Femicidios y discursos mediáticos de la muerte

Abstract

The written press has played an important role in the formation of society. The media are the ones who influence the collective imagination that depict social inequalities and among these, the one that costs most lives is male violence against women. Historically, gender-based violence has been the product of a patriarchal system with structures rooted in the oppression and silence of women. From a conscious point of view, the media should not only have the obligation to make this violence visible, but also to train society to become gender conscious and contribute to the eradication of all types of violence against women. Ambato has not had research done on discourse analysis in the local press, which is why, in addition to reflecting on this issue, "Femicides and media discourses of death" is a social critique of insensitive and voyeuristic journalism that views the deaths of women as headlines of spectacle for readers, and not as a social problem. As a starting point, Chapter I delves into communication theories, anthropology and sociology on the journalistic narratives that shape the treatment of news in the sensationalist context of femicide. Chapter II presents the methodology used in Chapter III, where, through an exhaustive discourse analysis, the narratives of local newspapers on five femicide news stories that occurred in Ambato in 2021 are questioned. The development of matrices combines the results between the spectacularization of death and narratives of fear around the deaths of women, including interviews with the editors of each media. Finally, with the help of national and international style manuals, alternatives for gender-conscious journalism are proposed. This research closes with its respective conclusions in Chapter IV, confirming the initial hypothesis.