Working with News and Social Media to Prevent Violence against Women and Their Children: A Strategic Framework for Victoria

...a map of the approaches required and a supporting tool to align and encourage informed and critical engagement with news and social media on VAW [violence against women]..."

This Framework reflects the experience of Melbourne, Australia's Domestic Violence Victoria (DV Vic) with the prevention of violence against women and children (PVAW) over the last decade, which has revealed that:

• "The media is a powerful setting for, and influencer of change
• There is strong enthusiasm for doing media-related PVAW work
• The intersections between media and PVAW are complex, and there are risks associate with doing this work in a poorly conceived, piecemeal or inconsistent way
• Achieving improvements in media and community understanding of PVAW will require stakeholders in this work to have a shared understanding of the evidence base, and of the key messages and approaches needed for positive social change."

By promoting a coordinated, strategic, and consistent approach, the Framework aims to maximise the effectiveness and potential of media-focused prevention work. It identifies strategic priority actions, including generating agreement about what is needed, in an effort to align the diverse groups who are undertaking media-related PVAW work. The Framework provides strategic support to PVAW response and prevention professionals both in Australia and internationally to aid their work with news and social media. It aims to enable key specialists to work with media and improve the media's role in building community knowledge and understanding of PVAW.

In brief, the vision behind the Framework is that that news media will: report VAW, its causes and prevention, in a way that is accurate, sensitive, and contextualised; challenge myths about VAW, its causes and prevention; and be an active proponent for PVAW. DV Vic envisions that social media will be an active medium for: distributing messages on the causes and prevention of VAW; challenging myths about VAW, its causes and prevention; and promoting understanding and support for PVAW. This vision is based on the belief that high-quality, informed, and accurate news media coverage and engaged social media interaction on PVAW can make an important contribution to prevention efforts when it: conveys the full impact of VAW on our communities; provides accurate and meaningful context for stories on men's violence; challenges community attitudes and behaviours that underlie or reinforce men's violence; identifies available specialists and support services for people seeking assistance; and ensures women's experiences of violence are accurately and sensitively communicated.

The aim is to achieve the vision by:

• Strategically aligning those who can supply information or comment to the media on PVAW;
• Structuring, informing, and guiding consistent, coordinated, collaborative, and evidence-based approaches to this work;
• Contributing to organisational actions that further an increase in quality media reporting and reduce media reporting on attitudes and behaviours that support VAW; and
• Continuing to build and respond to the evidence on primary prevention, work with media, reporting, and community attitudes.

There are 4 action areas:

1. Align the diverse groups working on, or planning to work on, media-related PVAW
   • Action 1.1: Establish a coordinating body and/or worker to align Victorian media-related PVAW efforts
   • Action 1.2: Increase local and other networks for media-related PVAW
   • Action 1.3: Promote the Framework across the various sectors
2. Upskill and develop resources for the specialist PVAW organisations to engage effectively with media on prevention
   • Action 2.1: Develop agreed Victorian key messaging about PVAW
   • Action 2.2: Deliver training and resources for PVAW workers on news, social media, and prevention
   • Action 2.3: Develop guidelines and strategies for coordinated use of social media for PVAW
   • Action 2.4: Invest in research and evaluation on PVAW and media
3. Provide content the way media needs to receive it
   • Action 3.1: Support the ethical provision of women's stories to the media
   • Action 3.2: Support the provision of diverse and effective community voices on PVAW
   • Action 3.3: Use events to promote PVAW messages and story content
4. Strengthen dialogue with the news media on PVAW
   • Action 4.1: Provide resources and information sessions for media that aid quality reporting
   • Action 4.2: Engage journalism students
   • Action 4.3: Support investigation into the impact of gender inequality within the media industry

DV Vic offers a chapter here on implementation of the Framework, setting out key elements that require consideration. For example:

• "The priority actions specified in the Framework should be implemented first, as they underpin the success of the other actions and the Framework as a whole
• An effective strategic approach requires specific expertise, capacity, planning and coordination
• An understanding of the contexts of the current media environment and of the historical relationship between media and community organisations is important
• The successes and learnings from current and previous initiatives in Victoria are important building blocks for future work
• Consistent messaging must be balanced against flexibility to address multiple audiences in different contexts and to maintain fresh commentary
• Many contextual factors are important, meaning that there isn't a 'one size fits all' approach
• There are significant risks in media-related prevention work associated with credibility, safety and legal issues
• The fields of media and PVAW, and how they interact, are constantly evolving - an understanding of these changes is crucial to ensure the work remains current and relevant."

According to DV Vic, working with the media is an important element of Victoria and Australia's commitment to PVWA and supports the objectives of The National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children 2010-2022. The Framework is part of DV Vic's Media Program, which supports PVAW by working with news and social media and builds upon the previous Family Violence in the News: Strategic Framework, as well as collaborative work that originated in the Grampians region of Victoria. As part of the Framework development, DV Vic undertook statewide consultations on a consultation draft of the framework. The aim of the consultations was to ensure that the final document would be useful and relevant for organisations across Victoria who are involved in work on VAW.

Click here for the accompanying 4-page Working with News and Social Media to Prevent Violence against Women and their Children: Quick Reference Guide, which outlines the purpose of the framework and action areas.