South African media need to move away from event-based coverage of gender-based violence (GBV) and report stories with context, compassion and survivor-centred ethics.
This is the message from North West University (NWU) master’s graduate Elsje-Marié Language-Jordaan, who recently completed a study analysing how GBV was reported in the media during the 16 Days of Activism campaign, from October 14 2023 to January 21 2024.
Speaking to TimesLIVE, Language-Jordaan said her research stemmed from a desire to raise awareness about GBV.
“I wanted to focus on crime reporting and specifically the ethics of crime reporting,” she said. “I realised I had a particular crime in mind, gender-based violence, because it’s something I’m passionate about.”
Her dissertation combined social responsibility theory and postcolonial media theory to propose a new ethical framework for reporting GBV.
“At first I didn’t intend creating a framework. But after a while I realised it was what the study needed and what I feel journalism needs regarding GBV reporting.”
Language-Jordaan found GBV is often misrepresented as isolated incidents, with little effort to link these crimes to broader systemic issues. “Gender-based violence is not something that stands on its own. Our background influences it, how we were raised and how our country was shaped.”
She believes media outlets need to shift from incident-based to context-informed reporting. “If we keep on pretending it’s just a thing that happens, the audience may never fully understand the seriousness of GBV or what can be done about it.”
Language-Jordaan’s framework emphasises ethical accountability, contextual depth and survivor and community inclusion. She said while media ethics guidelines exist, they don’t go far enough. “There needs to be some sort of bigger ethical framework to guide journalists, especially young journalists, so they know what to do and they don’t do weird stuff to re-traumatise people.”
She pointed to several issues in reporting practices, including:
- a lack of trauma awareness;
- exclusion of community and survivor voices;
- little focus on prevention or structural causes; and
- disproportionate attention to so-called “ideal victims”.
“We are a lot better than we were before, but gaps remain. There’s also limited reporting on violence against men or the queer community. Emotional abuse, for example, is often not recognised as GBV even though it is.”
Language-Jordaan warned short deadlines and limited newsroom resources often led to superficial, decontextualised coverage.
“The news doesn’t stand still in an online media environment. We need to get the news out and in that process we don’t necessarily take time to add context.”
Her advice for journalists: “Remember you are dealing with real people. We should report on these matters with compassion and responsibility. The story you tell could be what helps someone or helps the nation wake up to the seriousness of the issue.”
Language-Jordaan believes a simple but effective change could begin with the inclusion of disclaimers, background context and helpline information in GBV stories.
“You’re not going to have the entire South African history with every story, but sometimes just adding something such as, ‘this community has a history of GBV or poor police response’, can go a long way.
“If we do so with compassion and responsibility, I think we can make a real difference in how the country views GBV.”
TimesLIVE
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