published_or_final_version / Literary Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This research explores the dominant meanings arising from British newspaper reportage of sexual violence directed at children. The research employs a quantitative and qualitative analysis to answer the following questions: What are the dimensions of child sexual abuse that are covered? How do the media cover these (e.g. as straight news, editorials, opinion columns)? How are offenders and victims portrayed? What sources are cited in stories? What explanations are offered about the occurrence of child sexual abuse? The objective is to: (a) describe the content of press reportage about child sexual abuse through quantitative and qualitative content analysis and; (b) explain the nature of that content in terms of better understanding journalism as a producer of meanings, specifically in relation to coverage of child sexual abuse. In simultaneously identifying and comparing news coverage, the research attempts to articulate the political and ideological functions of language in newspaper coverage of child sexual abuse. It also attempts to develop explanations for the discursive representation of child sexual abuse in the British press, linking news discourse on sexual offending against children to the journalistic practices in news production, the profile of the profession as well as broader prevailing socio-political ideologies about the family, offending, childhood and risks faced by children. A close and systematic analysis of news texts is important to understanding the role of the media in the production of meanings about such a social problems.

This investigation of the origins and impact of the 'new reportage' in the '30s interrogates the 'dominant tradition' of documentary, i.e. an 'objective' recording of facts and historical events, by reconstructing an alternative 'broken' tradition of radical reporting which was both 'counterfactual' and criticised the status of documents (including photographs and film) as privileged forms of realistic representation. The implications of Russian Formalist 'defamiliarization' led to an avant-garde 'literature of fact' in the USSR and Weimar Germany, inspired by John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World, with the potential not only to represent suppressed facts but to subvert 'automatized' concepts, thus challenging official paradigms defining historically significant data and putting the model of reality constructed by dominant ideology under strain, as the work of the LEF group and Egon Erwin Kisch shows. The new reportage was self- consciously mediating and 'bared its devices', often using montage to expose the construetedness of discourses. Hence the thesis maps the growth of a parallel alternative reportage in '30s Britain which did not simply resuscitate the realistic project of Naturalism but built on the Modernist legacy, examining in detail the work of Orwell, Sommerfield, Priestley, and Hanley among others. The thesis focuses on prose forms of reportage, from individual I-witnessing in articles and autobiographies, to 'participant observation', documentary novels, encyclopaedism, Mass-Observation and photojournalism, outlining the historical and cultural factors which gave reportage literary prominence at the time, as well as issues, such as unemployment, poverty and Appeasement, which it represented. Consequently, it explores the ways and means by which new reporters expressed their awareness of connections between political and cultural representation, in order to question authorized representations of fact and the sanctioned national self-image.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Erlangen-Nürnberg--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 447-483. Notes bibliogr. Index.

Politics and literature are two central aspects in the work of Egon Erwin Kisch. His experiences during his brief but intense visit to Australia - from November 1934 to March 1935 ?? as an antifascist and pacifist activist/ writer in exile, led to a renewed reflection on the function of literature generally, and of the specific genre of Reportage in particular. The concept of reportage presented by Kisch in his speech at the Paris Congress ?? For the Defence of Culture?? (1935) was formulated as a direct consequence of his Australian Tour. The aim of the thesis is to analyse Kisch??s Australian Landfall in two different discourses: a historical and a literary one. The objective of the historical discourse is to examine the political relevance of the ??Kisch Case?? with regard to its impact on Australian society: the Commonwealth government??s refusal to allow Kisch to enter Australia as a speaker at the Melbourne ?? Congress against War and Fascism??, and its subsequent prosecution of Kisch as an illegal immigrant following his celebrated ??landfall?? ( a jump overboard in the port of Melbourne) became the focus of political, legal and media controversy that produced a vigorous, if short- lived culture of protest. The Kisch visit polarized Australian society and made apparent a number of internal political and socio-cultural contradictions. The focus of the literary discourse is on Kisch??s concept of Reportage which underwent significant changes due to his experiences in Australia and as a result of the difficulties in writing about events that he witnessed not only as an interested, but passionate observer and researcher, but also as a central character and actor in a very personal political drama. The analysis acknowledges the dominant writing strategies, notably the hybrid generic form of reportage, travel writing and autobiographical narrative. Kisch??s collection of reportages is remarkable also because of its innovative contribution to Australian historiography, an achievement that has been overlooked in existing Kisch scholarship. The thesis breaks new ground by reevaluating ??Landung in Australien?? as a significant contribution to the work of one of the Weimar Republic??s most important authors.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Akademisk avhandling--Stockholm, 1992. / Résumé en anglais. Bibliogr. p. 407-418.