Men’s Violence against Women as Portrayed in the Swedish Media

The Construction of Victimhood and the Role of the Perpetrator

Bibliographic Data

ID20394231
AuthorsMary-Louise Ortiz (0009-0006-9154-1700, Uppsala University, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume36
Issue2
Pages71-99
Publication date2026-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWomen & Criminal Justice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0897-4454 • E-ISSN: 1541-0323
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08974454.2024.2348025
OpenAlexW4396802984
LanguageEN
References cited60

Men’s violence against women is an international problem and while global and national initiatives have been created to better the criminalization process, the influence of news reporting on violence against women has not been successfully addressed in such policy. The aim of this study is to contribute to understanding how media frames violence against women in the Swedish context, which is both highly protective of crime reporting and where violence against women is a central policy and public discussion issue. A mixed methods approach was used in the analysis of 295 digital news articles that were published by four media outlets (Aftonbladet, Expressen, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter) within the period January 1st, 2019–December 31st, 2021. The study found that digital news articles first frame the issue of violence against women as episodic, but later transform into a thematic frame when follow-up articles were written on a given case. The study found a construction of victimhood by Swedish news media that allowed for two victim personas to be identified: the ideal victim and the ideal minority victim. In connection with the portrayal of the victim, the study also identified two different portrayals of the perpetrator: the ideal foreign perpetrator and the Swedish perpetrator. Both the description of the victim and perpetrator allowed for insights to be made regarding the role of racialization in news reporting and how this effects the framing of social issues. Finally, the study presented a set of news values that were most frequently found in articles that reveal several news factors of violence against women that contribute to the topic being seen as newsworthy

Criminology · Dating violence · Domestic violence · Media studies · Poison control · Sociology · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Human Factors and Ergonomics · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Psychology · Social Psychology

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