Media Portrayals of Female Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health priority. An important component of designing prevention programs is developing an understanding of how media portrayals of health issues influence public opinion and policy. To better understand the ways in which media images may be informing our understanding of IPV, this study content analyzed portrayals of IPV in news media articles. Stratified media outlets were used to obtain a representative sample of daily newspapers based on their designated market areas. Researchers created constructed months using weeks from each season across a 2-year period. The first part of the study investigated quantitative differences in the coverage of female and male perpetrators (n = 395) and identified several areas where coverage differed. The second part of the study qualitatively examined coverage of female perpetrators (n = 61) to provide a richer description of such coverage. This study contributes to our understanding of female perpetrators and how these portrayals may contribute to the larger gender symmetry debate surrounding female aggressors. Implications for public health policy and research are discussed.

News Stories of Intimate Partner Violence: An Experimental Examination of Participant Sex, Perpetrator Sex, and Violence Severity on Seriousness, Sympathy, and Punishment Preferences

“…Even in the weak violence condition, participants still rated IPV as serious. Content analyses of news stories have shown that IPV with low levels of violence is not frequently depicted in new stories (e.g., Carlyle, Scarduzio, et al, 2014;Sellers et al, 2014). However, the current study finds that presentations of low-severity violence may still impact the individuals reading news stories.…”

“…Perceptions of IPV also differ when male and female perpetrators use severe violence. For example, female perpetrators who use severe violence, such as killing their partner, are perceived as abnormal or socially deviant (Carlyle, Scarduzio, et al, 2014). Further, male perpetrators who use severe violence are depicted more frequently in news stories because they are more likely to use severe violence than female perpetrators, and thus their behavior is normalized (see Carlyle et al, 2008).…”

“…Studies of how entertainment media impact aggression and violence are common (e.g., Anderson et al, 2010;Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2016), whereas studies of how news stories impact perceptions of IPV are less frequent despite the fact that news portrayals of IPV tend to cast individuals as responsible. In fact, content analyses of IPV news stories consistently reveal that incidents are often separated from any consideration of social or cultural contexts (Carll, 2003;Carlyle, Scarduzio, & Slater, 2014;Carlyle, Slater, & Chakroff, 2008;Sellers, Desmarais, & Tirotti, 2014). Other research has established that news stories reduce the public's feelings of responsibility about IPV (Carlyle, Orr, Savage, & Babin, 2014).…”

“…preferences and responsibility, and the emotions varied depending on the information provided (e.g., victim having an affair). Moreover, research has found that IPV news stories about female perpetrators present women as abnormal, extreme, or deviant-especially when the violence is severe (Carlyle, Scarduzio, et al, 2014). Since people learn and make judgments about IPV based on the news, it is important to study how readers perceive elements of IPV in that venue, such as whether perceptions about IPV vary for male and female perpetrators and when the reported severity of violence varies.…”

Intimate Partner Violence and Gender A/Symmetry: An Integrative Literature Review

“…3) Studies that show similarity in female and male perpetration, revealing gender symmetry in domestic violence (Carlyle, Scarduzio, & Slater, 2014;Chan, 2011;Fincham Cui, Gordon, & Ueno, 2013;Marshall et al, 2011;Sullivan et al, 2010;Walsh et al, 2010;Winstok, 2013;Zanoni et al, 2014).…”