Today's information context is made up of three main players: the figure of the journalist, the social networks and the users. Journalists have a social responsibility to urge the citizenry on worthy interest. Social networks can be classified as an information distribution channel, with significant consequences such as information overload. Lastly, users, by commenting, sharing and adding news, influence the rest of public opinion, both directly and indirectly.
Having ascertained these roles, the research therefore aims to analyze the journalistic approach to gender-based violence and users' perceptions of it, using the social platform Facebook. The survey focused on two variables: the media coverage of 3 cases of gender-based violence in the Italian journalistic landscape - two cases of sexual assault and one feminicide - and the individual articles exemplifying these cases. Regarding the first variable, the research collected a corpus of articles, later classifying them into macro-topics (articles on the accused's version, articles on the victim's version, on the investigation, etc.). The second variable analyzed three aspects: the titling of the articles, the semantic field of the words, and the narrative frames. Also, in order to measure users' perception, readers' comments to the analyzed articles on the Facebook pages of the respective newspapers were collected.
The journalistic narrative of these 3 cases of gender-based violence has shown that there is a fairly superficial approach that tends to indirectly blame the victim. In fact, the girls' version often takes a back seat in the media coverage, also publishing a large amount of information that is superfluous to the interpretation of what happened. Moreover, as the analysis of comments on Facebook also shows, users focused on these details proposed by the news articles, but without dwelling on the fact itself. Moreover, the reader had a more benevolent attitude towards the aggressor when he enjoyed a high social position - these were two policemen and a businessman. In terms of content, the narrative strategies used made heavy use of storytelling and infotainment. In this way, space was given to narrative elements that diverted the reader's attention from the more relevant facts. Also, this particular strategy resulted in the difficulty for the user to connect the single event to the larger and more widespread phenomenon of gender-based violence, transforming it from a systemic situation to an extraordinary event.
Ultimately, the research proposed an alternative to the current narrative, promoting language without gender bias and stereotypes, which puts the victim back at the center of her story and is useful in countering gender-based violence, truly informing the reader of the phenomenon’s magnitude and severity.
