Media narratives on intimate femicide: analysis of a popular Portuguese newspaper

Abstract

Media narratives on intimate femicide: analysis of a popular Portuguese newspaper
This paper aims to present and discuss the results of a study whose main goal was to analyse and characterize intimate femicide news, discussing possible implications of media narratives in the construction of the criminal reality and in maintaining gender stereotypes associated with crime. Based on 200 news stories published between 2011 and 2014 in Correio da Manhã newspaper, which were subject to thematic content analysis, the results sustain that media narratives tend to be marked by a victim-blaming speech and an unaccountability of the perpetrators, which seems to reinforce the proliferation of gender stereotypes.