P065 - Media Representations of Women Who Kill in Türkiye

• In Event: Poster Session & Ice Cream Social

Abstract

The rarity of women’s involvement in crime attracts curiosity from the public, and the act becomes newsworthy. Its newsworthiness is linked to the fact that such acts challenge the stereotypical scenario where a woman is a suspect or convict, especially in violent crimes. It is observed by previous empirical studies that in media, women offenders are portrayed as either mentally incapable, inherently evil, or helpless victims who resort to crime. This discourse stimulates the predetermined power relations between men and women; noting women as weaker gender which need protection and incapable of making rational choices when it comes to committing a crime. This research aims to explore the media representations of women who kill in Türkiye. To be able to investigate the issue, the literature review will be combined with a qualitative discourse analysis. The sample for this empirical study is the news published at Sabah newspaper for four months period between November 2023 and February 2024 (included). The news where women who allegedly killed are the sole focus of this study. This empirical study plans to contribute to field of criminology by moving a bit away from the “modern” or “Western” societies of the Global North by including another region and discourse to the debate, a “non-Western” country: Türkiye. Due to the lack of criminological research on women who kill in Türkiye, this study becomes important to establish the needs for future studies.

Author

• Irem Sanli, Eotvos Lorand University, Doctoral School of Sociology