“I forgive him. It wasn’t easy for him”: social representations of perpetrators of intimate partner violence in the Western Cape Province media

Botswana Print Media and the Representation of Female Victims of Intimate Partner Homicide: A Critical Discourse Analytical Approach

“…Media discourse instead focuses on the causes of killing and in so doing put the blame on the victim. This study finding therefore confirms and reinforces the victim-blaming narrative that has been repeatedly reported in the existing literature of media coverage of IPV and IPH (Bullock and Cubert 2002;Alat 2006;Bullock 2007;Exner and Thurston 2009;Jankey 2009;Fairbairn and Dawson 2013;Isaacs 2016;Lloyd and Ramon 2017;Isaacs and Mthembu (2018)). Given that the victim-blaming narrative has been repeatedly used as a key frame in the media coverage of IPV and IPH, following the views of Meyers (1994) and Taylor (2009), one could argue that violence against women clearly reflects a complexity of oppressive culture in which news media tend to represent the values of the dominant patriarchal social order on the one hand and present a significant barrier to social change responding to gender inequality on the other.…”

“…Within the context of a patriarchal society, such a discursive strategy perpetuates the patriarchal consciousness that operates within a common mode of thinking in which "human differences, including but not limited to gender, are viewed in dualistic terms of dominant or subordinate, good or bad, and superior or inferior" (Satina et al 1998: 183). In other words, a binary mode of thinking is the locale where patriarchal ideological consciousness is stimulated (Isaacs 2016;King'ori and Bitrus-Ojiambo 2016;Isaacs and Mthembu 2018). In this binary mode, the first group is favoured over the second group.…”

“…Discursively, women are defined as the occupants of the second group in the binary opposition mode with a prevailed embedded sexism (Santos, Cerqueira, and Cabecinhas 2018). However, this binary option is problematic, because within a culturally embedded patriarchal ideology, women would normally be perceived as second-class on one hand and determinants of a societal progress on the other (Kanemoto and Collins 2017;Isaacs 2016;Isaacs and Mthembu 2018).…”

Representation of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Swedish News Media: A Discourse Analysis

“…Reference to some of these phenomena, notably the mental health status (Pepin, 2016) or difficult childhood (Isaacs & Mthembu, 2018) of perpetrators, has been interpreted as serving to create sympathy for and excuse violent behavior. Opinions on whether to report on use of alcohol have differed, as some researchers consider underreporting of alcohol consumption problematic (e.g., Carlyle et al, 2008), whereas others argue that it may serve to excuse the violence (e.g., Isaacs & Mthembu, 2018;Nationellt Centrum för Kvinnofrid & Uppsala University, 2014;Pepin, 2016;Venäläinen, 2016) and that drugs and alcohol may be associated with but not cause IPVAW (Fleury et al, 2000). References to the personality and temper of abusers have also been noted to pathologize and excuse IPVAW (Isaacs & Mthembu, 2018;Nationellt Centrum för Kvinnofrid & Uppsala University, 2014).…”

“…Opinions on whether to report on use of alcohol have differed, as some researchers consider underreporting of alcohol consumption problematic (e.g., Carlyle et al, 2008), whereas others argue that it may serve to excuse the violence (e.g., Isaacs & Mthembu, 2018;Nationellt Centrum för Kvinnofrid & Uppsala University, 2014;Pepin, 2016;Venäläinen, 2016) and that drugs and alcohol may be associated with but not cause IPVAW (Fleury et al, 2000). References to the personality and temper of abusers have also been noted to pathologize and excuse IPVAW (Isaacs & Mthembu, 2018;Nationellt Centrum för Kvinnofrid & Uppsala University, 2014). Such tendencies toward pathologizing or excusing IPVAW allow readers to maintain a distance from IPVAW and understand it as an individual rather than a societal problem (Meyers, 1996), thus not requiring societal change.…”