Covering rape
how the media determine how we understand sexualised violence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34445Keywords:
rape, critical discourse analysis, corpus analysis, news discourse, violence against womenAbstract
The focus of this paper is a corpus study of the representation of rape in the mainstream quality press in the UK and a discussion of the broader social implications of such representation. This paper uses corpus analysis tools to study the discourse that surrounds the terms ‘rape’ and ‘raped’ and their collocates in a corpus of four British quality newspapers and compares the findings of the corpus analysis with corpus-external data (e.g. statistics on rape crimes, government reports, rape myths) to determine whether (and to what extent) the images foregrounded by the press in the corpus echo such contextual information. On the basis of this comparison, I argue that the representation of rape in the corpus reflects and reinforces dominant stereotypical understandings of rape rooted in patriarchal conceptualisations of gender roles and sexualities and perpetuated by established professional practices in mainstream journalism.
References
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Baker, P. (2006) Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.
Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., Khosravinik, M., Krzyzanowski, M., McEnery, T. and Wodak, R. (2008) A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse and Society 19(3): 273–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926508088962
Baroni, M. (2009) Distributions in text. In A. Lüdeling and M. Kytö (eds) Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook 803–21. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bednarek, M. and Caple, H. (2012) News Discourse. London: Continuum.
Benedict, H. (1992) Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (Undated) Rape myths. Retrieved from http://cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk/rape-myths.
Chaplin, R., Flatley, J. and Smith, K. (2011) Crime in England and Wales 2010/11: Findings from the British Crime Survey and Police Recorded Crime, 2nd edition. HOSB:10/11. London: Home Office. Retrieved from www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116417/hosb1011.pdf.
Clark, K. (1992) The linguistics of blame. representations of women in The Sun’s reporting of crimes of sexual violence. In M. J. Toolan (ed.) Language, Text and Context 183–97. London: Routledge.
CPS (Undated a) Witness protection and anonymity. Retrieved from www.cps.gov.uk/legal/v_to_z/witness_protection_and_anonymity.
CPS (Undated b) Rape and sexual offences, chapter 21: societal myths. Retrieved from www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-21-societal-myths.
Ehrlich, S. (2001) Representing Rape. Language and Sexual Consent. London: Routledge.
Emmers-Sommer, T. M., Pauley, P., Hanzal, A. and Triplett, L. (2006) Love, suspense, sex, and violence: men’s and women’s film predilections, exposure to sexually violent media, and their relationship to rape myth acceptance. Sex Roles 55(6): 311–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9085-0
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.
Franiuk, R., Seefelt, J., Cepress, S. and Vandello, J. (2008) Prevalence and effects of rape myths in print journalism. Violence against Women 13(3): 287–309. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801207313971
Full Fact (2012) Rape conviction rates deserve careful explanation. Retrieved from https://fullfact.org/crime/rape-conviction-rates-deserve-careful-explanation.
Grauerholz, E. (1994) Gender socialization and communication: the inscription of sexual harassment in social life. In S. G. Bingham (ed.) Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice 33–44. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Henley, N. M., Miller, M. and Beazley, J. A. (1995) Syntax, semantics, and sexual violence agency and the passive voice. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14(1): 60–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x95141004
HMICFRS (2015) Rape Monitoring Group: digests and data 2014/15. Retrieved on 28 May 2017 from www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/publications/rape-monitoring-group-digests-and-data-2014-15.
Javaid, A. (2016) Feminism, masculinity and male rape: bringing male rape ‘out of the closet’. Journal of Gender Studies 25(3): 283–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2014.959479
Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving Sexual Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kitzinger, C. and Thomas, A. (1995) Sexual harassment: a discursive approach. In S. Wilkinson and C. Kitzinger (eds) Feminism and Discourse: Psychological Perspectives 32–48. London: Sage. ttps://doi.org/10.1177/096394709800700306
Kress, G. and Hodge, B. (1979) Language as Ideology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Levenson, J. S. and D’Amora, D. A. (2007) Social policies designed to prevent sexual violence: the emperor’s new clothes? Criminal Justice Policy Review 18(2): 168–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403406295309
Levitt, A. and CPS Equality and Diversity Unit. (2013). Charging perverting the course of justice and wasting police time in cases involving allegedly false rape and domestic violence allegations. Retrieved from www.cps.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/legal_guidance/perverting-course-of-justice-march-2013.pdf.
Lombard, N. (2015) Young People’s Understanding of Men’s Violence towards Women. Farnham: Ashgate.
Lombard, N. and McMillan, L. (2013) Taking stock: theory and violence against women. In N. Lombard and M. Lesley (eds) Violence against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation 233–344. London: Jessica Kingsley Publisher. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12131
Louw, B. (1993) Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies. In M. Baker, G. Francis and E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds) Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair 157–76. Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.64.11lou
Mason, P. and Monckton-Smith, J. (2008) Conflation, collocation and confusion: British press coverage of the sexual murder of women. Journalism 9(6): 691–710.
