Abstract

This thesis explores the discursive entanglements and juxtapositions around child sexual abuse victims, perpetrators and disclosure observable in the past ten years in La Presse’s coverage in Québec. Using a mixed methodology, I first examine the number of news stories published on this topic between 2001 and 2010, and subsequently use a critical discourse analysis to scrutinize over a hundred news stories that were printed over this span of time. In assessing this material, my questions concern whether the media portrayal of child sexual abuse might have helped, at a first level, to de-stigmatize the taboo surrounding this social phenomenon in the popular culture; and second, whether and how the press might be propagating false representations about the prevalence of child sexual abuse by dwelling on particular details and misrepresenting this issue. Further, I explore how social representations of child sexual violence are structured, both around victims and their aggressors, and the role of local mass media discourse in influencing a culture of denunciation regarding such abuse.