Violence against women in the news in Mexico: uncritical and dissimilar treatment of a serious social problem

Abstract

As part of a comprehensive study about violence against women (VaW) and media, we performed a content analysis of newspapers, television and radio news in Mexico in two periods of 2011 to determine the VaW news treatment. 8,610 press news, 4,719 TV news and 3,855 radio news were classified and analyzed from a national coverage media selection. The results show that visibility in the news do not contribute to state VaW as a social problem of public interest, related to the inequality between women and men. Instead of this, information about individual cases prevails, without mention or analysis of the social or structural problem. Also, different treatment and degrees of importance and visibility has been identified for each media. Television is the media that least mentions the responsibilities of the State and society at the fight for eliminating violence against women.