Mediated Representations of Violence Against Women

Viktorija Car; Barbara Ravbar

doi:10.51698/tripodos.2021.50p131-146

Authors

Viktorija Car University of Zagreb (Croatia)
Barbara Ravbar University of Zagreb (Croatia)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2021.50p131-146

Keywords:

violence against women, journalistic reporting, media frames, Croatia

Abstract

Violence against women and girls in the 21st century remains a common and profoundly consequential violation of women’s human rights. It is part of gender inequality, an integral part of the social system, and linked to other aspects of human and economic development. When reporting about it, the media produce additional damage by continuously highlighting the hostile and violent treatment of women. Representations of gender and sexuality in the news reinforce the common perception that women are sexual objects and therefore disadvantage women, continuously reinforcing imbalances of power between women and men. This study explores media representations in Croatian online media articles about violence against women. The results of analysis show how violence against women is framed as a private problem, how women are addressed as unfaithful wives and prostitutes which gives excuses for the perpetrator while the blame for the violence is partly shifted to the woman. Also, results show how the secondary victimization is manifested in articles, and how violence against women as a topic is exploited to attract the readers’ attention.

Author Biographies

Viktorija Car, University of Zagreb (Croatia)

Viktorija Car (viktorija.car@fpzg.hr) holds a PhD in Media and Communications (2009) from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is Associate Professor at the University of Zagreb, Croatia and a Research Fellow of the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University, USA. In the focus of her research are visual media, media narratives, media and gender studies, media and human rights, and public service media. She is the founding Editorin-Chief of the Medijske studije journal (20102017; <https://hrcak.srce.hr/medijske-studije>). She was a MC member of the COST Action IS0906: Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies (2010-2014). She worked as a journalist and a screenwriter for the Croatian Public Service Television HRT (1998-2002) and was a member of the HRT Program Council (20112012). Her bibliography is available on <http:// bib.irb.hr/lista-radova?autor=277195>.

Barbara Ravbar, University of Zagreb (Croatia)

Barbara Ravbar (barbara.ravbar17@gmail. com) holds MA in Journalism (2019). She is a TV journalist at Televizija Zapad, Croatia. Her main research interests are media and gender studies, human rights, and minority studies. For her MA thesis research, she focused on an analysis of media coverage of the Istanbul Convention in the context of reporting on women’s rights. She participated in The Balkan Bridges project, which focused on covering stories about the refugee crisis in the Balkans. She won the 2nd prize for a multimedia project about Syrian refugees (2017), and Special Rector’s prize for her work in student newspapers Global (2015). She was nominated in the finale for the 8th Annual Award for journalistic work that promotes the values of education (2021).

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