‘Something Terrible Happened’: Spectacles of Gendered Violence and Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun

Gunne, Sorcha

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-62133-3_10

Cited by 1 publication

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“…To date, the Pistorius trial and its broadcast has generated scholarship about new media (Knight, 2017;Scott, 2016;Van Der Vyver, 2017), old media (Johnson, 2016;Maraise et al, 2014;Ndlovu, 2016), public trials (James, 2017), journalistic 'groupthink' (Phelps and Glenn, 2016), media portrayals of criminal trials (Johnson, 2016;Maraise et al, 2014;Ndlovu, 2016;Obbard and Cork, 2016;Phelps and Glenn, 2016;Scott, 2016; Van der Vyver, 2017), spectacles of gendered violence (Gunne, 2017) and media representations of disability (Bansel and Davies, 2014;Ellis and Goggin, 2015;Harvey, 2015;Swartz, 2013). The trial was said to represent a 'godsend' to the South African mainstream media which had experienced a severe contraction, generating jobs and revenue across the media spectrum (Chuma, 2016; see also Green, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dignity in the digital age: Broadcasting the Oscar Pistorius trial

Biber

2018

Crime, Media, Culture

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Oscar Pistorius was tried for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp in South Africa in 2014. His trial was broadcast live, after media agencies applied to the court for comprehensive access to the courtroom. The decision to broadcast the trial followed a careful and deliberative court ruling about the constitutional principles of human dignity, freedom and equality. South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution provides a framework for achieving social transformation, and open justice plays an important role in it. Despite concerns about sensationalism and voyeurism, the broadcast of the Pistorius trial functioned as a constitutional experiment. This article evaluates the principles and practices of open justice in South Africa through the broadcast of the Pistorius trial, and the roles played by the media, the courts and the public. It identifies significant events during the trial, including its reporting, which had the effect of testing the compatibility of open justice, on the one hand, and the proper administration of justice, on the other. The right of an accused to a fair trial, at times, confronted the sensitivities of the victim’s family, the rights of the media and the demands of the public to witness justice being done. This article examines the tangled relationship between dignity and justice, compounded by the technologies of digital media, in the unique context of post-apartheid South Africa.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dignity in the digital age: Broadcasting the Oscar Pistorius trial

Biber

2018

Crime, Media, Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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‘Something Terrible Happened’: Spectacles of Gendered Violence and Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun

Cited by 1 publication

References 4 publications

Dignity in the digital age: Broadcasting the Oscar Pistorius trial

Dignity in the digital age: Broadcasting the Oscar Pistorius trial

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