articles that
address child neglect, 42.9 percent of articles also mentioned abuse. This overlap demonstrates
the frequency with which the two broad types of maltreatment are discussed together in the
news. Though not uncommon for children to experience both neglect and abuse, the small
majority of articles that address neglect exclusively may indicate a lack of knowledge or
resources among the news media to describe neglect as a distinct issue from abuse.
Although current federal statistics do not provide the same level of detail for comparison
purposes (Children's Bureau, 2011), several neglect and abuse subtypes stood out as most
frequently reported in the news. Certain clear-cut types of maltreatment in which it is easier to
determine that abuse or neglect has occurred were the most frequently reported types, including
abandonment, physical abuse, or failure to protect the child from harm. These are also
maltreatment types which audiences may more identify as atrocities performed by "monster"
caregivers (Aubrun & Grady, 2003). In contrast, more subtle neglect types that are more difficult
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
45
to identify or may cross the barrier of the sanctity of the family (Aubrun & Grady, 2003) were
least reported in the news, such as medical neglect and emotional rejection.
Child consequences and fatalities. The most frequently mentioned child consequences
of maltreatment, fatalities and physical harm, have an immediate and obvious impact on the child
and can be reported as straight-forward details of a case of maltreatment. The other
consequences, related to cognitive/intellectual delays, emotional/relational problems, and
behavioral/conduct disorders, each received coverage in less than 10 percent of articles in the
study, and most of those articles were thematically-framed (discussed below). These
consequences are likely underreported in the news because they often do not present themselves
until later in the child's life and thus can be difficult to identify when a case first occurs
(DePanfilis, 2006).
Being the most tragic consequence of maltreatment, it is understandable that child
fatalities receive extensive news coverage; however, they are grossly over-reported in
comparison to national statistics. According to the Children's Bureau (2011), there were 1,537
child fatalities due to maltreatment nationwide in 2010, which accounts for slightly more than
two percent of all 695,000 maltreatment victims. In contrast, a fatality was mentioned in more
than 40 percent of all articles in this study. This finding supports the idea of the media's tendency
to report sensational news stories about child maltreatment (Altheide, 2002; Barnett, 2006).
Taking framing theory into consideration, the extensive coverage of child fatalities likely skews
the public's understanding of the severity of child maltreatment and overshadows the vast
majority of less severe maltreatment cases.
One area in which child fatality reporting matched reality more closely is the types of
maltreatment that contribute to fatalities: physical abuse, inadequate supervision and medical
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
46
neglect are in keeping with existing research. Research shows nearly half of the children who
died from maltreatment in 2010 suffered physical abuse (Children's Bureau, 2011), and
inadequate supervision and medical neglect are two of the most common types of neglect
involved in child fatalities (DePanfilis, 2006).
Perpetrators and consequences. The perpetrator types identified in this study aligned
with the federal statistics on this subject fairly closely in all areas except perpetrators who are not
related to the child. While non-family perpetrators accounted for 37 percent of perpetrators
mentioned in this study, they represented slightly less than 10 percent of the 2010 national
statistics on perpetrators of maltreatment (Children's Bureau, 2011). This discrepancy is in
keeping with other studies that identified over-reporting of "stranger danger" in the media, when
in truth a large majority of individuals responsible for maltreatment are parents and relatives
(Aubrun & Grady, 2003; Cheit, 2003).
Police involvement in the form of imprisonment and/or legal charges was reported in half
to three-quarters of all articles in this study mentioning perpetrator consequences, while less than
15 percent of articles addressed services or support for the child and family. This finding is in
stark contrast to reality—the majority of parents or caregivers who have maltreated their children
receive support services to improve child safety, while only the more severe cases involve legal
charges or imprisonment (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011c). There are likely two
reasons for the discrepancy in reported perpetrator consequences: First, because more than 40
percent of articles in the study reported a child fatality, perpetrator consequences were also likely
skewed since charges and imprisonment are common results of fatality cases (Child Welfare
Information Gateway, 2011c). Second, information on outcomes for the most common child
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
47
welfare cases are protected from public scrutiny except in certain circumstances, so they are less
likely to be reported in the media (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2010). Regardless,
Contributing and systemic factors. Regardless of the reasons for the over-reporting of
serious perpetrator consequences, the fact remains that less than half of the articles in this study
mentioned contextual information such as factors contributing to child maltreatment and the
larger child welfare system. Some of the most common contributing factors reported in the news
(caregiver substance use or mental health, child disability or health problems) could all be
perceived by the public as individual circumstances in which society should not or cannot
intervene. In contrast, factors that may suggest the need for community or systemic changes,
such as unemployment, homelessness, or lack of access to child care or support, were the least
reported contributing factors. In addition, only 12 percent of articles in this study mentioned the
need to raise awareness of children's issues or provided contact information for receiving help or
helping others. These findings all suggest a lack of reporting that encourages the reader to
understand the larger societal role in preventing child maltreatment and supporting at-risk
families.
