Poster: Media Coverage of Child Maltreatment Fatality as a Predictor of State Legislative Change

Using the agenda-setting hypothesis, this study tested the common assumption that child maltreatment fatalities (CMF) that are connected to state child protection agencies spur legislative change within the child welfare profession. Logistic regression tested whether states with higher levels of media coverage on CMF for the years 2002 and 2003 were the same states that in 2004 enacted legislation that was related to CMF. This hypothesis was not supported by data. The analyses for this paper indicated that there is no relationship between media coverage for either the years 2002 or 2003 and CMF-related legislation that was enacted in 2004. The findings speak to potential informal changes in organizational culture, as opposed to changes in passed by the state house