TEASER: DOES AUSTRIA HAVE A PROBLEM WITH FEMICIDES?

A frame analysis of the Kronen Zeitung reporting on fatal violence against women (in the making)

By Phelia Weiß

This year alone at least 28 women have been killed by ex-partners or other men close to them[1]. Femicides haven't just been a problematic phenomenon in Austria since the corona pandemic but in 2021 several sensational cases and ongoing media attention have pushed it into the spotlight. While some groups called for better prevention measures and help for women in need, others chose to instrumentalize the deaths of these girls and women for their own political goals. When a young girl was brutally abused and murdered, suspectedly by three Afghan men, then-chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the conservative government party stated that there would "definitely be no deportation stop to Afghanistan and no softening of the asylum laws".

The heated debate is only fuelled further by sensationalized and stereotyped reporting. Tabloid outlets like the Kronen Zeitung – Austrias most influential and widest-reach newspaper, infamous for its insensitive style of crime coverage[2] – are prone to jump onto the bandwagon of such outcries, quickly identifying ostensible culprits to make responsible for the Austrian femicides.

[WAKE-UP CALL TO POLITICIANS. "Asylum system has cost girls their lives". With an appeal that is as forceful as it is touching, the parents of two girls who were killed and their lawyers are sending a wake-up call to politicians for stricter handling of asylum seekers who have committed crimes. A package of measures is to reform the system.]

Picture: krone.at, 20.09.2021

Reports like these, that make the killing of women out to be singular cases of "relationship tragedies" or further serve the stereotype of "dangerous foreigners" shift the public focus away from the societal problem of violence against women in Austria, thus hindering an actual fight against it. But talking about Austrian femicide reporting can only be anecdotal so far since communication scholars seem to have been reluctant to address the issue. This fact is especially remarkable when looking at international numbers of femicides – especially compared to its direct European neighbours Austria scores alarmingly high in these statistics.

What do we know about femicide reporting?

Some preliminary results from a study on German-language media underline the anecdotal perception of problematic patterns in femicide reporting: trivialization, victim-blaming, and a lack of acknowledgment for the structural problem. Additionally, there seems to be some influence of a perpetrator's migration background[3]. These findings echo earlier research efforts from all over the world, showing that neither the phenomenon of femicides nor that of questionable journalism is an Austrian-only issue[4]. And some studies even offer a glimpse of hope, one example illustrating the shift from a private issue to a public problem in Spain, showcasing how media involvement can interact with societal change[5].

[SERIES OF BLOOD DEEDS. Larissa case, quintuple murder, Burgstein tragedy. A review of the past years shows that Tyrol is anything but an island of the blessed when it comes to homicides. Relationship dramas, bestial murders, and family tragedies run like a thread through recent history. We have selected the most sensational of these crimes since 2012.]

Picture: krone.at, 16.06.2021

If you are interested in seeing more examples of questionable femicide reporting, CLICK ME!

The broader field of crime reporting has been a prominent issue for communication research though. And from this, we do know a lot, especially about problematic patterns: foreigners are notoriously overrepresented as perpetrators, while also being painted in a different, more negative light than natives. Apart from nationality, other factors like race, ethnicity, and migration background have been shown to play roles in the depiction of perpetrators and victims of crime, even resulting in shaping the perceptions and attitudes of the audience[6]. These media effects can go as far as influencing voting decisions[7]. Paired with the immense societal and political attention fatal violence against women has gotten in the past months in Austria, media reporting on the topic raises enough concern to warrant an investigation of the frames that are used.

Why should we look at the frames?

If you think of stereotypes as the pictures that we have in our minds about people based on certain features, frames are here to hold them in place and present them to the world. By focusing on specific cases, highlighting some aspects, and letting others go unnoticed, journalists frame a story. This is not some malicious practice to influence the audience, but rather the way the media operates: there is never enough airtime or space in a newspaper to show every little angle there is to a story. Plus, that would be neither practicable nor interesting. And in addition to that, every journalist will be using frames in their work inherently, just by being embedded in their own culture and experience, thus prioritizing some features over others.

So, what exactly are media frames? Referring to the most commonly agreed-upon definition amongst communication scholars by Robert Entman, they consist of four elements[8]:

1. problem definition: e. g. the presentation of femicides as singular cases or a societal issue

2. causal interpretation: e. g. ascribing the victim or perpetrator mitigating attributes

3. moral evaluation: e. g. the naming of the act as "relationship drama" vs. "murder"

4. treatment recommendation: e. g. political consequences

Picture: Illustrations by macrovector and freepik

The key of Entman's concept is that not all elements have to be present to evoke the blank spots of a frame. If the connection between foreigners and violence against women has been established clearly enough, the journalist won't have to spell it out for the audience every time. In the same vein, they might not even see a societal problem since the victims always seem to have provoked it in some way.

What can this research do for the fight against gender-based violence?

This research project won't solve anything on its own. But as feminist activists and researchers, we can use our means of knowledge production for the cause by providing insights into the status quo. Identifying problematic patterns and generating data on them can be one of many steps to lay a foundation and advocate for responsible media practices. By including characteristics of both the victim(s) and the perpetrator in the analysis, the intersectionality of stereotypes and discrimination can be taken into account. Because neither should a group of people be stereotyped because one became a murderer, nor should the death of an Austrian woman be more important, than that of a foreigner.

References

[1] There is no official statistic on femicides but the Association of Autonomous Austrian Women's Shelters keeps a list of suspected cases.

[2] For example when the online-platform krone.at published uncensored videos of people getting killed during the Vienna terror attack in November 2020 (german only).

[3] Wetzstein, I., & Prinzellner, Y. (2021, September 6). Far-away femicides and proximate relationship tragedies: How place and race frame deadly violence against women in German-language media publics. Conference presentation. ecrea 2021 8th European Communication Conference Online.

[4] Some recent international studies on femicide reporting came from Botswana, Columbia, South Africa, or the UK.

[5] Comas-d’Argemir, D. (2015). News of partner femicides: The shift from private issue to public problem. European Journal of Communication, 30(2), 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323114544865

[6] For English-language research on crime reporting and its media effects see for example Couttenier et al. (2019), Vaes et al. (2017), Johnson & Hong (2017).

[7] Mastrorocco, N., & Minale, L. (2018). News media and crime perceptions: Evidence from a natural experiment. Journal of Public Economics, 165, 230–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.07.002.

[8] Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x.