“DEFECTIVE CHILDHOODS”: TELEVISION NEWS AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE ‘CHILD IN NEED’ A THESIS IN Sociology Presented to the University of Missouri – Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by SARAH M. GONZALES B.A., Emporia State University, 2008 Kansas City, Missouri 2013 © 2013 SARAH GONZALES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED “DEFECTIVE CHILDHOODS”: TELEVISION NEWS AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE ‘CHILD IN NEED’ Sarah M. Gonzales, Candidate for the Master of Arts Degree University of Missouri – Kansas City, 2013 ABSTRACT The modern media, particularly television news, produces and airs news reports and special programs presenting social justice and human rights stories. Some of these news reports feature children with identified emotional, financial, or other needs. Due to television news’ pervasiveness and influence in American society, the media entities which create the news have significant power to shape Americans’ understandings and beliefs on children’s lives, rights, and needs. In this thesis, I ask: how does the media, through television news programs, maintain a specific discursive construction of ‘children in need.’ I have conducted a qualitative content analysis based on transcripts from the national television programs NBC Dateline, ABC Nightline, ABC 20/20, and CBS 60 Minutes between 2007 and 2012, looking at episodes featuring groups of children in some identified need. I examine the ways in which these television programs present certain childhoods as problematic. My findings indicate that the news’ collective construction of ‘children in need’ portrays them as hidden from the rest of America, as courageous dreamers, and as living abnormal lives. Furthermore, I compare and contrast the news programs’ representation to the Progressive era child-saving movement, revealing that the modern media’s broadcasts on ‘children in need’ disfavor lower class populations. Ultimately, I argue that the news media serves the function of iii deeming certain childhoods as less than ideal, or ‘defective,’ which therefore marks them as deviant from what is considered a universal proper childhood. iv APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, have examined a thesis titled “Defective Childhoods: Television News and the Social Construction of the ‘Child in Need’,” presented by Sarah M. Gonzales, candidate for the Master of Arts degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Supervisory Committee Marc Garcelon, Ph.D., Committee Chair Department of Sociology and Anthropology Jennifer Huberman, Ph.D. Department of Sociology and Anthropology Sookhee Oh, Ph.D. Department of Sociology and Anthropology v CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................ 2 The Study ..................................................................................................................... 5 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 6 Historical Background ................................................................................................. 7 Modern Day ............................................................................................................... 12 The Media’s Role ....................................................................................................... 14 3. METHODS ............................................................................................................... 17 4. FINDINGS ................................................................................................................ 21 Patterns in Descriptions of Children .......................................................................... 23 Patterns in Symptoms and Effects the Children Experience ..................................... 29 5. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................... 32 The ‘Child in Need’ and the ‘Normal Child’ ............................................................. 32 Constructing the Viewer ............................................................................................ 40 Child-Saving Functions ............................................................................................. 44 6. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 56 Summarizing Argument ............................................................................................. 56 Why It Matters ........................................................................................................... 57 vi Further Study ............................................................................................................. 58 Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 59 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 62 VITA ........................................................................................................................... 71 vii TABLES Table Page 1. List of episodes used in analysis ....................................................................... 19 2. Themes in descriptions of the children featured in the news programs ............ 22 3. List of symptoms and effects that children experience, if mentioned in at least 2 episodes ......................................................................................... 30 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank those who have supported me through this process and life in general. First, I want to express gratitude to the faculty of the sociology and anthropology department for granting me generous funding opportunities, inspiring me in many ways, and wanting to make me a better sociologist. I have learned a lot from all of you. I also want to thank my family for your continuous support: Mom, I am not sure I could have made it here without your selfless love and never-ending encouragement. Dad, thank you for believing in me and conversing ideas with me. Stephanie, thanks for being my best friend and giving me lots of ‘pick-me-ups’ throughout the last 3 years. And Jing Jing, thank you for your consistent overseas support. I dedicate this project to my grandma, Melva. Thank you for your years of love and support. My life is much better because you are in it. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION A preview of the January 26 th , 2007 episode of the news program 20/20 opened with this phrase: “Childhood as you’ve never seen it before. .a must-see hour for anyone who cares about America’s children.” The childhood it refers to is that of children in Camden, New Jersey, an urban city with very high violence and poverty. This special episode takes viewers “on an extraordinary journey”. .into “a life few of us ever experience” (20/20, 2007). Its subject is the children in this city – who they are, what their lives are like, and how to help them. Children are a subject of great concern in modern American society. Debates and discussion over how they should be treated, what is best for them, and their role in social life take place in a variety of settings and institutions. A phrase has developed in recent years to describe a child assumed to be missing something(s) considered important and necessary: a ‘child in need’. This phrase is used in a variety of locales and to describe children in a diverse range of circumstances. Since childhood is a social construction based on cultural values and historic specificity (James & Prout, 1990), a phrase such as this is made meaningful and applied based on current cultural conceptualizations of children and childhood. I want to break apart the concept of the ‘child in need’ and demonstrate that it is a complex categorization based on specific cultural and political interests. Since the mass media is a significant contributor to discourse on children, I have chosen to evaluate national television news to do so. In this paper, I ask: how does the media, through television news programs, maintain a specific discursive construction of the concept of ‘children in need’? In 1 order to answer this question, I have conducted a qualitative content analysis of national television news broadcasts. Children are a prolific topic in television news, and the range of coverage is seemingly unlimited. Children do not appear just in nightly television news, but also in national news programs such as Dateline and 60 Minutes. When children are discussed on such programs, the shows tend to frame their coverage from a perspective of concern; in essence, the programs mark certain realities as social problems. Yet selecting issues to be covered and how to present them to audiences is not self-evident; when the news programs feature an issue of concern regarding children, for instance,