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The Loathsome, the Rough Type and the Monster: The Violence and Wounding of Media Texts on Rape
Abstract
This chapter seeks to engage the reader with the question of what sexualised and embodied speech, in the context of media narrative about sexual crime in the press, actually do. It takes media reporting of a case of serial rape, as a starting point to explore wounding in terms of violent categorisation and emotions of fear produced by dominant and sexualised speech and visual symbolism (Livholts, 2007).1 The purpose is to analyse the violence and wounding of media texts by focusing on the forming of men and masculinity in the context of media reports and to explore the function and consequences of academic and journalist authorship. The chapter illustrates how journalists’ use of language does violence to the people in the text by the way it represents them, and also how it disrupts the researchers attempt to study rape. Starting with a critical reading of the relevant newspapers, I found myself so affected by the fearful descriptions of a serial rapist who strikes in the darkness, but also the dominant and sometimes aggressive voices of the journalists, that I was inclined to end the research completely. The chapter puts forward the argument that by using a multi-methodological reflexive approach and focusing on the complex function of authoring in journalism and research, it is possible to contribute to new understandings of the violence and wounding of media texts on rape.
... Therefore, it is clear that notable and reported cases that result in convictions will also in uence public perception. Many people believe rape is committed by monstrous individuals who cannot control their need for sex and so prey on strangers and enact violence on them (Livholts 2008). The most notable sexual crimes that result in conviction and are thus able to "stick" in the public's memory are cases where the victim, usually female, is murdered. ...
... The most notable sexual crimes that result in conviction and are thus able to "stick" in the public's memory are cases where the victim, usually female, is murdered. These cases have such a profound effect because they dominate media narratives about rape (Livholts 2008;Serisier 2005). ...
Available open-access at https://writingfrombelow.org/articulations-of-violence/explaining-stealthing
This paper discusses the issue of “stealthing,” a term for non-consensual condom removal during sexual intercourse, in the context of a broader rape culture that is dismissive of sexual crimes, and particularly those that fall in so-called “grey areas” of the law. Stealthing is technically considered rape according to Australian legal experts (Wright in Hack 2017) but is difficult to prosecute as such due to the pervasiveness of socially constructed ideas about rape. I argue that stealthing has escaped discussion for so long because low rape convictions and misleading media narratives contribute to a lack of understanding about what constitutes rape, who perpetrates it, and who it affects. This paper focuses on an experience of stealthing, described to me by an interview participant who was involved in my PhD research about the sexual culture of amateur and semi-professional Australian Rules football, as part of my work looking into the experiences of women who have had sex with footballers. In this paper, I tell her story and connect it to a broader conversation about stealthing, sporting culture, and rape culture that we need to have.
A blog version is available at: https://friendlyneighbourhoodfeminist.wordpress.com/2018/12/04/understanding-stealthing-in-the-context-of-australian-rape-culture/
... Förvandling är ett ordval som får bärkraft som diskurs. Det har associationer till fiktionen och sagans värld, och ger berättelsen ett drag av oförutsägbarhet, inte minst en bildlig association när porträttet av Hagamannen som ett monster tecknas (Livholts 2008). Denna monsterbild blir med tiden till synliga attribut på kroppens yta, till exempel genom vittnen som berättar om en leende våldtäktsman med svarta ögon. ...
... De visar hur mediernas empati för offret och synen på offret som hela samhällets angelägenhet är kopplat till om gärningsmannen betraktas som en vanlig man, "en av oss", eller om han räknas till en "subkultur". I berättelsen om våldtäkt i fallet Hagamannen blir poliser och frivilliga eskortgrupper av män i Umeå stad och en enskild våldtäktsman till motpoler av godhet/beskyddare och ondska/förövare (Livholts 2008). En intervjustudie med både kvinnor och män i Umeå stad visar ett mönster av rädsla hos kvinnor och medvetenheten om att uppfattas som ett hot hos män mot bakgrund av våldtäkter begångna av Hagamannen. ...
Anthology of social alcohol and drug research.
