Do News Articles on Rape and Sexual Assault Perpetuate Social Inequalities?

• In Event: Rape, Social Inequalities, and Media Coverage

Abstract

News media coverage of rape and sexual assault has the ability to influence public opinion of victims and perpetrators based on the manner in which such instances are reported. By extension, news media coverage may also perpetuate social inequalities by emphasizing characteristics of the victim or perpetrator, such as their race or socio-economic class, in particular rape narratives and not others. For example, news coverage may tend to emphasize the brutality of a stranger rape when the victim is white and the perpetrator is black. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether newspaper articles on rape and sexual assault published in The New York Times between 1950 and 2010 perpetuate these social inequalities. Specifically, this paper will explore whether rape narratives vary across the race and class of the victim-offender dyad and the extent to which this variation has changed over time. The results from this research will explicate how victim and perpetrator characteristics may affect news coverage of rape and sexual assault.

Authors

• Tiffaney Tomlinson, Florida State University

• Jennifer M. Brown, Florida State University

• Ashley Rubin, University of Toronto

• Ted Chiricos, Florida State University