Domestic Violence Extends Beyond the Victim to Social, Cultural, Economic and Political Consequences

The media holds victims accountable for their assault therefore, holding them accountable for finding their own solution.

Courtesy: Bernie's Lil Women Center 

Domestic violence is becoming more prevalent in the media. However, in doing so, the media is normalizing and desensitizing the issue to the public. In the media, victims are held responsible for getting into abusive relationships. The individual victim is blamed for being the problem so that person is said to be responsible for finding the solution. 

Nancy Berns, author of Framing the Victim: Domestic Violence, Media and Social Problems, validates that, “domestic violence has become a social problem about the victims. . . . The victim is celebrated for having the courage to leave the abusive relationship or, conversely, blamed for staying and letting the abuse continue”.

In women’s magazines victims are urged to find their own solutions to their problems. On the other hand, men’s magazines attack the feminist movement and say that women are just as violent as men. Magazines and other forms of mass communication would rather share a story about a victim solving their own problem then having to elaborate on the fact that our culture is screaming for change.

Rebecca Laufer, Social Media Coordinator at Herizon House, believes that the media portrays domestic violence cases on an individual basis. Victims are blamed or excuses are made for the violence. However, what the public doesn’t get to see is the emotional, financial and verbal abuse that domestic violence encompasses. By disregarding these issues the media forces the public to think that these forms of abuse are not abuse at all.

CBS news once included this statement in an article saying that, “It gets frustrating for us when that person may well not want to continue with that effort to take that first step, and step away from their involvement in the cycle of violence”. CBS, along with other news programs, do not understand the emotional state of the victim. They don’t comprehend the danger and emotions that go into leaving such a relationship.

In an anonymous survey taken at the University of Maryland 48 out of 54 total participants believed that the media inaccurately reflects domestic violence. It is appalling to see that this many people know there is something wrong in the news coverage of domestic violence, yet the media continues to victim blame and undermine the issue completely.

The NFL donated airtime during the Super Bowl to air a public service announcement raising awareness for domestic violence.

Although, most magazines unfairly represent domestic violence, politically liberal and progressive magazines focus on the social, cultural, economic and political forces that cause this violence against women.

The battered women’s movement, which was a small group of activists who raised awareness of domestic violence in the 1970s, represented domestic violence accurately. Different from most media outlets today, the movement associated victim empowerment with social change instead of change within the individual. By defining domestic violence as a social and political problem they knew it needed social and political solutions. These activists’ stated that they “wanted to exonerate victims from blame, identify abusers, locate abuse within social and cultural context and specify community responses and help for victims”. Above all else the movement believed that victims should not be blamed for the abuse that they are faced with.

Cortney Fisher, Deputy Director at the Office of Victim Services in DC, believes that the media inaccurately portrays domestic violence.

Although most media channels continue to victim blame, Verizon and NFL’s William Gay are standing up against domestic violence. Verizon HopeLine hopes to collect one million donated phones by 2015 with their 1 Million Phone Drive to Stop Domestic Violence.

HopeLine collects old cell phones and chargers, refurbishes them and raises money from selling them back to the community. The money raised is donated to domestic violence awareness and prevention programs. Verizon’s website states that over 11.4 million phones have been collected nationwide, $29 million cash grants have been provided to domestic violence organizations, and 190,000 phones have been donated to domestic violence victims and survivors.

The NFL donated airtime and funds in order to air a 60-second anti-domestic violence PSA at the last Super Bowl. It is part of No More, which “is a unifying symbol and movement to raise public awareness and engage bystanders around ending domestic violence and sexual assault.” The commercial has a woman calling 911 pretending to order pizza in order to get the police to come to her home without tipping off her abuser. It ends with the line: “When it’s hard to talk, it’s up to us to listen.” Virginia Witt, director of No More, tells Rolling Stone that they hoped to spread awareness on the effort to end domestic violence and sexual assault.

Courtesy: The Face of Patriarchy

The more commercials streamed like the one above will raise more public awareness for domestic violence. Then the media will be forced to shift towards educating the general public and focusing on the abuser instead of the victim.

