Community Responses to Family Violence
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Community responses to family violence Charting policy outcomes using novel data sources, text mining & topic modelling January 2020 Social Innovation Research Institute Swinburne University of Technology Social Innovation Swinburne University Research Institute of Technology Project SOPHIA Project team Heading Professor Jane Farmer: Project lead (Social Outcomes Dr Arezou Soltani Panah: Data science lead of Policy: Helpful Associate Professor Anthony McCosker: Intelligence & Analytics) Research design, analysis and lead author Dr Jonathan Kingsley: Project management This project was and analysis commissioned by the Zoe Teh: Research assistant Jasmine Knox: Research assistant Victorian Government, Associate Professor Amir Aryani: Data sourcing Department of Premier For inquiries and Cabinet Contact the Lead Chief Investigator, Professor Jane Farmer ([email protected]) Acknowledgements We pay respects to the traditional custodians of all the lands on which we work, and acknowledge their Elders, past, present and emerging. We would like to recognise the time and commitment of the members of the Project SOPHIA Steering Group. Thanks to Lauren Costello, Director, Outcomes and Evidence, along with Laura Portaro, Georgina Nixey and Sarah Thomas from the Department of Premier and Cabinet for their guidance, input and support. This report is released subject to a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license (License). This means, in summary, that you may reproduce, transmit and distribute the text, provided that you do not do so for commercial purposes, and provided that you attribute the extracted text to the authors of this report. You must not alter, transform or build upon the text in this publication. Your rights under the License are in addition to any fair dealing rights which you have under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). For further terms of the License, please see http:// creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ © Swinburne University of Technology, 2020 ISBN 978-1-925761-22-1 (PDF) Recommended citation McCosker, A., Farmer, J., and Soltani Panah, A. (2020) Community Responses to Family Violence: Charting Policy Outcomes using Novel Data Sources, Text Mining and Topic Modelling. Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne. Community Responses to Family Violence: 2 Charting policy outcomes Social Innovation Swinburne University Research Institute of Technology Contents Executive summary 4 1. Introduction 6 2. Background 7 2.1. Existing research and knowledge gaps 8 2.2. Social media as a source of community responses and attitudes 9 3. Research approach 10 3.1. Steps in the analysis 11 3.2. Working with policy experts 12 4. Findings and analysis 13 4.1. Overview of key findings against the Family Violence Outcomes Framework 13 4.2. Core dimensions of language used in the Royal Commission into Family Violence 16 4.3. Analysis of the public conversation in news and social media 21 4.3.1. What impact did the Royal Commission have on the public conversation? 22 4.3.2. How did news media report on family violence? 24 4.3.3. How does the community respond on social media (Twitter) 26 4.4. Analysis of influence on the public conversation over time 29 4.4.1. Influential events 29 4.4.2. Influential organisations and people 32 5. Discussion 36 5.1. Key findings and analysis 37 5.2. What’s the point and why do this research? 40 5.3. Future research agenda 41 6. Conclusions 43 Appendices 44 Endnotes 50 Social Innovation Research Institute Community Responses to Family Violence: Charting policy outcomes 3 Social Innovation Swinburne University Research Institute of Technology Executive summary However, changes to awareness and attitude It has been fve years after policy interventions for complex issues like since the Victorian Royal family violence are notoriously diffcult to demonstrate. Alternative sources of data about Commission into Family public sentiment, prominent topics of discussion Violence. Our research and infuential actors, along with new analysis techniques, offer a way to uncover and shows that although understand ‘the public conversation’ and to there are encouraging ‘watch change happen’. Our analysis of social media and news media signs, public awareness conversations between 2014 and 2018 in and attitudes change response to family violence policy in Victoria, slowly. There is a need Australia, found that: to remain vigilant. 1. The public conversation about family violence has changed in response to the 2015-2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence. In 2014 awareness and talk of systems failure and the need for government action was just emerging. In 2015 and 2016, we saw talk of societal attitudes, policy failures and the need for improved services, often in direct response to the announcements of Royal Commission. By 2017 and into 2018, the role of men (as both perpetrators and victims) became more prominent through social media, along with victim survivor’s points of view. Community Responses to Family Violence: 4 Charting policy outcomes Social Innovation Swinburne University Research Institute of Technology Executive summary 2. 5. Family violence incidents do not provoke While negative attitudes and violence- public attention in the same way that violence supporting statements remain a part of the against women in public places does – an issue public conversation, these statements are that warrants further in-depth exploration. That often called out by others on social media. is, while many have spoken out publicly about And these conversations matter. They should not violence against women in cases like the brutal be ignored or silenced, and offer governments an murder of Eurydice Dixon or in the wake of the opportunity to better understand and address #MeToo movement,1 family violence is still a violence supporting attitudes. more circumspect, diffcult and in many ways hidden public conversation. Policy responses 6. could work to address this issue by tackling this silence more directly. The infuence of community leaders shines through, but not always constructively. 3. Political leaders are the most prominent, but not the only, public fgures associated with Gaining better access to community-wide family violence topics of discussion on Twitter, responses shines a light on the often-hidden some of whom maintain a broad agenda of attitudes, language and experiences of those addressing family violence over time. We also who perpetrate or are affected by family saw, however, that prominent fgures are violence. We see evidence in the public associated with different aspects of family conversation of strong reaction to the tendency violence and multiple entry points to the (including in government and policy) to talk conversation, and some can also be seen to about perpetrators abstractly, as a unifed hijack the conversation for unhelpful purposes. group, and with little detail. While social media can be seen to fll this gap by more explicitly 7. shining a spotlight on men’s actions, news media maintains an often-unhelpful focus on Government can use these research traditional tropes, reporting incidents extreme techniques to adapt policy responses and violence and ignoring the more mundane ways tailor language to more effectively connect men use violence and control in family contexts. with the public. While we use historical Twitter data and news media to show changes to the 4. public conversation in response to family violence policy initiatives, these research When people talk about the impact of family techniques can also help to guide and steer violence on social media, they highlight the government activity on a wider range of public multifaceted nature of abuse and abusive policy and social issues. relationships. This perspective does not come through as strongly in government policy, or in news reporting. Community Responses to Family Violence: Charting policy outcomes 5 Social Innovation Swinburne University Research Institute of Technology 1. Introduction For public policies to achieve The project was developed in consultation social change, they must increase with a steering group of family violence policy experts convened by the Victorian Government awareness, community engagement Department of Premier and Cabinet. and uptake of information about Computational techniques (including natural the target social issue. language processing using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modelling) and timeline analysis This project aimed to assess the extent to which – were applied to Royal Commission reports and changes in public awareness and engagement public submissions, Twitter data and news could be detected in response to Victorian media data (Australian media outlets online Family Violence policy. Detecting community- articles, TV and radio reports). wide change in attitudes or awareness over a short time frame (here, 2014–18) is signifcantly Datasets were examined to establish how each challenging. Novel data sources and emerging source addresses family violence in relation to data analytics techniques were used to chart the the 2015–16 Victorian Royal Commission into breadth of public discussion of family violence Family Violence. Insights are provided on: the and chart change over this time period in core language and topic segments through response to the Victorian Government’s Royal which family violence is discussed publicly, and Commission into Family Violence (2015–16). how this has changed over time, and the events, organisations and individuals who could be seen The objectives were to: to infuence