Fact or Fiction? Gender Issues Related to Newspaper Reports of Intimate Partner Homicide

Abstract

The present study compared newspaper articles reporting female-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) homicides with those reporting male-perpetrated IPV homicides. Domestic violence was not mentioned in 72% of the articles. Female-perpetrated IPV homicide, although relatively rare, was not portrayed as more newsworthy nor did it receive more coverage when compared to male-perpetrated IPV homicide. When analyzing explanations for homicides given in newspaper reports, as well as descriptors used to describe the perpetrator, there was no support found for gender bias in favor of male perpetrators. Female victims were more likely to be portrayed as innocent when compared to males.

Content and Framing of Male- and Female-Perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence in Print News

“…Another consistent finding in the literature is that media portrayals of IPV are primarily episodic in nature (Carlyle et al, 2008;McManus & Dorfman, 2003;Wozniak & McCloskey, 2010). In other words, most reporting rendered the instances of IPV as merely isolated criminal events devoid of broader societal context.…”

“…Carlyle and colleagues (2008) conducted a content analysis of 395 nationally representative, IPVrelated U.S. newspaper articles published between 2002 and 2003 and found that newspaper framing of IPV is overwhelmingly episodic in nature (88.3%). Similarly, Wozniak and McCloskey (2010) examined U.S. newspaper articles covering incidents of IPV perpetrated by men (n 5 70) and women (n 5 30) and found that 99% failed to cast IPV in the "broader context," that is, as a widespread social phenomenon (p. 947). Conversely, Ryan, Anastario, and DaCunha (2006) investigated how the implementation of a best practices handbook 3 on reporting domestic violence murders affected the coverage of this topic by conducting a qualitative content analysis of the articles written by 37 reporters over time, both prehandbook (n 5 103, 1996-1999) and posthandbook (n 5 172, 2000-2002).…”

“…A handful of studies have examined media portrayals of IPV (Berns, 1999;Bullock & Cubert, 2002;Carlyle et al, 2008;McManus & Dorfman, 2003;Wozniak & McCloskey, 2010). Representing the first such effort, Berns (1999) examined portrayals of domestic violence in 111 articles from 10 popular U.S. women's magazines to determine the perspective from which responsibility for instances of reported IPV were established.…”

“…The third author (MT) of this article coded a random sample of 15% (n 5 26) of the articles to permit calculation of interrater agreement. Because there was little response variability across raters, Yeaton and Wortman's (1993) formula was employed, which is  (agreements) /  (agreements 1 disagreements). Excellent interrater agreement was found for all three constructs: Johnson's typology (92%), level of severity (85%), and frame (92%).…”

A Moral Panic? The Problematization of Forced Marriage in British Newspapers

“…This process yielded 24 themes and concepts (see figure 2a and 2b). These can be grouped into seven broad categories: (a) articles about the judicial disposition or policing of a specific case; (b) articles on individual victims and/or perpetrators that centered on the characteristics of victims and/or perpetrators, a theme found in many previous analyses of newspaper reporting on domestic violence (Wosniak & McCloskey, 2010); (c) reports that outlined policy and legislative developments; (d) reports on practical measures, including service provision, aimed at addressing FM and helping victims; (e) articles seeking to estimate the scale of the problem in the United Kingdom; (f) articles on prevention (a small, but defined subset); and (g) articles on the context, nature, and causes of FM. The last category included articles that discussed FM within the broader context of VAW or wide-ranging debates on community cohesion, multiculturalism, speaking English at home, immigration, Muslims/Islam, and minority communities and their culture and traditions, including arranged and transnational marriage.…”