Another notable discrepancy in news coverage of child neglect is that domestic violence
was discussed in only 15 percent of articles mentioning contributing factors, while federal
statistics from 2010 indicate that 25.7 percent of caregivers involved in a case of child
maltreatment were identified as at risk for domestic violence (Children's Bureau, 2011). In
addition, one-third of articles in this study mentioned substance abuse as a contributing factor to
maltreatment (the most common factor reported), while federal statistics placed caregiver risk for
alcohol or drug abuse at 10.9 and 18.0 percent, respectively (Children's Bureau, 2011). The news
may over-report cases involving substance abuse and under-report cases involving domestic
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
48
violence because including the facts of the case related to substance use is more straight-forward
than addressing the potential privacy issues and sometimes difficult family dynamics involved
with domestic violence.
Overall, it is clear from the above results that the media has the ability to set the public
agenda regarding the factors and consequences that are understood to be related to child neglect.
Though certain areas of coverage were accurate, there were some misrepresentations in the
articles regarding child fatalities, non-family members as perpetrators, and the seriousness of
perpetrator consequences. Media professionals likely see these three factors as more sensational
and thus more newsworthy, which reduces the frequency with which more common
circumstances surrounding child maltreatment are reported. As a result, the more nuanced
contributing factors to maltreatment and systemic issues surrounding the child welfare system
are not discussed, to the detriment of public understanding of child neglect.
National and regional coverage. Though the finding was not significant, regional
newspapers covered specific cases of maltreatment more frequently than national newspapers—
in keeping with the focus of regional media on more local news and individual cases than
systemic issues. There was a clear distinction between the San Jose Mercury News, in which
more than 80 percent of articles addressed specific cases, and the Washington Post, in which less
than 65 percent of articles addressed specific cases. However, the differences between coverage
in the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times were not as stark, leading to the inconclusive
finding overall.
Somewhat related to the above finding is the fact that regional newspaper articles were
significantly more likely to include contact information for where to go for help or to help others,
whereas national newspaper articles were more likely to discuss the systemic issues surrounding
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
49
child welfare and other programs for families. Again, this finding suggests that regional
newspapers provide readers with localized information while national newspapers are more
likely to place topics within their larger context.
Although the finding did not reach significance, more than one-third of national
newspaper coverage used a thematic frame while less than one-quarter of regional newspaper
coverage did so. This finding is in keeping with studies performed by Maxwell et al. (2000) and
Fister (2003), who both performed national-level studies and identified a tendency for
newspapers to contain more thematic coverage than other forms of media.
Episodic and thematic framing. Overall, the study's findings related to episodic and
thematic framing confirmed the role of these types of framing in focusing on issues at the
individual or system levels. Because this study identified dominant episodic frames as those with
rich narratives about individuals impacted by child maltreatment, the findings were expected that
most news articles were episodically framed while most longer feature stories and
opinions/editorials were thematically framed, since the latter are less focused strictly on news
and allow for greater detail and context about larger systemic issues. Similarly, it is not
surprising that stories focused solely on neglect were significantly more likely to be episodically
framed while stories including both neglect and abuse were more likely to be thematically
framed, since thematic coverage addressing larger systemic child welfare issues is likely to
address child maltreatment as a whole instead of just neglect. In addition, the finding that articles
addressing legal charges, imprisonment and court involvement for perpetrators of maltreatment
were significantly more likely to use episodic framing is expected since those consequences are
most often discussed in the context of individual cases.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
50
As was mentioned earlier, long-term child consequences of maltreatment were
infrequently reported in articles in this study, but when they were, the articles were significantly
more likely to use a dominant thematic frame. Also, nearly half of the contributing factors and all
but one of the systemic factors examined in the articles in this study were significantly more
likely to be thematically framed. These findings confirm the importance of using thematic frames
in the news—such frames help the reader understand the larger societal context in which child
maltreatment occurs and thus encourages more community-level action to prevent maltreatment
and minimize its impact when it occurs.
