News Media, and Victim Blaming: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Motorway Rape Coverage

Abstract

This study emphasises the need for greater critical discourse analysis (CDA) research on how sexual assault is represented in popular culture. Emphasis is placed on the conceptual links between victim-blaming in media coverage and social norms, which implicitly accentuates an ethic of "personal responsibility" for risk management while putting structural issues in the background. Feminist media studies research demonstrates how victim conduct and individualising incidents lead to a misrepresentation of gendered crime in the media. This article builds on previous research by using coverage of the widely publicised 2020 Sialkot Motorway rape as a case study to perform a systematic, grammar-based analysis of transitivity and agency in news reports and show their frequently subtle connection with neoliberal notions of victimisation and risk that support the interests of perpetrators.

Keywords:  Transitivity; Sexual Assault; Agency; Feminism; News Media; Neoliberalism; Critical Discourse Analysis