Coverage of Domestic Violence: A Content Analysis of Two Kenyan Newspapers

Abstract

This study was prompted by Kavata whose husband was a police constable. He had beaten her and left her for dead. She died later in the hospital. The researcher, therefore, set out to determine the extent to which East African Standard and Daily/ Sunday Nation newspapers covered stories on domestic violence before and after the Kavata case, between June 1998 and May 1999. Content analysis was the research method used for the study. This method was chosen because the focus of the study was on newspaper content. This method is unobtrusive and it enabled the researcher full access to all the required data. The units of analyses were any story on domestic violence, the editorials and letters to the editors of the newspapers. Coding sheet with nineteen categories, in which these units of analyses were put, was designed and used by the researcher to investigate domestic violence stories published in the newspapers. A total of 456 stories on domestic violence formed the population from which data were drawn for the research. The research found evidence in the media coverage that culture influenced the perpetration of domestic violence. An example of this was the affirmation of man- hood and wife beating for disciplinary reasons. It also found that police, in line of duty, intervened in domestic violence issues. The research also found that the church was not adequately represented on the scene of domestic violence inci- dents. The study found that newspaper coverage on domestic violence stories increased in the six months after the Kavata's case. It is the view of the researcher that culture played an important role in issues of domestic violence.