How Gendered Mediation Affects Local News Framing of Trafficking Victims: A Call for Ethics-Of-Care Journalism

Author: Cantrell Rosas-Moreno, Tania

Abstract: Research suggests that local, grassroots solutions are key to addressing the situations of those trafficked since the experience of trafficking varies so broadly. Hence, this case study investigates how human trafficking victims, or HTVs, have been framed over about the past decade through a merged framing-theory-and-gendered-plus-racial-mediation perspective of 71 sampled articles from two of Maryland’s top (circulating) dailies. Quantitative analysis revealed gender differences in reporting as well as racial differences in reported on trafficking actors, and qualitative analysis surfaced three news frames: Vulnerability leads to victimization and dehumanization; Technology traps, abets, and frees; and Rescuability requires a connected village. A two-newspaper analysis, particularly one including article construction, content and complement, should cut through news normalization and routinization that can occur through press practices pointing to how local journalism with an ethics-of-care orientation can be a force for human rights advocacy for subjugated groups, like female HTVs. Studying HTV local newspaper coverage is significant because of its implications for the news industry in addressing social justice issues; for lawmakers and law enforcers to mitigate trafficking; for policy makers and other societal actors and influencers to create legislation benefitting HTVs; and, primarily, for (potential) victims, to decrease entry and increase escape plus recovery.

Keywords: local news, human-trafficking victims, framing, gendered mediation, racial mediation