December 2024
Nueva revista del Pacífico
In Chile, confinement because of COVID-19 led to an increase in cases of violence against women. To study the associated social representations, a corpus of 18 news items from 2020 and 2021 was selected from four digital media. The theoretical perspective applied corresponds to that of discourse analysis. The results showed four representational resources for victims and five resources for perpetrators. In addition, differences were identified regarding the identity of the social actors: the representation of the aggressor tended to be less explicit and detailed than the one of the victims, whereas women and the details of their deaths were the object of spectacularization and their identity was presented in a deliberate and explicit way. Based on the foregoing, the press continued to reinforce stereotypes and to make the perpetrators of femicides invisible by placing jealousy as the motive behind these cases.