Media Coverage of Reeva Steenkamp’s Death

1805 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Violence in media and real violence

Introduction
In this modern day and times, many issues involving violence occur in the society we live. These issues are extremely publicized by the media. In this respect, the media places its keen interests in how the issue should be represented as opposed to what should be represented. Logically, the media is tasked with every opportunity and choices possible to determine how issues of violence should be represented, or the outcomes that may result from a violent crime. It is also important to note the manner in which violence is represented could have a positive or negative effect to the person it is addressed to; thus, responsibility ought to be considered before reporting is done.
Notably, violent crimes could be represented in a way that justifiable, easy, glamorous or cool. In this context, a victim of violence can be depicted in a way that propagates stereotyping. In the case of Reeva Stenkamp’s murder, it is evident that the media reflects Reeva as an object of intimate partner violence; hence, the case has been highly publicized in way that favours women. Additionally, it has been viewed that in the event of violence; if the whites murder or rape each other, the story is usually marred with unrealistic explanations towards their behavior. On the contrary, if a black commits such violence, they are thought to possess some intrinsic flaws in terms of nature. Hence, such violence is considered by the media as exceptional, and portrayed as being abberational as opposed to viewing it from a broader societal point.1 As a result of the highly publicized violent crime between Oscar Pistorius and her girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day, this paper focuses on demonstrating how media coverage has reflected and refracte...

... middle of paper ...

...y and masculinity, are now largely responsible not only for managing domestic violence but are also instrumental in the way that domestic violence is constructed and consequently the way that domestic violence victims are constructed and represented. This clearly represents the murder case between Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steekamp.

Works Cited

Msimang, S., 2013, Crime knows no race, City Press, viewed on 9th Dec, 2013
Dobash, R. E and Dobash, R. P., 1992, Women, Violence and Social Change. Routledge: London
Dobash, R. E and Dobash, R. P, 1979, Violence Against Wives. The Free Press, London: Macmillan
McRobie, Heather, 2013, Gender violence in the media: elusive reality. Open Democracy, viewed on 9th Dec, 2013
Damean, D, 2006, Media and gender: Constructing feminine Identities in a postmodern culture. Journal for the Studies of Religions and Ideologies, Vol. 14

Show More
Related

  • The Media And Gender Stereotypes In The Media

    2330 Words  | 5 Pages

    The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.

    Read More

  • Media Sensationalism in the Hannah Graham Case

    2081 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Sacco Article, titled “Media Constructions of Crime,” makes some good points that connect to the way the Hannah Graham case has been portrayed. First, on pg 145, Sacco writes that “crime stories that would have been a purely local affair in an earlier period now attract much wider attention because a videotape of the incident is available for broadcast.” There are hundreds of young girls that go missing each year and the Hannah Graham case is not much different than that - many years ago this most definitely would’ve been a local affair contained to the state of Virginia. Sacco also writes on pg 152 that “fear is in fact related to crime news exposure when local random violent crimes are reported in prominent fashion.” I believe that a huge reason this case is so popular is that Hannah Graham was a wealthy, smart, young, white girl who was abducted and murdered. This is terrifying and the fact that she was so innocent makes people feel like it could happen to them, and the media definitely pulls on the heartstrings of so many with this story. The last thing that Sacco writes that is related is that the line between news and entertainment has become more blurry (page 154). In this case, it has been so intriguing with so many twists and turns that it has almost become entertainment to people. In reality, a girl was murdered and it is a terrible tragedy that should

    Read More

  • The Documentary Tough Guise

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    The documentary demonstrates the connection between violence and social standards of masculinity by showing how masculinity is portrayed in the media. Media, as stated in the documentary,

    Read More

  • Feminist Theory Of Coercive Control

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    It was the research of Dobash and Dobash, a husband and wife team from Wales, that first posited that “intimate partner violence is the result of male oppression of women within a patriarchal system in which men are the primary perpetrators and women the primary victims” (McPhail, B. A., Busch, N. B., Kulkarni, S., & Rice, G., 2007). According to Lawson (2012), feminist theories treat the problem of intimate partner violence as fundamentally related to the patriarchal domination of men over women. Historically, patriarchy was the dominant social structure from early Greek and Roman civilizations where women were considered to be the property of their father, if unmarried, and their husband if married. As such, women were often beaten, burned, and killed for not being obedient to a man’s

    Read More

  • Media Violence: Censorship Not Needed

    1589 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pollitt, Katha. "Natural Born Killers." The Nation 26 July. 1999. Rpt. in Violence in the Media as "Violence in the Media Reflects the Violence in Society." Ed. James D. Torr. San Diego: Greenhaven. 2001. 47-49.

    Read More

  • Violence Against Women Is A Men's Issue By Jackson Katz Analysis

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Violence Against Women Is a Men’s Issue” the author, Jackson Katz, really connects the audience to the fact that we live in a society that almost promotes violence towards women, and that women, or victims, are not to blame for this.

