Recent criminological scholarship characterizes media attention to aggressive
girls, or “mean girls,” as a moral panic, which is correlated with the creation of
increasingly punitive antibullying policies in North America. Content analysis was used
to uncover how news attention to youth aggression around the time of Reena Virk’s
murder contributed to this moral panic in Toronto newspapers. Results indicate that
Virk’s murder helped change the frequency and nature of news coverage of girls’
bullying. Reporting on girls’ bullying significantly increased and the dominant news
frame falsely presented girls’ bullying as a major and rising problem in schools. The
news coverage coincided with the development of more punitive Canadian youth
policies. Recommendations for future research, theoretical development, and media
practice are provided. / UOIT
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OOSHDU.10155/203 |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
| Creators | Fyfe, Alison |
| Contributors | DeKeseredy, Walter |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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