Sophie Smith Media Analysis

Critical Media Analysis I have chosen to critically analyse an article about extreme gender based violence (GBV) – specifically intimate partner homicide. I will provide a critical analysis of the way the GBV is represented and discussed within this article, with a focus on victim blaming, reactive explanations of violence, biological explanations of violence, and feminist explanations of violence. Within this analysis I will explore the common media techniques of framing and the prevalence of newsworthiness; and the way in which these frameworks impact on how GBV is represented within the media. I will also review how these representations reflect on how GBV is viewed and addressed by society. One of the over-arching themes within the article is the victim-blaming mentality that is present throughout, and the subsequent representation that GBV is perpetuated as a result of women’s actions. Victim-blaming is when the victim is framed to be deserving of the violence that has been inflicted upon them (Lloyd and Ramon, 2017). It is notable here therefore, to explain that framing is when media outlets use specific techniques in order to cast people and events in a particular light (Easteal, Holland and Judd, 2015). In the context of this analysis, framing includes using specific language and framework to enable certain portrayals of people to be adopted, and this has the effect of altering audience perception and transforming public opinion (Gillespie et al, 2013 and Easteal, Holland and Judd 2015). In specific relation to extreme GBV, Fairbairn and Dawson (2013) discuss that within intimate partner homicides it is common that framing regularly excuses the perpetrator. The article uses a number of techniques in order to frame the victim as being deserving of her murder, consequently defending the perpetrator, and I am going to examine a number of these. To begin with, the victim's infidelity is referred to multiple times throughout the article. In the headline, which is the first section that the reader would engage with, it refers to the victim as a ‘cheating wife’. This phrase is also echoed in the tagline, the next section that the reader would see. By using this language and framing the victim within the first sections of the article, the victim-blaming viewpoint is immediately established. In addition, the article uses the technique of repetition of the word ‘cheating’ to enhance this framing and representation that the victim is deserving of this GBV. As the article progresses, the victim's infidelity is mentioned and discussed again, with an entire section dedicated to the dialogue of possible