Media Coverage of Girls’ Violence: A Comparative Analysis of Canada and the United States

• In Event: Media and Narrative Analyses of Women and Girls' Behavior

Abstract

Feminist criminologists have called attention to the fascination of the news media with deviant girls and resulting moral panic. As a result of the growing proportion of girls in arrest and juvenile court statistics, the news media has searched for explanations as to why girls are “suddenly” vicious. Despite a few studies that focus on gendered constructions of violent girls by the media in individual countries, no study, to date, has comparatively examined media explanations of female youth crime longitudinally and cross-nationally. The present research fills this gap through a content analysis of Canadian and US media accounts of girls’ violence from 1980 through 2016. Through an analysis of articles published in major news outlets, we provide the first cross-national empirical examination of the coverage of girls’ violence in in top-circulating Canadian and US newspapers. Using an intersectional lens, we compare how girls’ violence is framed, including the explanations given for a supposed rise in violence among girls and how experts frame the situation. Focusing on the larger socio-political and economic contexts of girls’ offending, we critique the failures of news media to move beyond simplistic and individualistic explanations for crime among Canadian and American girls.

Authors

• Tia Stevens Andersen, University of South Carolina

• Jennifer Silcox, Dalhousie University