Unfortunately, in the more recent years, stories of sexual violence have been frequent in the media. Although these cases are reoccurrent, media outlets tend to limit their coverage to the facts. Consistently, reasons of why and how these instances happen, as well as methods of prevention, have been excluded from the articles and televised accounts. This contributes to the reoccurrence of sexual violence. However, the problem is much larger than the disregard for these components.
The diction of reporters has a significant effect on the audience's perception of sexual violence. When the language is sugarcoated, the severity of the heinous acts are minimized in the viewers' minds. Even using the term, "sexual assault", instead of "rape", has a much lighter connotation. This trivializes the impact of what has happened. Thus, the victim is invalidated, and the audience is left with a less serious impression of the incidence. In addition, the aggressor is not fully held accountable when the language understates the austerity of rape. Even neutral language has the potential to lessen the meaning. For example, Karen Baker, director of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), stated, "You might see a case about a teacher and a younger child, and its presented like they were having a sexual relationship. We need to make it clearer: Who is the responsible person?" When neutral language is utilized, it can misconstrue what actually happened. In the case of an adult teacher and a young child, clearly the adult is culpable, however, stating the story as if it were mutual, once again, lessens the severity.
Overall, this sends a message to not just males, but also females. Its sending a message that its okay to "sexually assault" a woman, or at least its not that big of a deal. It sends the same message to women, as well as that being raped is not a serious issue. Media's passive diction devalidates the grave impact of rape and other cases of sexual violence. Media outlets need to be more than just factual, they need to enforce morals as well. Media is responsible for the devaluing of sexual violence, and this perpetuates the vicious cycle of aggressive behavior. We need to send a more blatant message to not just our youth, but also the general population: any type of sexual violence is completely unacceptable and has a profound impact on victims.
PRI Article
I agree media often used substitute words to minimize the magnitude of the problem. Some articles use this way of writing to much and can confuse readers by not telling the full story. I think this way of writing should stop when it comes to serious things like rape/sexual assault.
ReplyDeleteHi, it's really Jack Galvez because his blog comments don't work. "I agree with everything you said in this article in regards to media subsidizing and substituting words to lighten the load of the problem at hand. While chosen words are eliminated in some writings to make the event less severe, I believe that that should completely stay away from stories and articles that involve sexual assault and rape because it is a serious problem in our society that shouldn't be taken lightly. If I had one question about this, I would ask, when will reporters and news sources realize that this change needs to happen?"
ReplyDeleteI really loved this, I never really thought about how even in regards to assault win the media, words are lessen to provide a more positive connotation. I find that to be very interesting and I am definitely going to be thinking about that more. Also the last paragraph: say it louder for the people in the back!:)
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the part about sexual assault vs rape. Sexual assault and rape are legal terms of art which mean different things. That's really extremely sad if people see sexual assault and aren't sad or disgusted anymore. And if saying "sexual assault" trivializes the impact, that just means that there is a disconnect between sexual violence and sexual assault and people are uneducated about what the legally defined term sexual assault actually means. It's not a euphemism, its a whole other term entirely. And that's a whole other branch on media coverage.
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