Femicide and media

Abstract
While attacks against members of the LGBT community are increasingly covered as hate crimes and are widely viewed as a form of repression, attacks on women are almost never covered as violations of human rights.
We propose that until violence against women is recognized as a form of repression and a threat to the phsycal security of women, we cannot expect much to be done to prevent it. We posit that policies aimed at preventing violence against women are unlikely to come about unless this abstract concept it connected, through a connection frame, to concrete crimes against women. We conducted a framing analysis of news coverage of all confirmed femicides in Massachusetts in 2013 and find that while journalists have the potential to draw these connection frames, they seldom put these killings in the context of violations of women’s right

Abstract
The media play a central role in the social construction of intimate femicide and therefore the news coverage of femicide can contribute to social awareness and the response policies of institutions which deal with this crime. The current study analyzes the difference in Israeli newspaper’s framing of femicide committed by members of ethnic groups between the years 2005 and 2014. The analysis shows that the social construction of intimate femicide reflects the intersection between gender, social class and ethnic origin. The findings suggest that news coverage fills a key role in the perpetuation of the structure of dominance, gender and social class, and that overall coverage of femicide is mainly episodic and described in personalized terms rather than within a thematic frame. This study provides new insight into the media’s role in shaping the social denial of this crime and sheds light on how the prevalent discourse inhibits participants from taking responsibility

Abstract
The perception of femicide and violence against women has known a constant evolution in recent years; both mass media and political and social actors tried to raise awareness on the issue. According to Diana Russell’s definition (the killing of females by males because they are females), femicide, has to be considered as a social and political fact and not just as ordinary crimes: it represents extreme manifestations of male dominance over female.

Our aim is to analyse how these facts are represented every day in the Italian press. In our thesis we collected and analysed from the online edition of four of the most important national newspapers in Italy (Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Libero) and from two Sardinian local newspapers (L’Unione Sarda and La Nuova Sardegna). The time span goes from January 2010 to May 2015. We will examine how the charatcters are depicted in the texts, what are the reasons behind the facts, and how violence itself is described, together with other linguistic aspects related to the headlines, to the use of direct speech and quotes from the protagonist of the events.

Abstract
The increasing attention of the Italian press to the subject of femicide sees on the one hand new agenda criteria for journalists who responsibly acknowledge the value of news to facts that often in the past were considered of lower public interest. On the other hand, the methods of narration and representation of these events could require as much social responsibility and innovative journalistic narrative skills (Tuchman, 1978). When a woman is killed at the hands of her partner, the episode is not limited to one of the many crime events, but she can more than others contribute to using specific imaginaries of the different roles that men and women play within the social world. For journalists, the cases of femicide therefore constitute an insidious topic because they require interpretative tools that are not immediately present in professional routines or in easy explanatory common sense resources, except to repropose obsolete stereotypes. To contribute to the reflection on the social implications of the journalistic discourse related to the changes of gender roles, this contribution proposes a re-reading of a previous analysis of 166 articles published in 2012 by 3 Italian newspapers in relation to cases of killings of women at the hands of the partner ( Gius and Lalli 2014). The framing strategies used bring out the hypothesis of romantic love as a narrative background canvas that would serve to "explain" the trauma of ordinary lives, except in cases where other variables exogenous to the gender issue can be mobilized to understand the reasons of brutal gestures (such as, for example, different religion, situations of deprivation or social distress). It should be noted, therefore, as a tendency to persist in the Italian press as in the international one, a widespread appeal to implicit models that take for granted a sort of normalization of the sense of male possession in man-woman relations (Chung 2005; Mokton Smith 2012; Singh 2013; Wood 2001). Now, rather than offering simple criticisms or indications, we question the need for phenomenological research paths that help, on the one hand, to make explicit the tacit rules that inspire the neutral appearance of the journalistic report and, on the other, to contribute to the construction of a common ground of socially responsible journalism, open to the exploration of innovative paths.

Abstract
This paper illustrates the results of a research on Italian mainstream press coverage of femicide occured in 2013. The research, designed in ways that allow comparisons with other sectorial studies on Italina as well as on foreign new media, draws on quantitative and qualitative analysis. The first one aims to provide an overall picture and examines the online versions of 17 newspapers; qualitative analysis focuses on the 10 most covered cases of intimate partner femicide. Along with confirming the empirical evidences produced by previous studies, this work also hilights new elements in press coverage femicide.

