No Risk to the Public - Media Framing of Intimate-Partner Violence

• In Event: The Intersection of Media and Crime: Interrogating Crime Control, Violence, and Marginalized Identities

Abstract

Often, in cases of intimate-partner violence (IPV), media covering the incident will assert that since the perpetrator is in police custody or in cases of femicide-suicide, has completed suicide, there is ‘no risk to the public’. Yet, media coverage and the ways in which media portrays issues such as IPV significantly impacts how the public perceives it. Often, male IPV perpetrators are described as having “snapped” or acting in a “jealous, blind rage”, but current media portrayals indicate that the public should not panic or be concerned about their potential victimization, since he is now in police custody and thereby poses ‘no risk’ to anyone else. Yet, this obscures how deep-seated systemic and structural factors such as patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity create and sustain the conditions for a pervasive risk of IPV perpetration and victimization. This critical media analysis explores the ways in which IPV has been framed in the media and argues that framing IPV as an individual, quasi-private concern that poses ‘no risk to the public’ has significant, harmful ramifications for how IPV is understood by the public and in turn, the urgency and efficacy with which policymakers, public health officials, and criminal legal system professionals approach it.

Author

• Eden Hoffer, Western University