Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) 2024 Conference
The Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) 2024 Conference will be held in Montreal.
Professor Jordan, Professor Shariff, and Dr. Christopher Dietzel will give a presentation titled “Constructing Violence: the Israel/Gaza ‘war’”. Research assistants Karen Andrews and Safeera Jaffer will give a presentation titled “Powerful Yet Disempowered: A Thematic Literature Review Exploring Challenges of Canadian Journalists' Reporting on Sexual Violence”.
Abstract for “Constructing Violence: the Israel/Gaza ‘war’”:
This paper draws on research that we have conducted over the past 6 years on the iMPACTS project based at McGill University. Led by Professor Shaheen Shariff, iMPACTS is a multi-year, multi-million dollar Partnership Grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The overarching goal of iMPACTS is to unearth, dismantle, and prevent sexual violence within universities and, ultimately, in society, through evidence- based research that informs sustainable curriculum and policy change. With its focus on sexual violence, iMPACTS has been driven by three inter-related domains: 1. EDUCATION, LAW, AND POLICY: The education, law, and policy domain of iMPACTS examines sexual violence at universities through several lenses – educational, administrative, and legal. The aim is for institutions of higher education to be equipped with an improved understanding of their legal obligations, roles, and responsibilities. Specifically, there are three overarching objectives: To reclaim the role of universities in educating their own communities and greater society on the value of sustainable models to prevent and reduce sexual violence. To bring students and multi-sector partners together to initiate evidence-based and creative ways of informing administrative and curriculum policies on sexual violence. To expand knowledge and legal definitions of what constitutes on-campus sexual violence, given interactions that take place off-campus and online.This domain of iMPACTS has generated several projects from our university partners across Canada and our McGill student team. 2. ARTS, ACTIVISM, AND POPULAR CULTURE: This domain of iMPACTS explores a range of activist and artistic interventions and the role of the entertainment industry and popular culture, as a means to uncover the roots and effects of sexual violence at universities. Specifically, this project has two overarching objectives: To study the history and ongoing work of student activism and art interventions that promote sexual violence prevention, education, and support and encourage university social and policy changes. To investigate the role of popular culture in perpetuating, condoning, and dismissing sexual-based violence and gender-based violence at universities and in society and 3) news and social media. 3. NEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: This domain of iMPACTS analyzes how sexual and gender-based violence is portrayed across media platforms and how survivors, students, and the general public engage with this content. To raise awareness and responsible media reporting of incidents that involve sexual and gender-based violence. In addition, in terms of immediate relevancy, this paper draws on these three domains to explore how and in what ways the concept of violence has been orchestrated and deployed in the events surrounding the 2023 October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel, and Israel’s response to this attack in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. We will be interested in exploring and analysing the different ways in which the concept of violence has been construed and operationalised in mainstream and social/alternative media platforms. We will also be concerned with understanding how public debate and discussion on the conflict in Israel/Gaza has raised questions about the role the of the State in generating and deploying conceptions of violence that perpetuate western colonial-settler relations with the Global South. In making this argument, we will draw on the theoretical contributions of Raewyn Connel, Dorothy Smith, David Harvey, Vijay Prasad and others who have attempted to understand violence from the perspective of subaltern populations in the Global South.
In the years since #MeToo (2017), heightened media discourse has brought sexual harassment and assault into a greater public view and consciousness (Eckert et al., 2022). Traditional print and online media wield immense power with news stories (Bohner, 2001; Clark, 1992; Starkey et al., 2019; Sue et al., 2020). The specific ways that journalists frame their reporting around sexual violence influences audiences and can perpetuate rape myths such as victim blaming. Despite certain gains in media framing over the past decade (Aroustamian, 2020), issues surrounding sexual violence reporting not only continue but have devastating consequences (Sacks et al., 2018; Sampert, 2010). Research has also shown that the media can be proxy educators for the public around prevalent issues such as gendered violence, including sexual violence. Therefore, this paper examines the underlying tension between the advances and constraints of contemporary media reporting and training on sexual violence. This thematic literature review used key search terms on Google Scholar and relevant journals to investigate reporting practices. The theoretical framework that guided this research was critical feminist analysis, mainly through an intersectional lens. Seven major themes emerged from the findings. Firstly, we identified five major themes surrounding the products of media reporting: (1) rape culture and rape myths are still prevalent, even post #MeToo, (2) ‘linguistics of blame’ are still being used (3) sexual violence is still being framed in problematic ways, (4) intersectionality is still ignored, and (5) there is still an ongoing issue with bias in the use of sources. Related to the process of reporting about sexual violence, the findings also include how (6) journalists face significant challenges with writing about sexual violence, and (7) the practical disconnect between engagement and the existence of ethical guidelines for sexual violence reporting. We conclude that journalism has the power to shape public perception of sexual violence. Journalists require additional and meaningful support to report on these stories in ways that will dismantle rape myths rather than perpetuate them. They need trauma-informed education and gendered violence reporting training, both in school and on the job. However, we must also account for the social and economic environment. Journalists in precarious situations face pressure to churn out stories, impacting their ability to produce carefully and ethically framed stories. Based on our findings and conclusions, we argue that there are significant structural challenges to ethical reporting practices for sexual violence, and much more work must be done to resist prominent stigma and stereotypes. The issues of sexual violence and media reporting are entrenched in colonialism, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and other systems of oppression, which impact people in varying ways. Considering efforts to break through the weight and gravity of this continuum of violence, we look to journalism schools and media outlets to prioritize education and training. As such, these issues extend beyond the media sphere and into broader society. This directly connects to the 2024 CSA conference theme of challenging hate. Our shared futures and interconnectedness as human beings depend on our ability to act upon and against systems of oppression that often manifest in sexual violence.
