IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v37y2014icp55-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diffusing responsibility: A case study of child sexual abuse in popular discourse

Author

Listed:
  • Miller, Susan L.
  • Hefner, M. Kristen
  • Leon, Chrysanthi S.

Abstract

Popular discourse provides a window into predominant social beliefs. To assess predominant beliefs about child sexual abuse, this exploratory, descriptive study examines the discourse surrounding a high-profile child abuse case that involved over 100 victims and culminated in the arrest of a well-known Delaware pediatrician in 2009. The Dr. Earl Bradley case, dominated local news media for more than a year. Online comments from the state's primary newspaper were collected and analyzed to identify themes. Coding analysis found that popular discourse overwhelmingly explained the abuse as the fault of the victims' parents, putatively, the mothers. Commenters engaged in direct blaming of parents, thus, at least to some extent, shifting blame from the offender and the institutional systems that failed to adequately react to the allegations of abuse to the victims' parents. Newspaper comments also demonstrated social distancing which, in addition to the comments attributing blame to the parents, served to excuse and distract from the responsibility of authority figs. or structural change. Although comments that defended parents did appear, these instances were far less frequent than comments blaming the parents, which illustrates a trend to individualize rather than activate collective challenges, therefore putting the onus on victims to police the powerful. Overall, institutional malfeasance eclipsed the well-being of children, and public commentary displayed an implicitly gendered parent-bashing, diminishing the responsibility of the professionals.

Suggested Citation

  • Miller, Susan L. & Hefner, M. Kristen & Leon, Chrysanthi S., 2014. "Diffusing responsibility: A case study of child sexual abuse in popular discourse," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 55-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:55-63
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.12.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740913003897
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.12.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:55-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.