Meyers, M. (1997) News Coverage of Violence against Women: Engendering Blame. London: Sage.
O’Hara, S. (2012) Monsters, playboys, virgins and whores: rape myths in the news media’s coverage of sexual violence. Language and Literature 21(3): 247–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947012444217
Pharr, S. (1991) Redefining hate violence. Transformations 6(2): 1–10.
Pharr, S. (1997) Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism. Berkeley, CA: Chardon Press.
Potts, A., Bednarek, M. and Caple, H. (2015) How can computer-based methods help researchers to investigate news values in large datasets? A corpus linguistic study of the construction of newsworthiness in the reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Discourse and Communication 9(2): 149–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481314568548
Rape Crisis Scotland (2013) False Allegations of Rape: Briefing Paper. Retrieved from www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/resources/false-allegations-bp-170913-1.pdf. Glasgow: Rape Crisis Scotland. https://doi.org/10.1080/10683160701770286
Richardson, D. and Robinson, V. (2007) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Scully, D. (1990) Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists. New York: Routledge.
Sinclair, J. (1991) Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J. (1999) A Way with Common Words. In B. Hasselgard and S. Oksefjell (eds) Out of Corpora. Studies in Honour of Stig Johansson 157–79. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Soothill, K. and Walby, S. (1991) Sex Crime in the News. London: Routledge.
Stubbs, M. (1996) Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Teo, P. (2000) Racism in the news: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting in two Australian newspapers. Discourse and Society 11: 17–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926500011001002
Thompson, J. B. (1990) Ideology and Modern Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Trask, R. (1993) A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London: Routledge.
UK Government (2017) Sexual Offences Act 2003: 2003 c. 42, Part 1, Rape, Section 1. Retrieved on 5 May 2017 from www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/1.
UK Parliament (Undated) Anonymity for defendants in rape cases. Retrieved from www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-parliament-2015/justice/anonymity-for-defendants.
van Dijk, T.A. (1985) Semantic discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse Analysis 103–36. London: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100007099
van Dijk, T. A. (1988) News as Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
van Dijk, T. A. (1991) Racism and the Press. New York: Routledge.
van Zoonen, L. (1994) Feminist Media Studies. London: Sage.
Waterhouse-Watson, D. (2013) Athletes, Sexual Assault and ‘Trials by Media’. New York: Routledge.
Wild, K., Church, A., McCarthy, D. and Burgess, J. (2013) Quantifying lexical usage: vocabulary pertaining to ecosystems and the environment. Corpora 8(1): 53–79. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2013.0034
Wood, J. T. (1994) Saying it makes it so: the discursive construction of sexual harassment. In S. G. Bingham (ed.) Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice 17–32. Westport, CT: Praeger. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.32-3710
Baker, P. (2006) Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.
Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., Khosravinik, M., Krzyzanowski, M., McEnery, T. and Wodak, R. (2008) A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse and Society 19(3): 273–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926508088962
Baroni, M. (2009) Distributions in text. In A. Lüdeling and M. Kytö (eds) Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook 803–21. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bednarek, M. and Caple, H. (2012) News Discourse. London: Continuum.
Benedict, H. (1992) Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (Undated) Rape myths. Retrieved from http://cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk/rape-myths.
Chaplin, R., Flatley, J. and Smith, K. (2011) Crime in England and Wales 2010/11: Findings from the British Crime Survey and Police Recorded Crime, 2nd edition. HOSB:10/11. London: Home Office. Retrieved from www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116417/hosb1011.pdf.
Clark, K. (1992) The linguistics of blame. representations of women in The Sun’s reporting of crimes of sexual violence. In M. J. Toolan (ed.) Language, Text and Context 183–97. London: Routledge.
CPS (Undated a) Witness protection and anonymity. Retrieved from www.cps.gov.uk/legal/v_to_z/witness_protection_and_anonymity.
CPS (Undated b) Rape and sexual offences, chapter 21: societal myths. Retrieved from www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-21-societal-myths.
Ehrlich, S. (2001) Representing Rape. Language and Sexual Consent. London: Routledge.
Emmers-Sommer, T. M., Pauley, P., Hanzal, A. and Triplett, L. (2006) Love, suspense, sex, and violence: men’s and women’s film predilections, exposure to sexually violent media, and their relationship to rape myth acceptance. Sex Roles 55(6): 311–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9085-0
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.
Franiuk, R., Seefelt, J., Cepress, S. and Vandello, J. (2008) Prevalence and effects of rape myths in print journalism. Violence against Women 13(3): 287–309. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801207313971
Full Fact (2012) Rape conviction rates deserve careful explanation. Retrieved from https://fullfact.org/crime/rape-conviction-rates-deserve-careful-explanation.
