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This edited book examines the cultural construction of the public child and its impact on children s rights in Australia. The public child refers to a real child or groups of children whose lives have attracted media attention either because concerns have been raised about their safety or because they have been identified as threats to others. Positioned at the intersection of media, politics, and policymaking, this collection explores how, in an increasingly mediatized political landscape, discursive constructions of the public child shape state responses, exerting a logic of control and silencing.
Amid international debates on child social media bans and increasingly punitive justice systems, this timely work will appeal to scholars of family and youth sociology, criminology, media and gender studies, and education, as well as journalists and legal practitioners specializing in children s rights.
The book includes five sections: Media and Regulatory Theatre, Domestic Family and Sexual Violence, Justice Systems, Sex and Gender, and Speaking Out and Listening In. The final section focuses on how children exercise agency and express their perspectives, and how adults can serve as allies to them.
List of contents
1. The Public Child.- Part I Media, the State and Regulatory Theatre.- 2. On board the Australian social media ban wagon : Regulatory theatre, the public child, and the hyper-enthusiastic State.- 3. The Aboriginal Child and the Neocolonial State: Some Notes on Section 22C and Recent Changes to Bail Laws in New South Wales.- Part II Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence.- 4. Believing Children: Parental Disputes, Parental Alienation.- 5. Children as Victims in their Own Right: A Participatory Understanding of Children as Victim-survivors of Domestic Violence.- 6. Child Sexual Abuse: Media Power and Silenced Voices.- 7. Filicide: How Media and Childhood Discourses Shape Filicide Risk and Children s Rights.- Part III Justice Systems.- 8. Blaming Children: Exploring Criminal Justice Responses to Children in Scotland and Australia.- 9. Child Incarceration: Children s Rights, Racialized Media Narratives and Youth (in)Justices in Australia.- Part IV Sex and Gender.- 10. Sex Education: More than Putting a Condom on a Banana.- 11. Boys: Against the Cultural Construction of Boys as Problems.- 12. Trans Youth in the Media: Discursive Constructions.- Part V Speaking Out and Listening In.- 13. Whistleblowing: Adults as Allies in the Justice System.- 14. Anti-racism: Making Space in the Classroom.- 15. Children take action: Courtroom and other tales of the climate generation.
About the author
Camilla Nelson is Associate Professor in Media at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.
Denise Buiten is Senior Lecturer in Social Justice at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.
Jodi Death is Associate Professor in the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
Summary
This edited book examines the cultural construction of the “public child” and its impact on children’s rights in Australia. The “public child” refers to a real child or groups of children whose lives have attracted media attention— either because concerns have been raised about their safety or because they have been identified as threats to others. Positioned at the intersection of media, politics, and policymaking, this collection explores how, in an increasingly mediatized political landscape, discursive constructions of the “public child” shape state responses, exerting a logic of control and silencing.
Amid international debates on child social media bans and increasingly punitive justice systems, this timely work will appeal to scholars of family and youth sociology, criminology, media and gender studies, and education, as well as journalists and legal practitioners specializing in children’s rights.
The book includes five sections: Media and Regulatory Theatre, Domestic Family and Sexual Violence, Justice Systems, Sex and Gender, and Speaking Out and Listening In. The final section focuses on how children exercise agency and express their perspectives, and how adults can serve as allies to them.
