Framing femicide in the news, a paradoxical story: A comprehensive analysis of thematic and episodic frames

Abstract

Femicide is a worldwide problem. Studies of femicide discourses have found embedded discriminatory ideologies that could help to legitimize gender-based violence (GBV) at individual and social levels. This paper aims to contribute to the research on femicide and news frames. Studies of thematic and episodic frames tested their differential effects, but they did not examine the content. We propose a three-level methodology, distinguishing between thematic and episodic frames, conducting an in-depth examination of issue-specific frames, and adding the notion of substantiveness to analyse the results. We created a dataset of 2,528 news articles from Mexican mainstream media, coded through qualitative content analysis. The proposal can be applied in many cultural contexts and opens up opportunities for comparative studies of femicide. Our results reveal that thematic pieces are focused on non-intimate partner violence (IPV) femicides. Episodic pieces are more diverse but with a tendency to individualize the problem and attribute responsibility to the victims.