Evolution of Femicide Representation in the Latin-American Mass Media: From Legitimation to Deligitimation

Abstract

The paper aims to identify strategies and means of femicide representation in the Latin-American mass media within the framework of two opposing processes - legitimation and deligitimation. Scientific originality of the study involves a comprehensive discursive-linguistic analysis of the femicide media representation in the context of legitimation and deligitimation strategies. As a result, it is shown that the Latin-American journalists guided by the government ideologies legitimate femicide using the emotional evaluation strategy which manifests itself in the use of lexical substitutes for “femicide” and euphemisms aimed to hide the problem of women’s discrimination. Using appropriate vocabulary (lexical units with the semantics “to lose one’s mind”), journalists create an image of a rapist-victim-suicider, and violence case is presented as an inevitable accident. In her turn, the woman is accused of violating certain gender stereotypes. The accusation strategy is realized by appealing to the tradition. Deligitimation of femicide is realized through implementation of the dehumanization strategy and the moral evaluation strategy: in this case, femicide is represented as violence against women and violation of their rights. To dehumanize femicide, journalists use the strategy of accusing the state, indicating striking cases of ignoring the problem and revealing attempts of law-enforcement bodies to hide real causes of female mortality.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: July 16, 2021.
• Published: September 15, 2021.

Keywords

• фемицид
• СМИ
• легитимация
• делегитимация
• апелляция к авторитету традиции
• femicide
• mass media
• legitimation
• delegitimation
• appeal to tradition

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© 2021 The Author(s)
© 2021 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)