Inledningen: ”Syftet med den här boken är att presentera ett urval av aktuell svensk samhällsvetenskaplig alkohol- och drogforskning. Boken behandlar i första hand alkohol, men narkotika har också en given plats i flera av texterna. Vi vill med dessa kapitel dela med oss av våra erfarenheter och hoppas att boken kan bidra till ett ökat kritiskt och reflekterande tänkande kring rusmedelsfrågan – en fråga som är alltför bred och komplex för att kunna hanteras enbart med ett piller, en lag eller en enskild riktad insats. Boken riktar sig till en bred läsekrets. Den ger högskolestuderande inom olika discipliner en god ingång till och överblick över ämnet. Boken riktar sig också till andra intressenter såsom politiker och tjänstemän, journalister, anställda inom sjukvård, socialtjänst och kriminalvård, samhällsdebattörer, föreningsaktiva på området samt den samhällsintresserade medborgaren.” (s. 9-10)
... Förvandling är ett ordval som får bärkraft som diskurs. Det har associationer till fiktionen och sagans värld, och ger berättelsen ett drag av oförutsägbarhet, inte minst en bildlig association när porträttet av Hagamannen som ett monster tecknas (Livholts 2008). Denna monsterbild blir med tiden till synliga attribut på kroppens yta, till exempel genom vittnen som berättar om en leende våldtäktsman med svarta ögon. ...
... De visar hur mediernas empati för offret och synen på offret som hela samhällets angelägenhet är kopplat till om gärningsmannen betraktas som en vanlig man, "en av oss", eller om han räknas till en "subkultur". I berättelsen om våldtäkt i fallet Hagamannen blir poliser och frivilliga eskortgrupper av män i Umeå stad och en enskild våldtäktsman till motpoler av godhet/beskyddare och ondska/förövare (Livholts 2008). En intervjustudie med både kvinnor och män i Umeå stad visar ett mönster av rädsla hos kvinnor och medvetenheten om att uppfattas som ett hot hos män mot bakgrund av våldtäkter begångna av Hagamannen. ...
Introduction to anthology of social alcohol and drug reserach.
... Second, it more effectively and concretely allows the charting of "power," particularly how-through which gestures, actions, in which places and through which toolsinfluence is exercised by whom (Domingo 2015, 70;Neff 2015, 77) both inside and outside got to be scrapped between the 1960s and 1980s. The second work is by Mona Livholts (2009): in "The Loathsome, the Rough Type and the Monster: The Violence and Wounding of Media Texts on Rape" she examines the media representation of rape in a small town in the north of Sweden. Livholts did not just conduct a discourse analysis of news reports, but included memory work and short stories to make explicit the way herself, as a researcher, was being affected by the material she was investigating. ...
... I read a piece about reflective writing in conducting research in nursing (Jasper 2005) that appeared to have nothing to do with my field of study, but which I found inspiring. I contacted Mona Livholts, founder of the Reflexive Academic Writing network based at Mid Sweden University, 3 who kindly shared a sample of her works, a fascinating mixture of creative and academic writing (Livholts 2009(Livholts , 2010(Livholts , 2013. ...
This article examines the role of creative writing in understanding journalism. It argues that non-academic writing—poetry in this case—can play a far more significant part in journalism research than that of an entertaining genre for disseminating a study's findings, mainly to audiences beyond academia. Not only can poetry complement traditional “academic” texts by filling the gaps of the vivid details of the situated practices of journalism as they are lived in real life. It also has far-reaching epistemological and ontological implications: it raises fundamental questions about the world where journalists operate, the role of imagination, sensory perceptions and materiality in everyday manifestations of journalism, as well as the place of the scholar in the research process. The benefits of creative writing are illustrated through examples of actual poems written while conducting a comparative study of foreign journalists in the United Kingdom, Norway and Somalia.
The paper aims at identifying, explaining and illustrating the affordances of “creative nonfiction” as a style of writing social science. The first part introduces creative nonfiction as a method of writing which brings together empirical material and fiction. In the second part, based on illustrations from my ethnographic research of European “crisis reporters,” written in the form of a novel about a fictional journalist, but also based on a review of existing social science research that employs a creative method of writing, I identify several main affordances of creative nonfiction in social-scientific research. In particular, I argue that creative nonfiction allows scientists to illustrate their findings, to express them in an allegorical way, to organize data into a narrative, to let their pieces of research act in the social world, and to permeate research accounts with self-reflexive moments. I also discuss some apparent negative affordances: challenges that creative nonfiction poses to readers and to the institutionalized academic discourse. Finally, I suggest that writing about sociological problems in the style of creative nonfiction can help to produce more engaging and engaged texts, and I discuss the ethical implications of the approach.
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