Altogether, the results of this study can help child welfare professionals understand how
child neglect is portrayed to the public and help media professionals understand ways in which
those portrayals could be improved. In particular, it is clear that greater reporting accuracy is
needed regarding certain facts of child neglect cases. In addition, more context is needed in
media reports on child neglect to describe the factors that contribute to maltreatment and the
societal role to address it. Professionals who work with children and families and the
organizations in which they work are well suited to provide those facts and context. More formal
opportunities for collaboration between child welfare organizations and the media could improve
child neglect reporting—the Journalism Center on Children and Families
(www.journalismcenter.org) is one such example. While some of this study's findings show
promise regarding the systemic factors addressed in thematically-framed articles, there are many
improvements that could be made to child neglect reporting to increase the public's
understanding and support for community and societal-level changes to address child
maltreatment.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
51
CONCLUSION
Child neglect is a much more common form of maltreatment than child abuse, but it
receives less attention in the media, and thus, is not well understood by the public. There are
several different types of neglect, which broadly involve the parent or caregiver's failure to
provide basic needs or protect the child from harm, and each has the potential to impact children
just as negatively as abuse. In order to improve formal services and informal supports for
children and families at risk for neglect, it is important to examine the public's understanding of
the issues surrounding child neglect—one way to do so is to study media portrayals of neglect.
According to agenda setting theory, the stories the media choose to cover can influence which
issues the public considers important. In addition, theories regarding episodic and thematic
framing (i.e., whether stories are told from an individual or societal level) indicate the need to
examine the causes, consequences and related factors the media address within the stories they
tell about child neglect.
Because little research exists on media portrayals of child neglect, this study sought to
analyze coverage of child neglect in the news to determine the accuracy of reporting on the
subject and describe differences in episodic and thematic framing of the topic. The purpose of
this study was to contribute to the knowledge base on media coverage of child welfare-related
issues in order to identify ways to improve coverage and, eventually, improve public
understanding of child neglect and increase support for societal-level interventions to address the
issue.
A content analysis was performed of two regional newspapers and two national
newspapers from geographically diverse locations using a constructed week sample of articles
published during federal fiscal years 2009 through 2011 (October 1, 2008, through September
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
52
30, 2011). Data was collected on dominant episodic and thematic framing of the articles as well
as within several high-level areas of analysis, including maltreatment type, child and perpetrator
consequences, contributing factors and systemic issues related to child maltreatment.
Among the major findings, this study identified some accuracy in media reports of child
neglect, particularly in the areas of family members as perpetrators and types of maltreatment
that contribute to child fatalities. However, certain aspects of child neglect were misrepresented:
child fatalities were grossly over-reported in comparison to statistics on the rate of occurrence;
non-family members as perpetrators were depicted too frequently; and the consequences for
perpetrators of child neglect were portrayed as more serious than those commonly faced by
parents and families involved in cases of child maltreatment. National newspapers were
somewhat more likely to use a dominant thematic frame than regional newspapers, and overall,
thematically-framed articles more frequently mentioned long-term child consequences of
maltreatment, contributing factors to maltreatment and systemic factors related to the larger child
welfare system that serves at-risk children and families.
One of this study's key limitations is the lack of a second coder to analyze the articles and
confirm the reliability of the data and results. In addition, time constraints precluded the analysis
of more articles and/or more years of newspaper coverage, which could strengthen the study's
findings. Similarly, since only four newspapers were included in the study, the selection of
different national or regional newspapers for the study would have likely resulted in different
findings or possible areas of analysis.
Because the study of communications related to child welfare is relatively new, there are
numerous possibilities for variations of or improvements upon this study for future research.
First and foremost, a more focused study of the media's episodic and thematic framing of child
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
53
neglect stories that digs deeper into the nuances of the issues experienced by at-risk families
could result in a specific set of suggestions to help media professionals more accurately report
such situations. In addition, it is unclear why certain types of maltreatment, such as failure to
protect and endangerment due to substance use, were more likely to be episodically framed; an
analysis of media coverage of each maltreatment type may be helpful to individuals working
with families affected by those types of maltreatment. Although this study did not identify useful
information regarding depictions of blame in specific incidents of child neglect, such a study
could help inform the public's beliefs regarding not only who is to blame, but how those
individuals should be treated in society. Finally, this study only included newspaper coverage—
studying depictions of child neglect in magazines, trade publications, films, or different types of
television programs could provide a wealth of additional information on the public's
understanding of and support for this issue.