    Read More

  • Logan And Media Analysis

    1805 Words  | 4 Pages

    Logan has been found to be a victim of media selectively distorting and manipulating the public perceptions through manipulating and creating a false perception of crime. It focuses on uncommon issues and reports them as sensationalised. This can provoke a fear of increased crime when statistically crime incidents are decreasing. The main reasons for media over representing particular crimes is purely economically enhancing, however, their portrayals of crime and violence increase public

    Read More

  • How the Media Uses an Ideal Victim in Portrayals of Crime

    1988 Words  | 4 Pages

    In recent years, the subject of crime has become an increasingly important theme of political, academic, and public debate. In particular, the media today is more focused on victims than it has ever been before. Through media representations of the ‘ideal victim’, this essay will subsequently show how the media are able to construct and re-affirm pre-existing traditional ideologies within the public realm. In effect, this assignment will critically assess the concept of an ‘ideal victim’ and show how the media have used this when describing crime.

    Read More

  • Influence Of Violence In The Media

    1534 Words  | 4 Pages

    The media and entertainment play a very crucial role in our perception of violence in society. Exposure to violence in the media, including television, movies, music, and video games helps us construct our own perspective on violence. According to Joel Best, his theory on random violence states that random violence and violence, in general, is patternless, pointless, and leads to the deterioration of society. Many examples can be given from national and international media coverage on various random violence acts. There are many sides to the debate about whether or not violence in the media affects us and how prevalent it is in our society. The focal discussion is the influence of violence on people through the mass media: movies, television,

    Read More

  • How Does Stuart Hall's Perspective Best Describes The Media?

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    This essay will discuss and confirm how Stuart Hall’s perspective best describes the media. I will do this by using an article from the Guardian published by Elle Hunt and David Pegg (Hunt and Pegg 2017). The article explores how the woman in the hijab who was photographed whilst walking past the victim lying down injured on Westminster bridge and how she responded to the online abuse she received from the public. The reason why I have chosen to look at this article as an example to explain why Hall’s theory is more accurate and best describes the media is because of the different interpretations which have been perceived about the woman and how the image has been read in several ways. Stuart Hall specifies different readings of the way something

    Read More

  • The Problem of Video Game Violence is Exaggerated

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    Javier, Rafael Art., William G. Herron, and Louis Primavera. “Violence and the Media: A Psychological

    Read More

  • Mass Murder And Puppets In The Media

    517 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is a predictable and disturbing trend that happens after every attack, or mass murder in this country. Another name is talked about around the world and another criminal’s face is burned into our memory. We concentrate so much on the person committing these horrible acts that we forget about the bigger picture. Yes, we see flashes of the victims and their families, but we can’t seem to get enough of the villain. That’s all the media feeds us. I could name five mass murders in this country off the top of my head but I couldn't name five of the victims if I tried.

    Read More

  • Representation Of Crime In The Media

    1849 Words  | 4 Pages

    When reporting crime events the media focus only on the negative scenarios that can impact the society, these events are to be know as “newsworthy” (Hall, 1978). Newsworthy crime news is formed through the selective approach taken by the editors where only the main idea of the topic is likely to be reproduced in the media. This is due to crime is not an open event as witnesses are limited hence the selective approach allows the editor to only report the thrilling parts of the crime. (Stuart Hall, 1978: p.53) quoted “‘News’ is the end-product of a complex proves which begins with a systematic sorting and selecting of events and topics according to a socially constructed set of categories”. As a result, this approach has formed bias opinions towards crime reporting as it’s presented in the editor’s point of view (Hall, 1978). The media hence only targets crime with events that is unexpected and events that’s viewed as out of the norm compared to the majority of the society. Alternatively, this changes the view of audiences as they view the society as a ‘problematic reality’ (Hall, 1978). The majority of world is therefore mislead by the fictional reporting of crime as many consumers

    Read More

  • Media Ideology Essay

    1278 Words  | 3 Pages

    How mass media is using both Ideology and Popular Culture to develop societal expectations and social identities. This essay will look at how Ideology, Hegemony, and Popular Cultural Theory shape common values and expectations of society and media’s influence and compare and contrast differing approaches to understanding the relationship between media and society. The discussion will be contextualized through the use of gender roles and expectations, and how these theories develop and affect the female social identity.

    Read More

  • The Media And Violence

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1960's the government made a concerted effort to increase the understanding of media effects as well as the influence of violence on television. The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence was in charge of investigating these issues and making recommendations to the President. The media task force's report was titled "Violence and the Media". It was believed that real violence was caused in part by the desire of action groups for media attention. It was also thought that violence in society could be reduced if the news gave groups the ability to enhance their communication. A particular focus of the study was the media's portrayal of violence and the public's personal experiences. The violence in television was shown to be the majority of people's primary source or experience of violence. This reported the media's ability to socialize the viewers to the norms and values of the culture. Previously the ability of television to do so had been disputed the media was seen to on...

    Read More

More about Media Coverage of Reeva Steenkamp’s Death

Open Document