The study “ “Sluts and nuts”: influences on the symbolic annihilation of women sources in sexual assault allegation news coverage” by Danielle Deavours from Samford University utilized the symbolic annihilation theory to look at the sourcing practices in the covering of sexual assault, more specifically, the news coverage of the allegations against US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Symbolic annihilation theory (Gerbner and Gross 1976) posits that media largely ignore or stereotypically present minority groups. Gaye Tuchman (1978 and 2000) has utilized the theory in feminist context to look at how media portrays women. 

According to Tuchman, symbolic annihilation of women can be divided into three categories: 1) omission, where women are not often used at all, 2) trivialization, where women are presented stereotypically or in less important roles, and 3) condemnation, where women perceived as breaking the gender norms are criticized, harassed, or attacked. 

The author argues that symbolic annihilation theory is particularly relevant in the context of sexual assault coverage. A previous study by Seely and Riffe (2020) found out that in sexual assault coverage, 80% of media articles cited the police, and only 8% victim advocates and 2% the victims themselves. Thus, hegemonic powers shape sexual harassment presentations in the media.

Sources are obviously important in media. Journalists use sources to distance themselves from the story and to add objectivity. Historically white male officials have dominated the media as sources. Since source credibility is of paramount importance, elite sources tend to be favored over less official and less elite sources, creating a system of structured access. 

Based on previous studies and theory, the author makes several hypotheses, presented here as H(number).  H1: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, men will be used as sources more often than women. H2: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, elite sources are more likely to be men than women. H3: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, sources who support the accused are more likely to be men than women. H4: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, sources who support the accusers are more likely to be women than men.

Further hypotheses are: H5: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, sources who mention other victims or the #MeToo movement are more likely to be women than men. H6: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, newspapers will use women most often, followed by online outlets, and then television outlets. H7: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, liberal news organizations will be more likely to use women as sources than conservative news organizations.

And finally, H8: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, stories written by women reporters will be more likely to use women as sources than men reporters. And lastly: H9: Across the Kavanaugh coverage, stories written by women reporters will be more likely to use accusers/victims as sources than male reporters.

To study the hypotheses and the coverage, the study used content analysis of network broadcast,national newspaper, and online news coverage. The sources were chosen based relevance as measured by circulation, being USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, FOX News, MSNBC, CNN, and the top 100 most shared online articles. The stories were from September 14 2018 to October 31 2018. 

The first hypothesis (H1) was supported, more men (57,4%) were men and 42,6% women. The second hypothesis (H2) was also supported, men were more likely to be elite sources by a statistically significant margin. H3, that men sources were more likely to support Kavanaugh was also supported. 

H4, that sources that support the accusers were more likely to be women was supported. H5, that sources that mention other victims or #metoo were more likely to women, was supported. H6, however, was not supported, meaning that newspapers were most likely to use women sources followed by online sources and then television was not true – online sources actually used women the most.

When it comes to H7, that liberal news was more likely to use women than conservative, there was a slight difference in favor of the liberal sources but not a statistically significant difference, so H7 was not supported. H8 was supported, women reporters were more likely to use women as sources. H9 was supported, stories written by women reporters were more likely to use the victims as sources.

The findings of the study provide support for the relevance of symbolic annihilation theory in sexual assault cases. This has dangerous effects: women are omitted as sources and the fact that women are less likely to be elite sources and rather victims and such reinforces the “helpless victim” stereotype. 

Symbolic annihilation also led to the reinforcing of the status quo, as also shown here. Men who were more often used as sources were also more likely to support Kavanaugh. As the sources shape framing, this meant less support for sexual assault accusers and protection of the accused.

The findings, taken together, were, in the words of the author, disheartening. There were still some positives. Women received more bylines in the highest circulated stories than men, suggesting that newsrooms recognize the need to have women cover the issue.

Nevertheless, the obvious solution, having only women cover sexual assault cases is a double edged sword. This could be dangerous and create workplace inequalities, similar to how Black reporters are pigeonholed into writing “Black stories”. Instead, newsrooms should train both men and women to diversify their sources. 

The study suggests that further change is needed to prevent symbolic annihilation and more studies are needed to further explore the issue and the remedies.

The article ““Sluts and nuts”: influences on the symbolic annihilation of women sources in sexual assault allegation news coverage” by Danielle Deavours is in Feminist Media Studies. (open access).

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