The media must concentrate on the abuser so that victims feel more comfortable reporting their abuse.

Linda Osmundson, who has been working with domestic violence victims for 30 years, gives three words of advice to journalists. First, she states that they need to focus on the abuser because the victim does not need to be re-victimized. She argues, “Women don’t report abuse for a lot of reasons. Maybe the batterer got to her and said if you tell I will hurt you and your family.” For that reason we should not be focusing on the victim. Second, she talks about how alcohol is usually involved in the cases she deals with but it is vital to not allow alcohol to be used as an excuse for the abuse. Her final word of wisdom is that, “Abuse is a world view, it is not a disease…if you get to guys when they are young there is some hope they can turn around.”

Fisher explains her role in assisting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

In a similar way to Osmundson's arguments, Bern’s argues that coverage on domestic violence cases should focus on, “why, how, and to what end violence is used as a means of conflict resolution and of maintaining control in relationships.” We must shift media’s focus to the abusers and the social and cultural issues that domestic violence involves. In doing so, the public would learn how and why the abuser did what they did and how they were able to change their ways.

Domestic violence and sexual assault are very prevalent on college campuses. One in six women on college campuses are affected by domestic violence or sexual assault. In the survey roughly 26% of the 54 students believed that domestic violence was not an issue at the University of Maryland. After hearing the above statistic it is shocking that students do not find it to be an issue on this campus.

63% of students believe that our school has enough resources to help the victims of sexual assault. One of the most well known resources is Campus Advocates Respond and Educate (CARE) to Stop Violence. It is located at the University Health Center and is a confidential resource where primary and secondary victims of domestic violence and sexual violence come to discuss their situations. CARE’s phone number is on the back of every student’s ID card.

The most important thing you can do as an individual to help is to know the facts about domestic violence and share them.

Breast Milk Sold Online Found to be Contaminated with Cow's Milk Puts Infants Lives at Risk

• 10% of breast milk sold online contain significant amounts of cow's milk intentionally added by seller
• Three-quarters of human milk sold on the internet contains bacterial or viral contaminants
• Science Daily directly examines results of the study and gives readers clear and concise information

For a long time, breastfeeding has been proven to be the best way to feed a newborn child. Breastfeeding protects babies from many different illnesses and infections. It can help prevent allergies as well. It is confirmed that breastfeeding has the best nutritional value for infants.

There is a popular belief that "breast is the best" milk for newborns.

Due to the increased benefits of feeding infants human milk new mothers who are unable to breastfeed have been searching for ways of getting milk from mothers in excess of it. The number of websites where this interaction occurs is growing. Women in need of human milk are purchasing it online from other mothers with some to spare.

1 in 10 human milk samples sold on the internet contain high amounts of cow's milk. 

However, a new study published in the journal Pediatrics by Dr. Sarah Keim, investigator at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, found that "10% of breast-milk samples purchased on the Internet contained significant amounts of cow's milk or formula based on it." The study states that 11 out of the 102 samples they purchased online contained human and bovine DNA. The 10 samples with bovine DNA contained high amounts leading researchers to believe it was an intentional addition.

Jessica Firger, a health and wellness reporter for CBSNews.com, writes that "there are currently 55,000 women in the U.S. participating in the selling, purchasing or exchange of breast milk via the Internet." The downfall to introducing this cow's milk to an infants diet is that it is too low in iron, too high in protein and minerals, difficult for infants to digest and causes allergic reactions.

Most breast milk sold online has bacteria causing diseases such as E. Coli or Salmonella.

In another study done by Dr. Keim, she found that more than 75% of milk purchased online contained bacterial or viral contaminants. This confirmed the Food and Drug Administration's warning in 2010 about impurities in human milk obtained from sources other than the baby's mother. 

The three sources I analyzed information from were The Wall Street Journal, CBSNews, and Science Daily. The WSJ was the most biased of the three due to the focus of the writer, Melinda Beck. This article brought in another expert, Joan Y. Meek, head of breastfeeding at the American Academy of Pediatrics, to talk about the danger in buying breast milk online. Meek states that "spoiled milk, adulterated milk, contaminated milk, or even a substance that looks like human milk but is not milk are too risky to feed to a young infant." We see here that the article shifts to talking more about not trusting the website or any source of milk for that matter. Instead of speaking directly about the study and other experts opinion about milk contamination from online sources she discredits all other sources of milk that are not from the mother herself.

