Media Representation of Gender-Based Violence in Two Cases and Related Examples: A Multimodal Discursive Study

This chapter addresses media reports representing gender-based violence (GBV). It interrogates media representation of GBV against women by critiquing the framing of power imbalances and social inequities using critical discourse studies (CDS), defined as an approach rather than a single method (T. van Dijk, Discourse, power and access. In: Caldas-Coulthard CR, Coulthard M (eds) Texts and practices. Routledge, London, pp. 93–113, 2013). This approach incorporates a multimodal discourse methodology to analyse selected newspaper print and online texts based primarily on two reported cases of GBV and related examples. Power imbalances and inequities have been studied across diverse postcolonial Global South contexts including Caribbean nations, involving wider First-Third World imbalances. Power imbalances that are reflected in global-local power struggles are amenable to discursive study but insufficient attention has been paid to the application of such an approach and related methodological inquiry to GBV in the Caribbean context. A discursive approach is also relevant to critiques of privileged-marginalized contests (Hoppe, Ethos 48(2):231–249, 2020), relationships (Cook & Trundle, Anthropol Humanism 45(2):178–183, 2020) and theatre-based GBV activism (Steele, Exploring domestic violence issues and resolutions through Epic Theatre and Forum Theatre: The Good, the Baddesse and the Ugly. In: Bissessar AM, Huggins CL (eds) Gender and domestic violence, Palgrave, pp 39–65, 2021c). It can interrogate media coverage of First Peoples’ recognition (Steele, Discourse Commun 14(5):489–511, 2020), stakeholder contestation (Steele, Negot Confl Manage Res 9(1):60–80, 2016), conflict management among the young (Steele, Conflict management and animated film in elementary schools. Paper presented at the International Association for Conflict Management 21st Annual Conference, Chicago, USA, 2008), and communication-culture-conflict intersections (Steele, Communication, culture, and conflict: Trinidad and Tobago and the wider world. Kendall Hunt, Dubuque, 2021a). Multimodal discourse-based findings using illustrations from selected corpora based on the two stories show perception and communication about GBV representation can be reframed to address the reported inequities and power imbalances in media reporting of GBV.