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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1 Since 1998, government-led yearly advertising campaigns have been conducted to strengthen the view that domestic abuse is totally unacceptable, using the message 'Domestic Abuse: there's no excuse'. The most recent advertising activity was launched on 26 th December 2006 and consisted of TV and radio adverts. The main objectives of the campaign were to raise awareness of the impact of domestic abuse, to communicate the harm that domestic abuse causes, and to publicise the helpline phone number and web address.
2. In 2007, as in each year previously, research has been conducted by TNS System Three using the Scottish Opinion Survey ( SOS) to track awareness of the advertising and attitudes towards domestic abuse. Fieldwork took place after the advertising campaign, between 25 th January and 1 st February 2007 and 1,008 interviews were achieved in 42 constituencie s throughout Scotland. This sample was representative of the adult population of Scotland both demographically and geographically. The SOS was conducted using Computer Aided Personal Interviewing ( CAPI), allowing respondents to complete sensitive sections of the questionnaire (i.e. attitudes to and experience of domestic abuse) confidentially.
3. The proportion of respondents who had had any experience of domestic abuse remained fairly stable over the last four waves (with minor fluctuation), currently standing at 40% at Wave 10. This mostly comprised people who had close friends or relatives who had been the victim of domestic abuse (36% at Wave 10), and to a lesser extent people who had personally been the victim of domestic abuse (15% at Wave 10) and those who had been responsible for domestic abuse (3% at Wave 10). Results show that children were present in two thirds of cases (66%) at Wave 10.
4. Respondents were asked to identify the age groups and social classes in which they thought domestic abuse happened most often. Over time, the trend is towards fewer people seeing no barriers in respect of age and class. The number of respondents saying that domestic abuse was something that affected people from all age groups has fallen by six percentage points since Wave 8 to 42% at the latest wave. Although six in ten (60%) respondents felt that domestic abuse affected people from all social classes, this measure has also fallen over the last three waves, as have mentions for each class individually.
5. More than seven in ten respondents claimed to be spontaneously aware of advertising or publicity about domestic abuse over the last four waves. However, the high level of 78% at Wave 9 has not been achieved at Wave 10 - where 70% spontaneous awareness was recorded. Although television continued to be the main source of advertising recalled, the percentage dropped considerably to 59% at Wave 10 from 71% at Wave 9. This could be attributed to a lower spend on TV advertising and an underperformance in audience delivery within this. However this was unlikely to be the full explanation, as subsequent advert recognition remained consistently high. Levels of recall of other sources remain fairly consistent across the last waves.
6. Just under one in five (19%) of those who recalled having recently seen a TV advert about domestic abuse could describe specific aspects of the Reminder advert - a decrease in recall from 25% at Wave 9. Consistent with this, the number of mentions of the key themes dropped by several percentage points since Wave 9. Overall, the level of content recall for Reminder was not particularly high compared to some other executions following initial exposure. However, the adverts which ran prior to Reminder continued to maintain some residual awareness, demonstrating how memorable they were.
7. When prompted with Reminder, the level of TV reach was 67% - only marginally lower than the level seen at Wave 9 (69%). When respondents were played the Elizabeth and Listener radio adverts, 36% claimed to have heard each before (in combination a total reach of 47%). Combining the reach figures for TV and radio gives a total reach of 79%, which is one percentage point higher than at Wave 9 and compares favourably to other social campaigns monitored by TNS System Three. Generally, the intended communication points for the TV advert were successfully communicated. Almost half (49%) of respondents who had seen the advert before recognised that it sought to communicate mental / psychological / emotional aspects of abuse.
8. The ongoing communications campaign focuses public attention on the issue of domestic abuse as unacceptable and a series of attitude statements are used to monitor public perceptions in this respect. Attitudes on this topic tend to be quite firmly held, which allows little opportunity for further strengthening. The role of the campaign is as much one of reinforcement and maintenance than of stimulating change. Against this background, the latest findings indicate no significant change in attitude between the two recent waves. The public continued to agree that domestic abuse and violent abuse in particular are unacceptable. The main message of this campaign (that psychological abuse is as bad as physical abuse) has been one of the strongest and most consistently held beliefs over time. There does however appear to be some softening of attitudes on some measures that are not emphasised in the current campaign (mainly around getting help for, and living after, abuse). As was seen at previous waves, those who were aware of having seen the advertising campaign held stronger attitudes on the subject of domestic abuse, compared to those who had not seen any advertising. This indicates that the advertising campaign is contributing to maintaining these views.
9. However, the theme and communication of the current execution may not be new or strong enough to remain front-of-mind. The campaign has had little effect on the already high level of condemnation of mental abuse, and it proved less memorable than campaigns featuring physical abuse.
10. An additional set of questions was added to the tracking questionnaire at Wave 9 to investigate perceptions of the public in relation to wider forms of violence against/exploitation of women. Due to the sensitive nature of these questions, respondents aged 16-17 were excluded. It is important to note that these questions were not linked to the Domestic Abuse campaign.
11. The majority of respondents thought that pornography (60%) and prostitution (66%) were exploitative although, in each case, just under one in five were unsure, suggesting this is not a clear cut issue. There were notable demographic differences in opinion towards pornography. Females (67%) were more likely to regard this as exploitative than men (52%) and those aged 35+ were significantly more likely to regard pornography as exploitative than those aged 18-34 (70% compared to 37%). Differences in opinion by demographics were less marked for prostitution.
12. The second measure concerned three actions that could be seen as exploitation or violence against women ( Paying someone for sex, purchasing or viewing pornographic materials, and pressuring a woman to take part in sexual activities if she says she doesn't want to). The majority of respondents thought the actions were unacceptable in each case, and pressuring a woman to take part in sexual activities if she says she doesn't want to was the least accepted action. There has been a significant shift in attitudes towards purchasing or viewing pornographic materials with the mean score indicating that this activity is becoming less acceptable.
13. A new question was added at Wave 10 to explore attitudes towards rape, and how responsible respondents felt a woman was for being raped in various circumstances. Respondents felt very strongly that women were not responsible for rape in any circumstances, with 68% feeling that a woman was not at all responsible if she is flirting, 73% not at all responsible if she is drunk, 74% not at all responsible if she is dressed in revealing clothing and 82% not at all responsible if she is known to have had many sexual partners.
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