The 'social tsunami': Media coverage of child abuse in Malaysia's English-language newspapers in 2010

Since the early 1990s, Malaysian society has displayed a deepening concern over steady increases in reported cases of child abuse in the country. For many Malaysians, knowledge of this issue comes from the mainstream media. This research analyses media coverage of child abuse in two mainstream English-language daily newspapers throughout 2010. The analysis focuses on how this issue is presented and 'framed' in the media. Through the use of simple episodic framing and a distorted focus on extreme cases of child abuse, media coverage internationally obscures the reality of child abuse as it occurs within the context of contemporary social, cultural, religious or political systems. This hinders any genuine understanding of the problem, leading to flawed solutions. We find these international patterns largely replicated in Malaysia. Furthermore, gendered socialization processes in Malaysia make women and mothers principally responsible for family life and there is a tendency to blame and punish mothers for child abuse even when they are not the perpetrators. Internationally, child welfare experts and academics have advised the media to focus reporting on the underlying causes of abuse so that the issue can be better understood and addressed and this advice is pertinent for Malaysia today

Displaced mothers: Birth and resettlement, gratitude and complaint

In narratives of displaced Karen women from Burma, both before and after resettlement in Australia, women framed their birthing experiences with those of persecution and displacement. Although grateful for the security of resettlement in Australia, social inclusion was negligible and women's birthing experiences occurred in that context. Women described the impact of the lack of interpreting services in Australian hospitals and an absence of personal and communal care that they expected. Frequently, this made straightforward births confusing or difficult, and exacerbated the distress of more complicated births. Differences in individual responses related to women's histories, with younger women displaying more preparedness to complain and identify discrimination. The problems identified with health care, coupled with the inability of many of the women to complain requires attention, not just within the health-care system, but more widely as part of social attitudes concerning Australia's obligations to those who seek asylum

A qualitative study of the health experience of gypsy travellers in the UK with a focus on terminal illness

Aim To understand the experience of terminal care and health care access for Gypsy Travellers, to inform palliative and primary care service provision. Background Little contemporary research of UK English Romany Gypsy Travellers is available. This ethnic group is often overlooked in ethnic minority health research. Methods Access to Gypsy Traveller communities was through non-health care channels and required the development of trust through repeated contact over time. English Romany Gypsy Travellers at two Traveller sites participated in face-to-face contacts. Data collection was through field observation and seven semistructured interviews with Gypsy Traveller women who had experience of caring for relatives who were dying. In addition, data were collected over two years through discussion in a members-only Gypsy and Traveller interest e-mail forum. Findings The culture of Gypsy Travellers is distinct but diverse. Hygiene is important as is discretion and sensitivity to the information requirements of the patient and family. Gypsy Travellers are aware that their mobility (voluntary or enforced) can negatively impact on health care. Home care for the terminally ill is often preferred to hospital care often due to poor understanding of their cultural and personal needs by health care professionals and due to an aversion to ‘bricks and mortar’. Care may be provided by the extended family. Palliative care provision should consider the needs of Gypsy Travellers including respect for their culture and support for caring at home

Good mothers, bad mothers: motherhood, modernity and politics in representations of child abuse in Malaysia's English-language newspapers

This paper reports on an analysis of representations of child abuse in English-language newspapers in Malaysia. Certain media images of mothers recur: bad mothers who are unable to protect their children; and good mothers, who are feminine representatives of a maternalised national government which is charged with interceding on behalf of abused children. Mothers implicated in child abuse are harshly judged by the maternalist regime. Our findings resonate with previous feminist analyses of child abuse but manifest differently in a non-Western, non-Christian context. In Malaysia, motherhood plays a crucial role in nationalist political culture; women and mothers carry increasing economic, social and political burdens in the rapidly modernising state. Fathers are largely marginal or absent in media reporting of child abuse, while mothers are represented as fully responsible for the care of children, particularly when problems occur. The media's blaming of child abuse on social changes while valorising traditional families reflects a conservative, patriarchal perspective, occluding discussion of the contexts of child abuse and thus mitigating against comprehensive solutions

"Here nobody holds your heart": Metaphoric and embodied emotions of birth and displacement among Karen women in Australia

Our objective was to explore the ways in which displaced Karen mothers expressed emotions in narrative accounts of motherhood and displacement. We contextualized and analyzed interview data from an ethnographic study of birth and emotions among 15 displaced Karen mothers in Australia. We found that women shared a common symbolic language to describe emotions centered on the heart, which was also associated with heart "problems." This, along with hypertension, collapsing, or a feeling of surrender were associated responses to extremely adverse events experienced as displaced peoples. A metaphoric schema of emotional terms centered on the heart was connected to embodied expressions of emotion related to illness of the heart. This and other embodied responses were reactions to overwhelming difficulties and fear women endured due to their exposure to political conflict and global inequity

