Healthy at Home?: Constructions of Safety in Newspaper Reporting of Domestic Violence during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Background & Purpose: Feminist scholars have called attention to dangers associated with private life, especially within the home. Emerging evidence suggests that social conditions during the pandemic either directly or indirectly exacerbated incidences of domestic violence (DV). Throughout the pandemic, the media was one of the primary means for the public to learn about evolving responses to the pandemic. Thus, the framing and representation of DV within media sources contributes to the public’s understanding and response to this issue. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) methodology, this study examined representations of home and safety within newspaper reporting of domestic violence during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: CDA is a qualitative method that allows for analysis of the constructive functions of language-in- use. Data in this sample included newspaper articles (n=31) from the four largest circulating newspapers in the United States. To be included in the sample, articles had to be published between March 1-December 2020. Articles were retrieved using the NexisUni media search engine using the following search terms: domestic violence, coronavirus, or COVID-19. The analytical process began with an open coding process that involved inductively coding all articles to identify major discursive domains in the data. Using “structured questions” we became sensitized to the discursive formation of concepts such home and safety. We then used focused coding of the multiple constructions of these sensitizing concepts. Throughout the study, we used interpretive memos to both reflect on our impressions of the data and to practice intentional reflexivity of how our positionalities and experiences influenced the analysis process.

Results: Across this sample, the majority of domestic violence and COVID-specific newspaper articles constructed home as a place that has grown considerably more unsafe due to the public health regulations. Safety was discursively constructed in the five primary ways: public health orders have exacerbated survivors of DV’s safety in the home; home is not a safe place for survivors; social services are overburdened and unable to facilitate survivor safety; the government has a responsibility to support abuse survivors, and lastly, safety is elusive for abuse survivors. Together, these discursive themes function to privilege professional forms of helping, primarily shelter systems, while minimizing the influence of societal level determinants of abuse such as gender inequity or hypermasculinity.

Conclusion & Implications: Despite the dominant national pandemic discourse of “healthy at home,” this sample of DV-specific newspaper articles constructed the home in ways consistent with mainstream Western feminism: as a place of violence, confinement, and heightened abuse during a global pandemic. This analysis provides important insight into prevailing social scripts regarding "ideal" community and societal responses to DV during times of crisis. In this unique historical moment, CDA provides an important tool for re-envisioning how homes can be restored as places of refuge and peace for abuse survivors and their families.