Abstract
How do Italian newspapers narrate feminicide? According to Gamebri, the angle (cut: taglio) by which newspapers narrate violence against women in never neuter. The point of view of the writer, the stories narrated, and the image that accompany these stories, they all respond to specific rhetorical constructions and narrative acts that, consequentially, define our imaginary. Starting from a research that analyzes the structures of languages, style, and iconography of the “rhetoric of feminicide” in the Italian press, this article presents excerpts from Doppio Taglio, a show that reveals the angle (taglio) by which media describe how women are killed by their men. Some of the mechanisms that contribute to spread a distorted imaginary are: the victimization of women, the lack of male’s representation, the otherness of violence (as not belonging to Italian culture), and finally, the use of terms such as raptus and passion murder. Giving the invisibility of their aggressors, removed from the scene and, therefore, deprived of responsibility, women are represented univocally as passive and defenseless victims. Such representations contribute to strengthen the eroticized and voyeuristic spectacle of women, seen solely as bodies within a strongly stereotyped vision of femininity.

Abstract
The theme of femicide is increasingly at the center of media attention and the language used by newspapers can be considered a valid expression of the perception of the problem in society. In this article through text mining techniques we analyze the journalistic language used mainly by newspapers such as La Stampa and La Repubblica on the cases of femicide in Piedmont between 2005 and 2010. In general, the victim, after a first description, is often represented like an inanimate body, without life. It is put into the background in the story unlike the murderer who instead has a longer "journalistic life".
The language used in the articles analyzed seems to further penalize the victims of femicide, especially if they are foreign, always putting the man who committed the crime in the foreground. Focusing on the victim rather than the murderer could be the starting point for modifying those mechanisms that make femicide the consequence of a deep-rooted distorted feeling of gender relations.

Abstract
In Italy law has accepted “honour crimes” perpetrated by men until little more than 30 years ago. As cultural dimensions are often slower to change, it is interesting to analyze the capacity to account for femicides in the press in a period in which the topic has become more and more relevant all over Europe. Building on existing literature, this study explores how three major Italian newspapers frame crimes of intimate partner femicide. Using 166 articles published in 2012, the authors examine - by a thematic analysis conducted along different items - which aspects are conveyed by the news to account for the 53 intimate partner femicides reported in the press in this period. Findings suggest that while Italian news media heavily rely on narratives of love and passion to frame intimate partner homicide, a social discourse justifying the “loss of control” it is also used to sustain representation of femicides as crimes impossible to be prevented or predicted.

Abstract
The present research utilized content analysis to explore the media coverage of a near population of femicide–suicide cases in the North Carolina from 2002 to 2009. An examination of the article titles showed that the majority of titles assigned to the articles describe the crime as an ambiguous homicide or homicide–suicide and do not indicate the relationship between the perpetrator and victim. In comparison, results show that 78% of the articles’ text defined the homicide–suicide as domestic violence. Specifically, in cases where the news coverage defined the femicide–suicide as domestic violence, the authors identified 4 media frames used (1) femicide–suicide by a male perpetrator, (2) femicide–suicide due to loss ofperpetrator control, (3) femicide–suicide as a mercy killing, and (4) femicide– suicide due to jealousy. Implications for societal perceptions of violence against women as well as corresponding victims’ policies/services are presented and discussed

Abstract
This study analyzes all male-perpetrated intimate partner homicides reported in three daily newspapers in Toronto, Canada within two separate time periods (1976-1979 and 1998-2002) to explore if and how this coverage has changed over time. Results suggest that, in more recente years, news coverage is likely to report a previous history of intimate partner violence and less likely to employ news that excuses or justifies the perpetrator’s actions. However, coverage continues to employ victim-blaming news frames and to portray intimate partner homicide as an individual event, in part, through the absence of the voices of violence against women organizations, researchers, and service providers as legitimate authorities in both time periods. Thus, news coverage fails to encourage social and political responses to violence against women in intimate relationships that emphasize the need for social structural changes focusing on gender equality.

Abstract
The current study examines the news media’s use of direct and indirect victim-blaming language, the sources cited in femicide reporting, and whether femicide cases are contextualized as an individual problem or within the broader social issue of intimate partner violence (IPV). Consistent with previous research, findings indicate that public sources (i.e., law enforcement) were the most commonly cited sources (i.e., friends and family); however, domestica violence experts are cited more often than in prior studies. In addition, direct and indirect victim blaming language is not as pervasive as previous research has suggested. Implications of these findings and future research are discussed.

Abstract
The present study is a content analysis of crime news to determine how femicide victims are portrayed by a Florida metropolitan newspaper. The analysis consisted of 292 domestic homicide-related articles published by one newspaper from 1995 to 2000. The data were analyzed to determine effects on newsworthiness, context revealed, and patterns of victim blame. A dichotomy concerning victim blame emerged from the analysis, suggesting victims are blamed directly and indirectly for their own femicides. Direct tactics include using negative language to describe the victim, highlighting her choices not to report past incidences, and portraying her actions with other men as contributing to her murder. Indirect tactics include using sympathetic language to describe the perpetrator; emphasizing the perpetrator's mental, physical, emotional, and financial problems; highlighting the victim's mental or physical problems; and describing domestic violence in terms that assign equal blame to both partners.