By Myrica Hawker

Most people's views on domestic violence are determined by media coverage, and how journalists frame the stories affects these views. Utah newspaper coverage of domestic violence is not acknowledging these incidents are actually domestic violence and is perpetuating myths about this social problem, according to recent research.

Cathy Ferrand Bullock, assistant professor in the Utah State University department of journalism and communication, presented her analysis of her recent study of domestic violence coverage in Utah newspapers on Wednesday in the TSC West Colony Room. Her study looked at April 1, 2002, to March 31, 2003.

Twenty-two of Utah's community and daily newspapers had articles included in the study, but 94 percent of the articles were in six newspapers -- The Salt Lake Tribune, The Deseret News, The (Ogden) Standard Examiner, The (Provo) Daily Herald, The (St. George) Spectrum and The (Logan) Herald Journal. The study used a specific definition of domestic violence, which limited it to "abuse involving people who are or have been romantically involved with each other."

This definition matched 735 articles, comprising 117 individual domestic violence cases.

The study attempted to answer three questions—Did coverage acknowledge the incident involved domestic violence? Did coverage portray domestic violence misconceptions? How does Utah coverage compare to Washington coverage? (Bullock did a similar study in Washington in 1998 of 160 newspapers.)

Bullock said there was a variety of cases in the Utah articles, with 75.2 percent men killing women, 15.4 percent women killing men, 3.4 percent men killing men, 0.9 percent women killing women and 5.1 percent of other types.

Bullock said she expected a higher percentage of men killing women, more like 90 to 95 percent. Some of the women killing men cases were labeled self defense. The same gender murders involved cases such as an ex-girlfriend killing a current girlfriend. An example of an "other" case is the father taking his two daughters for visitation, calling their mother and then killing the girls with the mother listening.

The answer to whether the coverage acknowledged that the incident involved domestic violence is basically no, Bullock said. The label of domestic violence was used in 27.9 percent of the articles, 3.1 percent used the term "abuse," 27.5 percent made it clear in the headline package the story involved domestic violence and 68.2 percent made this clear by the end of the lead.

Bullock also looked for six clues the article was talking about domestic violence—discussion of past problems in the relationship, mention of a protection order, description of psychological abuse, domestic violence was contextualized, the perpetrator was said to be an abuser of people other than the victim or the perpetrator was labeled a victim because the victim was abusive. Just over one- fourth of the articles included one of these six clues, Bullock said.

The second question to be answered was if the coverage portrayed domestic violence misconceptions. The misconception of the domestic violence incident being an isolated event, not part of a pattern of abuse between the people, was supported in the Utah coverage. For example, only 16.6 percent of the articles mentioned past problems in the relationship. Another misconception, also supported in the coverage, was domestic violence deaths are portrayed as isolated homicides, not part of a larger social problem.

The misconception of domestic violence only involving physical abuse and not both physical and psychological abuse was supported because only 5.6 percent labeled or even described psychological abuse.

"The coverage portrays the problem just in terms of physical abuse," Bullock said, "and that's a no-brainer, somebody's dead."

Roughly one-third of the articles gave the perpetrator some sort of excuse or motivation, such as drug and alcohol use or separation and divorce.

What Bullock said was "finally some good news" is the victim was blamed for the incident in just under 13 percent of the articles, which Bullock said is still too much but not very high.

The misconception that society is to blame was only partially portrayed in the coverage, mentioned in 3 percent of articles.

Bullock said this support of misconceptions in the coverage gives readers an incomplete picture of domestic violence, with not much attention given to what the victim is experiencing and very little about the general picture of domestic violence.

Bullock then compared the coverage in Utah and Washington. She paired down the Utah database so it was comparable with the articles used in the Washington study. This left 415 Utah articles, compared with 230 Washington articles—which is interesting because Utah only has between 65 and 70 newspapers, while Washington has 160.

Neither state's coverage openly acknowledged that the incident was domestic violence, developed the problem of domestic violence in the story or made it evident this is what was going on through descriptions. Coverage in both states portrayed the misconceptions, but Utah coverage was less likely to offer the perpetrator an excuse.

Bullock said she didn't see the coverage changing between a first day story and a follow-up story weeks or months later, which is a problem because Bullock said follow-up stories should dig deeper into the problem of domestic violence.

If we're interested in a more realistic picture of domestic violence such as the victim's experience, a mention of the incident as part of a larger social problem or a suggestion of resources for domestic violence victims, the coverage is falling short in both states.

"So I think there's some cause for concern, but there's also reason for hope," Bullock said.

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