Framing of Child Sexual Abuse Cases in Print Media of Pakistan

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to examine how mainstream newspapers of Pakistan are framing child sexual abuse in an ethical or unethical manner. Print media is one of the most widely accessed forms of Pakistan and child sexual abuse is one of the major taboo issues talked about in the media in recent times. It is the responsibility of news media to deliver this news to the audience objectively. For this purpose, content analysis of three mainstream newspapers of Pakistan was conducted purposively. SPSS statistics is used for testing and analyzing the data. The results revealed that the first hypothesis had been supported, that Print Media of Pakistan does frame characteristics of Child Sexual Abuse cases in an unethical manner. Print Media of Pakistan does not report Child Sexual Abuse cases more unethically in thematic stories than episodic ones. The result revealed that hypothesis had not been supported because whether episodic or thematic, media reports unethically. The third hypothesis is supported which means that Print Media of Pakistan does frame Victims of Child Sexual Abuse Information unethically more than the Abuser’s information. That is statistically at 3.017*, which is a significant 0.00.