Covering Feminicidios

How Mexican Journalists Fight to Improve Representation of Violence Against Women

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12909253
AutoresMiriam Hernández (0000-0003-3083-9977, California State University, Dominguez Hills, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume19
Fascículo6
Páginas1215-1238
Data de publicação2023-09-06
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournalism Practice (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17512786.2023.2251983
OpenAlexW4386521998
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas46

In the last decades, there have been multiple calls to challenge the way Mexican journalists report on the everyday violence women face in the country, particularly the coverage of feminicidios (femicides). To better understand newsroom challenges, the present study uses the hierarchy of influences model to explore the different levels of influence that shape feminicidio news in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, one of the most violent states for women in the country. The findings, based on 20 interviews with journalists who covered feminicidios, indicate that routine (sources, available resources, crime formats) and organizational (newspaper sections and economic demands) levels continue to shape most of the initial news agenda, but that individual journalists are aware of this, and regularly try to find opportunities to push for stories that place the issue as part of a larger societal problem. This results in a reported increasing number of feminicidio news with a gender perspective and strategic attempts to make up for past biased reporting. Implications and recommendations for the coverage of the larger VAW issue in the Mexican setting are discussed.KEYWORDS: Femicidesfeminicidiosviolence against womenhierarchy of influences modelnews constructionMexican journalism AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank the journalists and editors who generously donated their time to be interviewed and provided their insights.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 There is no consensus in academic literature on how to designate female abuse in intimate and non-intimate settings. Terminology and designations seem to vary according to time, location, research tradition, legal systems and/or what encompasses (Novo-Arbona et al. Citation2022). The most used term tends to be that of “violence against women”, as it constructs violence as a conflict between men and women, aligning with statistical evidence that victims are overwhelmingly female (Hawley, Clifford, and Konkes Citation2018). It also covers a range of violence, including sexual, physical, psychological, economic control, coercion, etc. and femicide as the most extreme form of VAW. Other general terms are intimate-partner violence (IPV), domestic violence and gender-based violence (GBV). Here we will utilize the term “violence against women” as it recognizes that violence is used on women because they are women, regardless of their conforming to gender roles or norms, that it can transpire in domestic, public and/or institutional settings and it is a social and cultural structural problem based on patriarchal values (Meyers Citation1994; Vallejo Citation2005).2 Femicide in the context of VAW research refers to the murder or attempted murder of a woman by her male intimate-partner as a result of gendered violence (Taylor Citation2009). Feminicidio (from femicide in English) in the Mexican law refers to extreme cases of violence against women, occurring within institutional and private spheres, caused by a set of misogynistic conducts that may culminate in homicide and other forms of death, and committed by a male intimate-partner or a stranger (Grupo de Trabajo Citation2017). This paper takes the VAW research definition but will refer to “feminicidio” when journalists or the scholarship expressively use this concept

Criminology · Domestic violence · Face (sociological concept · Journalism · Media studies · Newspaper · Perspective (graphical · Poison control · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Representation (politics · Social science · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Terminology · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Social Media and Politics