CBS's article written by Jessica Firger, also brings in much more information than the study entitles. She goes into detail about the number of women selling, purchasing or exchanging breast milk online. Going off of that, she includes survey statistics on the percentage of women who have considered milk sharing or actually taken part in the process. It is clear that she wanted to add points like this to give readers a better background and to put more detail and support in her article.

Science Daily includes specifics from the studies and provides all details concisely.

It is not necessarily a poor choice to add extra background and information to your article but it is interesting to see the article by Science Daily in comparison. Science Daily cuts to the chase and straightforwardly examines the facts of the study and its effects.  It uses more quotations from the actual study and focuses less on opinions and more on direct statistics than the WSJ and CBS articles.

In my opinion the primary purpose of each article was to discuss the results of the study. In this case Science Daily did the best job of doing this concisely. I also thought they presented the information well by having a short summary at the top discussing the main points in the article. This would've been even better if it was in bulleted form. I also thought this article was the best because it gave us all the numbers that the study had used in the experiment. For every data collection it discussed the specific details of the experiment results but in a succinct manner. Also, if the article did include an opinionated argument from Dr. Keim they made sure to directly quote her so we knew exactly what she said. Otherwise, when paraphrasing an opinionated statement the meaning could easily change.

The only critique I have about the Science Daily article would be that its title is not very informative. The title reads, "Cow milk is added to some breast milk, sold to parents online, study finds." I understand that they had the intent of leaving the reader hanging. I wish they would have added intentionally to the first phrase to make it read as 'Cow milk is intentionally added to some breast milk' because then people would know right away that the parents buying milk online are being cheated.

CBS's article gives knowledge to the reader as early as the title by telling us that the breast milk was contaminated by cow's milk.

The CBS article has the best article title because it tells us exactly what happened by stating, "Breast milk sold online often contaminated by cow's milk." After reading this title it is clear that I have learned something already. The use of the word contaminated gives people the sense that it was wrongly put into the breast milk.


Ideas for improvement of Wall Street Journal's article

• Change title so readers can learn something before reading the entire article
• Shorten the video so readers will take the time to watch it or delete it completely
• When giving statistics from the study use quotations so we know for a fact it was taken directly
• Use less opinionated statements and focus on the issue at hand which is the study and its effects

Although none of the three articles were particularly bad I believe that the WSJ could improve its article. The title reads, "Cow's Milk Found in Breast Milk Sold Online". Although this title isn't terrible I am not receiving the knowledge I would if I knew that the cow's milk was added purposely or wrongly. Also, the article opens with a two minute and 50 second video, which I don't think most people would have the time to sit and watch. When the article states statistical data taken from the study I think it would be beneficial to use quotations because they are key details and should be accurately written. Lastly, going back to what I said earlier I believe that the WSJ included too much information beyond the scope of the article. After reading the article I felt like there was nowhere for mothers to turn to who couldn't breast feed themselves. However, Science Daily reports that Dr. Keim suggests consulting a pediatrician if you are a mother seeking human milk. It is also suggested in this article that women with excess milk could donate their milk to a non-profit milk bank instead of selling it online. These options were given directly in the study and therefore add specifics to the study itself.

Physical Activity Not Only Improves One's Health But Also Brings People Happiness

The main subject of the photo and graph above are exercise and physical activity. However, they both tell different stories. The first image shows women exercising who seem very happy and healthy. They all seem to be at a healthy weight as well. The second image is a graph that shows all-cause mortality reduction verses daily physical activity. This graph shows that if a person exercises more they reduce their chance of death. The more a person works out, the less chance of dying that person will have from certain diseases etc,. The first photo shows that fitness makes people happy and lively. It focuses on the benefits of exercise by looking at the living. It shows people in the action and their characteristics and feelings during. The second graph talks more about the reduction of death. These are two different topics but both focus on the positive effects of physical activity.