Representations of social responsibility: Complicating news stories of maternal neglect/abuse.

摘要

The lives, choices, circumstances, and histories of women charged with neglect of their children are complicated; however, existing social narratives crying for and justifying their punishment usually are not. These social discourses function to deflect attention away from more social or collective understandings about crime and its roots, and also away from the reality that "neglectful" or "abusive" parents are almost always mothers---who themselves are almost always poor and of color. This dissertation attempts to expose the individualist ideology that permeates one specific social discourse on crime---in news stories about failure to protect. Its aim is to look critically at the ways in which this ideology functions differently in media generated stories about child neglect. It begins with the assumption that race, class and gender each, and in combination, influence the ways in which news stories are written and that these representations---those that reify cultural notions of deviant, evil mothers and those that forgive well-meaning fathers---have both philosophical and material effects. This dissertation has four objectives. The first is to document the powerful social discourse on crime and responsibility that permeates U.S. culture through the media, and positions individual mothers---but not fathers---as exclusively responsible for the welfare of their children. Second, although it is true that all women---across racial and ethnic groups---are held accountable, this work argues that dominantly constructed notions about femininity and idealized cultural versions of motherhood affect mainstream media representations of white and black mothers. Third, this dissertation is an attempt to speak back to a body of communications and criminology research that assumes master narratives and public narratives are virtually unmovable, stable and unchanging over time. Finally, recognizing the multifaceted nature of even the most narrow of master narratives, this dissertation calls for a more complex understanding of media "master messages"; while news stories representing mothers charged with neglect differ in style and content depending, in part, on the defendant's race and class, their fundamental task remains the same: to isolate women in criminal blame and to justify their punishment.