Cultural repertoires in the media's coverage of child sexual exploitation

Patel, TG ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2578-3393 2016, 'Cultural repertoires in the media's coverage of child sexual exploitation' , in: Proceedings of Eurocrim2016 – 16th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology (ESC) , European Society of Criminology.

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Abstract

This paper will discuss the media’s coverage of two child sexual exploitation (CSE) cases in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) and Rotherham (South Yorkshire), UK. These cases gained prominent media attention in the period between 2010 and 2015. The CSE involved young white female victims and male abusers of black and minority ethnic (BME) background, in particular of Pakistani heritage and of Muslim faith. The paper argues that the cases were narrated in the media entirely through a cultural repertoire, and drew on older racialised panics about the black (or in particular, brown) menace and white victims. This further presented racialized profiling methods as necessary. Apart from the obvious concern around racial profiling, there is also the problem that the crime of CSE becomes racialised – presented as a form of culturally-specific deviance, rather than one about gender and power. A consideration of the media’s racialised (re)presentation of these CSE cases takes into account their relative power in modern society, as well as their status, along with other elites, as joint-producers of information about race and racism.

Item Type:	Book Section
Schools:	Schools > School of Health and Society
Publisher:	European Society of Criminology
Funders:	University of Salford
Depositing User:	Dr Tina G. Patel
Date Deposited:	28 Nov 2016 09:23
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2021 20:34
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/40811

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