Running Head: On the Child Abuse Problem 1

On the Child Abuse Problem

Kenneth Wang

Arizona State University

On the Child Abuse Problem 2

In the United States, there is a general cookie cutter family seen on TV, which includes

two parents, kids, and maybe some pets. Typically these parents are caring and understanding,

and would never lay their hands on their kids for any reason. Unfortunately for many kids, this

lifestyle is not even close to reality, and the closest they would ever get is seeing it on TV.

In these days of high economic stress, the rates of child abuse has increased. Since the

1970s, the numbers of reported child abuse cases has skyrocketed. This increase in child abuse

rates might have been due to changes in the definitions of child abuse, but this still outlines a big

problem with our society. This could also be because many parents simply don’t know how to

handle the pressure of taking care of a child. According to the Center for Disease Control and

Prevention, or CDC, today, one in seven kids get abused, which is an alarming statistic for a first

world country. In fact, the United States has the highest rate of child abuse among developed

first world nations. What is even more surprising is the fact that the child abuse rate is probably

higher than this statistic, because there is social stigma against child abuse, which causes a lot of

child abuse to go unreported. As a developed nation, we must try our best to improve the quality

of life for everyone, including children.

Because of such a high rate of child abuse, the CDC has taken action by making an

informative advertisement about the subject in hopes of educating the public for preventative

measures against child abuse. The CDC’s infographic outlines the general statistics on child

abuse and shows ways to prevent child abuse to inform the reader that they can actually make a

difference in solving this problem.

This infographic lays out the facts and statistics about child abuse in a formal way. In a

mellow colorset of purple, teal, white, green and grey, the CDC tries to make it look and feel like
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an official hospital pamphlet. This is an effort to gain the viewer’s trust in this advertisement.

The infographic also has the CDC’s logo stamped on the bottom with internet links to CDC

online violence prevention services, with the “.gov” url endings, which reaffirms the

trustworthiness.

The CDC does not really seem to aim to try and embarrass or shame parents who happen

to abuse their kids, but much rather informs the general public, organizations, and parents about

the issue and about the CDC resources and actions to prevent the child abuse. The CDC mainly

chooses to inform these parents and the general public that there are alternatives other than child

abuse. For example, in one of the segments,

the CDC tries to make the point that child

abuse is “not inevitable”, by bolding the

segment. This emphasizes there are

alternatives. Then CDC explains that “Safe,

Stable, and Nurturing relationships and

environments are essential to prevent child abuse and neglect to assure all children reach their

full potential. In this part, there is a bolded emphasis on “assure all children reach their full

potential”, because it tries to explain that child abuse is not the best way to get results. This part

would mainly be targeted towards parents who believe child abuse can get good academic and

behavioral results. In this case, parents would probably just read it as an alternative that could

work better rather than get offended by the ad and just ignore it. This emphasizes the fact that

child abuse is “not inevitable” by claiming that a loving and stable home is going to allow kids to

reach their maximum potential.

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Aside from targeting parents

who are open to an alternative other

than child abuse, the advertisement also

seems to try to encourage employment

and large organization management to

make a change by making changes to their programs to “strengthen economic support, change

social norms to support positive parenting, intervene, enhance parenting skills, and provide

quality care and education to parents”. This is unfortunately a narrow audience, and likely under

the capitalistic US economic system it would not work, as employers and organizations probably

do not feel like they have a responsibility to take care of family matters of employees. But given

that the company management does care about the welfare of employees, it would work well,

due to the informative nature.

Otherwise, The general imagery in the infographic is mostly mellow an nonviolent as

well. There are pictures of kids and 3 person families, but they are

mainly in the background and barely visible silhouettes. The

imagery mainly shows the ideal that the CDC is trying to encourage

among parents, rather than some of the more flashy anti child abuse

ads, which shows morbid blood splattered images of potential

consequences. The CDC only uses G rated images, which does

make it look more formal and official to potential viewers.

Other than that, the infographic does seem to try to make an attempt at making a pathos

argument in the beginning, with the big eye catching statistic clearly shouting out, “About 1 in 7
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children experienced child abuse and neglect in the last year” with a big emphasis a special

emphasis on the words, “1 in 7” and “That is about a million kids”. The infographic also shows

the statistic by color coating one of the playing children silhouettes to show the reason in a more

physical fashion. This shocking introduction seems to be intended to grab the viewer’s attention,

but it probably would not do a good job at it, because the overall setting of the infographic would

probably just fade out when placed next to more vibrantly colored advertisements on the same

topic. In other words, this introduction would only affect people who actually take the time to

look for the ad and read it.

Given that the viewer actually bothers to read the advertisement, the reader would mainly

see an outline of the resources as to why take preventative measures against child abuse and

neglect. As mentioned before, the ad states that child abuse is not inevitable. This is supposed to

negate some people’s idea that in order to raise a child properly, there must be spanking or

corporal punishment, as many people believe that since they were raised that way, that is the

only way to raise kids. But likely all of these arguments would not work at all if the poster or ad

was not actually read by a viewer.

In short, the CDC did a good job of outlining the problem and encouraging parents to

change habits and organizations to participate in prevention with logos arguments, but it does not

really grab the viewer’s attention. The original intent was to highlight the issue of child abuse,

show case alternatives to child abuse, and encourage prevention efforts from organizations, but it

does not do a good job of attracting attention. Even though the “one in seven” header is a

shocking statistic, it seems informative in its format than really shocking. The purple and blue

color scheme, font style, and general outline seems to look like a small pamphlet rather than a
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clickbait advertisement for the internet or billboard. As a result, it would not be very competitive

in grabbing attention, and attracting help to the child abuse issue.

In other words, the CDC could have either changed the formatting or made it more pathos

oriented. The ad too information heavy for many of today’s impatient audience, who care about

every second of their time. Child abuse is a serious problem, but the CDC did a poor job of

addressing it. The CDC made this infographic too formal and plain to actually make an impact

on viewers. Likely the viewers would unfortunately be more prone to view donation requests

from NGOs than this more genuine advertisement from the CDC.
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References:

“Violence Prevention.” ​Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,​ Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, 26 Apr. 2016,

www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/technical-packages/infographic/CAN.html​.

Radford, B. (2011, October 24). U.S. Worst in Child Abuse. Retrieved January 14, 2019,

from https://www.seeker.com/us-worst-in-child-abuse-1765477691.html