Grauerholz, E. (1994) Gender socialization and communication: the inscription of sexual harassment in social life. In S. G. Bingham (ed.) Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice 33–44. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Henley, N. M., Miller, M. and Beazley, J. A. (1995) Syntax, semantics, and sexual violence agency and the passive voice. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14(1): 60–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x95141004
HMICFRS (2015) Rape Monitoring Group: digests and data 2014/15. Retrieved on 28 May 2017 from www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/publications/rape-monitoring-group-digests-and-data-2014-15.
Javaid, A. (2016) Feminism, masculinity and male rape: bringing male rape ‘out of the closet’. Journal of Gender Studies 25(3): 283–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2014.959479
Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving Sexual Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kitzinger, C. and Thomas, A. (1995) Sexual harassment: a discursive approach. In S. Wilkinson and C. Kitzinger (eds) Feminism and Discourse: Psychological Perspectives 32–48. London: Sage. ttps://doi.org/10.1177/096394709800700306
Kress, G. and Hodge, B. (1979) Language as Ideology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Levenson, J. S. and D’Amora, D. A. (2007) Social policies designed to prevent sexual violence: the emperor’s new clothes? Criminal Justice Policy Review 18(2): 168–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403406295309
Levitt, A. and CPS Equality and Diversity Unit. (2013). Charging perverting the course of justice and wasting police time in cases involving allegedly false rape and domestic violence allegations. Retrieved from www.cps.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/legal_guidance/perverting-course-of-justice-march-2013.pdf.
Lombard, N. (2015) Young People’s Understanding of Men’s Violence towards Women. Farnham: Ashgate.
Lombard, N. and McMillan, L. (2013) Taking stock: theory and violence against women. In N. Lombard and M. Lesley (eds) Violence against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation 233–344. London: Jessica Kingsley Publisher. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12131
Louw, B. (1993) Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies. In M. Baker, G. Francis and E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds) Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair 157–76. Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.64.11lou
Mason, P. and Monckton-Smith, J. (2008) Conflation, collocation and confusion: British press coverage of the sexual murder of women. Journalism 9(6): 691–710.
Meyers, M. (1997) News Coverage of Violence against Women: Engendering Blame. London: Sage.
O’Hara, S. (2012) Monsters, playboys, virgins and whores: rape myths in the news media’s coverage of sexual violence. Language and Literature 21(3): 247–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947012444217
Pharr, S. (1991) Redefining hate violence. Transformations 6(2): 1–10.
Pharr, S. (1997) Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism. Berkeley, CA: Chardon Press.
Potts, A., Bednarek, M. and Caple, H. (2015) How can computer-based methods help researchers to investigate news values in large datasets? A corpus linguistic study of the construction of newsworthiness in the reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Discourse and Communication 9(2): 149–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481314568548
Rape Crisis Scotland (2013) False Allegations of Rape: Briefing Paper. Retrieved from www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/resources/false-allegations-bp-170913-1.pdf. Glasgow: Rape Crisis Scotland. https://doi.org/10.1080/10683160701770286
Richardson, D. and Robinson, V. (2007) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Scully, D. (1990) Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists. New York: Routledge.
Sinclair, J. (1991) Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J. (1999) A Way with Common Words. In B. Hasselgard and S. Oksefjell (eds) Out of Corpora. Studies in Honour of Stig Johansson 157–79. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Soothill, K. and Walby, S. (1991) Sex Crime in the News. London: Routledge.
Stubbs, M. (1996) Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Teo, P. (2000) Racism in the news: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting in two Australian newspapers. Discourse and Society 11: 17–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926500011001002
Thompson, J. B. (1990) Ideology and Modern Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Trask, R. (1993) A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London: Routledge.
UK Government (2017) Sexual Offences Act 2003: 2003 c. 42, Part 1, Rape, Section 1. Retrieved on 5 May 2017 from www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/1.
UK Parliament (Undated) Anonymity for defendants in rape cases. Retrieved from www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-parliament-2015/justice/anonymity-for-defendants.
van Dijk, T.A. (1985) Semantic discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse Analysis 103–36. London: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100007099
van Dijk, T. A. (1988) News as Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
van Dijk, T. A. (1991) Racism and the Press. New York: Routledge.
van Zoonen, L. (1994) Feminist Media Studies. London: Sage.
Waterhouse-Watson, D. (2013) Athletes, Sexual Assault and ‘Trials by Media’. New York: Routledge.
Wild, K., Church, A., McCarthy, D. and Burgess, J. (2013) Quantifying lexical usage: vocabulary pertaining to ecosystems and the environment. Corpora 8(1): 53–79. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2013.0034
Wood, J. T. (1994) Saying it makes it so: the discursive construction of sexual harassment. In S. G. Bingham (ed.) Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice 17–32. Westport, CT: Praeger. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.32-3710
Published
2019-07-31
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Tranchese, A. (2019). Covering rape: how the media determine how we understand sexualised violence. Gender and Language, 13(2), 174-201. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34445