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
54
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FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
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APPENDIX
Codebook
Finalized March 23, 2012
Y = 1, N = 0
---Section A—Article Details
ID: [3 digits]
Newspaper
1 New York Times
2 Washington Post
3 Houston Chronicle
4 San Jose Mercury News
Pub Date: [dd-mmm-yy]
Day of Week
1 Monday
2 Tuesday
3 Wednesday
4 Thursday
5 Friday
6 Saturday
7 Sunday
Word Count: [2-4 digits]
Type
1 News
2 Opinion/Editorial
3 Feature/Lifestyle
YN
Reports a Specific Case / potential case of abuse/neglect
YN
EPISODIC: Rich narrative that is heavily focused solely on individuals involved with
the case
YN
THEMATIC: Rich narrative that heavily discusses larger systemic / societal issues
related to maltreatment
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
62
Section B—Type of Abuse or Neglect
YN
YN
YN
Reports a Specific Abuse/Neglect Type
Mentions General Abuse
Mentions General Neglect
[Mentions any of the following specific types of abuse/neglect]
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
Abandoning (i.e., custody; leaving the child with the intent not to return or resume care)
Leaving unsupervised / home alone
Leaving in a car
"Locking up" (i.e., chained; in a closet; not allowing contact with outside world)
Not providing basic needs (food/nutrition, shelter, clothing, hygiene)
Endangering due to domestic violence
Endangering due to substance abuse (drunk driving w/child; harm while parent is drunk;
in utero exposure)
Inadequate supervision (With the child, but distracted, asleep, or not tending closely;
Being incapable of caring for a child)
Failure to protect from harm or exposure to hazards (Putting child in dangerous situation
(besides DV / SA), e.g., in the presence of guns, in middle of fight, with dangerous
person)
Emotional rejection; Not providing affection, emotional support or guidance; emotionally
isolating
Failing to enroll in school / homeschool; ignoring special education needs; permitting
truancy
Delaying or denying recommended health care / not tending to health needs
YN
YN
YN
Physical abuse, direct contact causing physical harm
Sexual abuse
Emotional / verbal abuse (constant criticism, threats)
YN
--
Other
Input field
YN
YN
Just Neglect
Neglect + Abuse
YN
YN
YN
YN
Section C—Child Consequences
YN
Are any child consequences mentioned?
YN
YN
YN
Fatality
Physical harm, malnutrition, poor health
Cognitive / Intellectual delays, poor academic performance
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
YN
YN
YN
Emotional / Relational, psychological, depression, difficulty forming relationships or
secure attachments
Behavioral / Conduct disorders, delinquent behavior
Child is unharmed, minimally harmed but going to be ok
Section D—Perpetrator
YN
Does the article specify the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim?
YN
YN
YN
-YN
-YN
Mother
Father
Other Family Member
Input notes
Non-Family Member
Input notes
Behavioral / Conduct disorders, delinquent behavior
Section E—Contributing Factors
YN
Does the article mention any possible issues experienced by the perpetrator or
contributing factors to abuse or neglect?
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
--
Substance abuse
Domestic violence
Mental health
Stress
Poverty or low-income
Homeless
Unemployed
History of abuse
Young
Inexperienced, limited parenting knowledge
No access to child care or support
Child with disabilities or other problems that contributed to perpetrator’s actions
Other
Input notes
Section F—Reason
YN
Does the article state or imply the reason for the abuse or neglect?
YN
YN
Implied or stated accident, no fault to parent or caregiver
Implied intent or purposeful fault
63
FRAMING CHILD NEGLECT
YN
64
Both sides are depicted, making it unclear if the abuse/neglect was accidental or
intentional
Section G—Perpetrator/Family Consequences
YN
Does the article describe the consequences facing the perpetrator and/or the resulting
impact on the family?
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
Legal action—charges
Legal action—imprisonment
In court / going to court
Child welfare / child protective services is involved with the family and/or investigating
Child was removed from the caregiver and placed in foster care or with a relative
Other support services are being provided to the parent or family (beyond investigation)
Section H—Systemic Factors
YN
Does the article go beyond the individual case to discuss larger systemic issues?
YN
Discussion of how programming for families works, how to improve it or what went
wrong
Funding programming for families, Budgets
Prevention of maltreatment or fatalities (support services, parent education, home
visiting)
Raise awareness of children’s issues with those uninformed, or at a higher level
Role of community members and social support in families' lives; Involvement of
community in a case
Statistics
Contact for how to report, where to go for help, how to help others
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN
YN