Representações sociais do homicídio de mulheres no Jornal Zero Hora

Abstract

The main theme of this dissertation is about women murders in Rio Grande do Sul and aims to analyze the social representations of the phenomenon produced by the media. For that, was searched for news stories involving cases of lethal violence against women, in a digital database of the Zero Hora newspaper, published in the period from January to December 2016. From this research, 48 reports was found, all in the police section, and 6 headlines. Was sought to understand the media's perspective in cases of homicide of women, the emphasis given in some cases to that reports, the relevance of mentioning the victim’s criminal record and / or their involvement in drug trafficking, and situations in which homicide is identified as a crime of passion.It is understood that the lethal violence of women occurs in several situations, which give rise to quite singular configurations. In these homicide arrangements, the gender element - constitutive of social relations - may or may not be present as drive of violence. However, the media darken the gender aspect, making it difficult to understand homicides from their complexity. For the theoretical support of the research, was opted for the theory of social representations, of Serge Moscovici and for the studies developed in gender and sexuality scope. Regarding the theoretical-methodological procedures, the qualitative approach and the set of content analysis techniques were adopted in their thematic modality for data systematization and interpretation. The results pointed out that the media deals with the murder of women covering the possible motivations based on unequal gender relations. The news framing is exclusively in police way, that means, doesn’t consider the multiple dimensions that involves violence against women. The media also produce representations of intimate partner violence in which it is reduced to a crime of passion. These results enable further study in the area, paving the way for future research, and challenge the media to incorporate gender equity into the way they interpret female homicides. The violence between intimate partners is reduced to a crime of passion in representations produced by the media. These results enable further studies in the area, paving the way for future researches, and challenging the media to incorporate gender equity into the way that they interpret female homicides.