Representations of Early Childhood and Urban Violence in Brazilian Media

This report examines the explicit and implicit messages embedded in the media's presentation of issues related to both early child development (ECD) and urban violence in Brazilian newspapers. The media analysis presented here was conducted by the FrameWorks Institute for the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, with funding from the Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal and the Bernard van Leer Foundation. It is part of a larger communication project that aims to document public understanding of ECD and the impacts of urban violence on children in Brazil. The goal of the project is to give those working on issues of child development and urban violence in Brazil a set of empirically tested communication strategies for increasing public understanding of these issues, while also supporting the solutions suggested by research in these domains.

The analysis involves examining the media frames - the patterned use of cues that structure specific definitions, causal interpretations, and solutions to social problems - that are part of Brazilian public discourse on ECD and violence issues. The idea is that identifying patterns in media coverage is a tool for understanding why gaps exist between public and expert accounts, as well as how the introduction of new narratives about ECD and violence can bridge these gaps.

In order to select appropriate sources from which to sample articles, the researchers used the Agência de Notícias dos Direitos da Infância (ANDI) (Childhood in Media, 2010) ranking of newspapers, which yielded a final sample of 500 articles to be coded. They also examined 100 randomly selected stories qualitatively in order to contextualise and enhance the quantitative findings.

In brief, the report finds that the dominant media frames are reflective of the Brazilian public's understandings on these issues and therefore miss opportunities to expand the discourse in productive ways. A summary of findings:

• Media coverage of cognitive development is concentrated on older children, with coverage of early childhood focusing on survival rather than development.
• Early brain and non-cognitive skill development is largely absent from the media narrative about children's issues.
• Media coverage attributes the problems facing Brazilian children - including low levels of health and survival rates and lack of educational opportunities - to government inefficiency.
• The media frequently blame negative child outcomes on parenting and care giving practices, and assert that policy interventions should be targeted at changing these behaviours.
• The Brazilian media are primarily concerned with the economic impacts of promoting positive ECD.
• Media coverage of violence and children is rare, and narrowly framed.
• The media rarely address the impact of violence on children's development.
• The primary solution promoted by the media to address violence against children is harsher punishments for perpetrators.

Implications include:

• The media's focus on child survival, and the absence of discussion of early brain development, is a missed opportunity to fill in key missing aspects of the public's understanding of child development.
• Media focus on educational access distracts from focus on the importance of quality of early childhood programmes and interventions.
• Media coverage that emphasises broken government further entrenches exclusive focus on the family as the sole determinant of developmental outcomes.
• Blaming parents - especially parents in marginalised and under-resourced communities - reinforces public distrust of scientific expertise.
• Focus on the economic benefits of ECD programs obscures other non-financial benefits.
• Failing to cover violence and ECD together misses an opportunity to tell a brain-development story.
• The media's focus on harsher punishments for individual perpetrators inhibits thinking about prevention and social contexts.

Based on this analysis, the researchers recommend that experts and advocates begin to tell new kinds of stories in their own communications, and when engaging with the media:

• Explain the processes of early brain development.
• Explain the interconnection of social, emotional, and cognitive skills.
• Emphasise programmatic quality.
• Don't blame or alienate families.
• Make violence a children's issue.
• Describe how high levels of violence can negatively impact the developing brain, with lifelong consequences for subsequent learning, health, and behaviour.

Click here for the 22-page report in PDF format (English).
Click here for the 27-page report in PDF format (Portugese).