A double-smashed body: (in)visibility of femicide victims in newspaper headlines

Abstract

This paper discusses the journalistic construction of femicide victims in newspaper headlines from two Brazilian news portals, based on the assumption that journalism, as an opinion maker, produces scenes of visibility which both include and exclude subjectivities. The research is based on theoretical and methodological bias of Discourse Analysis in dialogue with social sciences, and it examines four headlines published in 2015, year of sanctioning the Law 13,104 against femicide in Brazil. This study opens to a reflection on the journalistic modes of production concerning news of femicide by arguing that in the analyzed texts the body is constructed as a place where the victim is paradoxically exposed and silenced.

Keywords
Discourse Analysis; (In)visibility; Femicide; Journalism; Silence