Attitudes and Perceptions of Young Men towards Gender Equality and Violence in Timor-Leste

This article examines attitudes and perceptions of young men toward gender relations and gender-based violence in post-conflict Timor-Leste. A high level of domestic violence is reported and a law against domestic violence has been passed in recent years. In 2013, a research team surveyed almost 500 young men using the Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) Scale in both rural and urban contexts. It was found that young men become less gender equitable as they get older, and the environment they grow up in influences their gender attitudes. Existing contradictions and tensions between national government policy and local customary practices are well-known, and these are reflected in young men’s acceptance of general principles of gender equality, which is unmatched by their willingness to accept more equitable gender relations in their own lives. Of concern was the level of young men’s acceptance of sexual harassment and forced sex. Mechanisms are required to influence young men’s attitudes to gender equality and intimate partner relations in school programs and other arenas as a priority

Portrayals of Child Abuse Scandals in the Media in Australia and England: Impacts on Practice, Policy, and Systems

This article describes how the media have played a key role in placing the issue of child maltreatment and the problems associated with child protection high on public and political agendas over the last 50 years. It also describes how the influence of the media is far from unambiguous. Although the media has been crucial in bringing the problems into the open, it often does so in particular ways. In being so concerned with scandals and tragedies ∗ Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bob Lonne, School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 4059, Australia. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected]. in a variety of institutionalized and community settings, the media have portrayed the nature of child maltreatment in ways which deflect attention from many of its core characteristics and causes. A focus on the media is important because of the power the media have to help transform the private into the public, but at the same time, to undermine trust, reputation, and legitimacy of the professionals working in the field. This concern is key for those working in the child protection field and has been a source of tension in public policy in both Australia and England for many years

Observation of Electron Neutrino Appearance in the NuMI Beam with the NOvA Experiment

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Physics, 2015NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that uses two functionally identical detectors separated by 810 kilometers at locations 14 milliradians o -axis from the NuMI muon neutrino beam at Fermilab. At these locations the beam energy peaks at 2 GeV. This baseline is the longest in the world for an accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiment, which enhances the sensitivity to the neutrino mass ordering. The experiment studies oscillations of the muon neutrino and anti-neutrino beam that is produced. Both detectors completed commissioning in the summer of 2014 and continue to collect data. One of the primary physics goals of the experiment is the measurement of electron neutrino appearance in the muon neutrino beam which yields measurements of the oscillation parameters $\sin^{2}2\theta_{13}$, $\delta$, and the neutrino mass ordering within the standard model of neutrino oscillations. This thesis presents the analysis of data collected between February 2014 and May 2015, corresponding to $3.52\times 10^{20}$ protons-on-target. In this first analysis NOvA recorded 6 electron neutrino candidates which is a $3.3\sigma$ observation of electron neutrino appearance. The T2K experiment performs the same measurement on a baseline of 295 kilometers and has a $1~\sigma$ preference for the normal mass ordering over the inverted ordering over the phase space of the CP violating parameter $\delta$, which is also weakly seen in the NOvA result. By the summer of 2016 NOvA will triple its statistics due to increased beam power and a completed detector. If electron neutrinos continue to be observed at the current rate NOvA will be able to establish a mass ordering preference at a similar confidence level to T2K

People Read as Muslim: A New Framework for Understanding Anti-Muslim Harassment

This paper analyzes 172 interviews collected in the summer of 2016 in San Antonio about how the religion of Islam was being talked about during the presidential election. Eighty-six out of the 172 respondents identified as a person of color and/or Muslim. Of those, 19 experienced anti-Muslim discrimination. However, I demonstrate that the people who experienced discrimination were not in fact always Muslim. Black men and non-hijab wearing White women, were able to avoid discrimination by passing or covering as non-Muslims either naturally or through altering their appearance. Sikh men who wear a turban, non-Muslim Arabs and Indians, were read as Muslim and therefore endured anti-Muslim discrimination. I argue that these people were transformed into racialized subjects, which made them vulnerable to physical and verbal discrimination from their fellow citizens. This had four significant impacts on their everyday lived realities, including: misidentification, fear of violence, altering one’s life, and stripping people read as Muslim of their cultural citizenship. This research demonstrates that we need to reconceptualize anti-Muslim discrimination as a new example of color-blind racism that includes people read as Muslim and excludes Muslims who pass as non-Muslim