This thesis examines the potentially transformative power of the media in a mediatised world, in the context of high-profile cases of institutional child sexual abuse in religious communities. The research analyses (mainstream and local religious) news media reporting on, and local community engagement with, the Malka Leifer child sexual abuse case. Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer, and Elly Sapper, are three sisters and victim-survivors who were abused by Leifer while she was Principal of the Adass Israel School, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne, Australia, and the three women spearheaded the Bring Leifer Back campaign. The Leifer case spanned 15 years across Australia and Israel and gained notoriety as extradition attempts were blocked by Leifer’s legal team. The case study is informed by findings from the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s report on Case Study 22, which examined the responses in Orthodox Jewish Schools to child sexual abuse. In August 2023, Leifer was found guilty of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Using the case study as the backbone for analysis, the research project examines community formation within a mediatised event. Adopting a mixed-methods research approach to analyse ‘text and talk’, a qualitative framing analysis was conducted which analysed 101 news articles in The Age, Herald Sun, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Australian Jewish News. This analysis of Australian mainstream and local religious media reportage then informed the central analysis of 8 peer conversation-style (Gamson, 1992) focus groups with Australian Jewish community members from different community denominations. The research investigates how community members engage with and utilise media, and the role of locally constructed knowledge in shaping their relationship with the press. Through engaging with Jewish community members and privileging their voices, this thesis aims to show how the Leifer case’s mediatisation impacted on the community’s social fabric, and how media power was harnessed to alter community-based discourse. The thesis examines how Melbourne’s Jewish community negotiate and respond to mediatised public crisis events of which they are the secondary subjects, and aims to enhance understanding of diasporic Jewish identity and its relationship to media within the contemporary, hybrid media landscape. The powerful symbolism of ‘the three sisters’ utilised emotion as a lever and driver for collective action from Melbourne’s Jewish community and beyond. It was their voices, against the backdrop of the Australian Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, that primarily changed how Jewish community members understood and responded to the crisis of abuse in their community. However, divisive and shameful representations persist in mediatised public crisis events as they gain notoriety.
Mediatised public crisis and diasporic Jewish identity: the Malka Leifer case in Australian mainstream and local religious news coverage, and community talk
Chatskin, M. (Author). 2025
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis