Changing Media Coverage of Violence Against Women: The role of individual cases and individual journalists

Abstract

This article reports on recent research on some of the factors that may have led to changes in the way journalists report Violence Against Women (VAW) in Australia. Until recently, VAW has been largely reported by focusing on seemingly isolated events, rather than reporting VAW as a social problem, which has complex causes and requires a society-wide response. We report here on intensive interviews in two Australian newsrooms, both of which made decisions to campaign for social change on the issue of VAW. Two major themes that were evident in the interviews were, first, the influence of individual cases and, secondly, the important role of individual journalists and editors in driving coverage..