MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN AND MAN AS ACTORS OR VICTIMS INVOLVED IN HOMICIDAL VIOLENCE

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the analysis of media representations of homicidal violence in the Republic of Serbia, with specific focus on their gender dimension. Quantitative-qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis of media narratives on homicidal violence encompassed online texts in selected Serbian dailies, and was carried out on the sample of newspaper articles published from May 1, 2019, to October 31, 2019. The results showed that article authors’ moralistic judgment derived from their social/gender stereotypes, and subjective perception of social deviance - that is reflected through simplified and biased presentation of the actors and victims, and implicitly suggesting to the audience with whom of them they should empathize with – is marked characteristic of those texts reporting on the lethal violence conducted by males against the intimate partner or family member. It was confirmed what has been described in the literature before, that women committed lethal violence are commonly represented as “fatal beauties”, “bad wives”, or “bad mothers”. Bearing in mind that media plays an important role in “knowledge construction” and significantly influences both the public attitudes and policies, it seems crucial that media is aware of their capacity and improve their practices in this area, including the reporting about violence without creating or preserving wrong beliefs or harmful social and gender stereotypes and biases.