Sexual Violence in the Media: Exploring the Role of Journalism in Reflecting, Mediating and (de)Constructing Perceptions and Imageries of Sexual Violence

Dear Colleagues,

Sexual violence affects all genders, but it disproportionately victimises women and girls. It does so due to deeply ingrained patriarchal gender norms and particular notions of masculinity that perpetuate rape myths and hierarchical gendered narratives, downplaying the severity of sexual violence and contributing to making it invisible, particularly at times when it involves specific types of victims and aggressors.

As it is consensually understood, the media, as a privileged discursive realm, has the power to model discourse—both as language and a normative system—and, thus, holds the capacity to construct, validate, challenge, condemn, and/or deconstruct sexual violence and the assumptions underpinning and validating it.

Within media, journalism wields considerable influence in this regard as it is perceived as an accurate, unbiased, and reliable source of daily information for the public (Hanitzsch, 2007), cumulatively contributing to the construction of a framework upon which reality is known, interpreted, and acted upon. Studies show, nevertheless, that despite following professional normative standards most of the time, journalism - by means of privileging “episodic framing”, dismissing wider power structures (Meyer, 2010; Sutherland, et al. 2015), and operating with particular representations of victims and “monstrous offenders” (DiBennardo, 2018) - perpetuates patriarchal assumptions and imageries of sexual violence (Santos et al. 2021). Furthermore, in contexts of ethno-racial tensions, inequalities, and conflicts, journalistic representations of rape tend to be sensationalized as a titillating commodity and serve the construction and dissemination of “moral panic” around particular ethnic and racial groups (Grewal, 2026). Literature has exposed that even though initiatives like #MeToo have contributed to increasing media attention to sexual violence, old age myths persist in the news coverage (Cuklanz, 2020; Tranchese, 2023). Facing this, some studies have been calling for a different model of journalism to cover and deconstruct sexual violence in an attempt to eliminate it (Steiner, 2020), while others have shown that feminist coverage of sexual violence is still possible within dominant journalistic standards (Dart Centre, 2011; Dekić, 2017; Santos et al. 2021). The emergence of social media also has a say in how journalism performs in this regard as it empowers people, including victims, to set the agenda and give an account of their own stories on their own terms.

This Special Issue welcomes articles that stem from feminist perspectives, while anchored in intersectional analysis (Davis and Zarkov, 2017), and approach journalism and the role it plays in covering sexual violence, emphasising at least one of the following angles: the role of journalist practices; the nuances, possibilities and limitations of journalistic representations and storytelling; and how audiences accept, negotiate, co-opt, challenge, or contest media texts.

References

• Cuklanz, Lisa. 2020. Problematic news framing of #MeToo. The Communication Review 23: 251–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2020.1829302.
• Dart Center. 2011. “Reporting on Sexual Violence”. 15-07-201. Available at: https://dartcenter.org/content/reporting-on-sexual-violence (accessed on 20 May 2024).
• Davis, Kathy and Dubravka Zarkov. 2017. EJWS retrospective on intersectionality. European Journal of Women’s Studies 24: 313-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506817719393.
• Dekić, Slobodanka. 2017. Media Coverage of Gender-Based Violence – Handbook and Training of Trainers. UN Women. Available at: https://eca.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Field%20Office%20ECA/Attachments/Publications/Country/Bosnia/UN%20woman%20prirucnik%20nasilje%20nad%20zenama-EN-WEB.pdf (accessed on 20 May 2024).
• DiBennardo, Rebecca A.. 2018. Ideal Victims and Monstrous Offenders: How the News Media Represent Sexual Predators. Socius 4. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118802512.
• Grewal, Kiran Kaur. 2016. Racialised Gang Rape and the Reinforcement of Dominant Order: Discourses of Gender, Race and Nation Abingdon: Routledge.
• Hanitzsch, Thomas. 2007. Deconstructing journalism culture: Toward a universal theory. Communication Theory 17: 367–85.
• Meyer, Anneke. 2010. “Too Drunk To Say No”: Binge drinking, rape and the Daily Mail. Feminist Media Studies 10: 19–34.
• Santos, Sofia Jose, Julia Garraio, Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho, and Inês Amaral. 2022. A space to resist rape myths? Journalism, patriarchy and sexual violence. European Journal of Women’s Studies 29, 298-315. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505068211048465.
• Steiner, Linda. 2020. Feminist journalism. The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1-9.
• Sutherland, Georgina, Angus McCormack, Jane Pirkis, Patricia Easteal, Kate Holland and Cathy Vaughan. 2015. Media representations of violence against women and their children: State of knowledge. Sidney: Anrows-Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety. Media representations of violence against women and their children: State of knowledge paper. Available at: https://anrowsdev.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/FINAL-Co-branded-Media-Representations_WEB.pdf (accessed on 20 May 2024).
• Tranchese, Alessia. 2023. From Fritzl to #MeToo: Twelve Years of Rape Coverage in the British Press Palgrave Macmillan: Cham.

Dr. Sofia José Santos
Dr. Júlia Garraio
Guest Editors

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• sexual violence
• media
• rape
• intersectionality
• journalism
• representations
• audiences