Problematic Discourses: Sexual Violence and Women Press Correspondents. First, the pervasiveness of patriarchy within journalism will be identified before assessing its dual implications for newsroom culture and the medias representation of women. This

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Problematic Discourses: Sexual Violence and Women Correspondents

‘I would never put my daughter nor my wife in that situation.’ (9 people liked this) _ JG

‘She shouldn't have been there. Can that be said without it seeming like one is blaming the victim?’ (The UnMa and 31 more like this) _Larz Blackman  

        Just days after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, CBS issued a press-release confirming the sexual assault of its Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lara Logan at Tahrir Square. Certain segments of media commentary were problematic in the way they constructed sexist misrepresentations of women who choose to report from dangerous conflict zones and culturally insensitive stereotypes regarding Muslims. I contend that the treatment of sexual violence towards female foreign correspondents using frames that assign blame, or the token ‘she deserved it’ approach, are the consequence of patriarchal journalistic culture inherent within a predominantly Western, ethnocentric and male-dominated mainstream press. By conducting an in-depth analysis of two of the most controversial and salient examples of online mass media content as well as the discussions that emerged within the comment boxes, (as per the reactions above), I illustrate how the popular social and media discourses about sexual violence towards women and the sexual division of labour were simultaneously challenged and sustained. The scope of this essay was deliberately limited to two articles, not only because it was a more manageable task but because much of initial coverage during the first week was formulated in response to these articles (Williams 2011;North 2011; Marcotte 2011). First, the pervasiveness of patriarchy within journalism will be identified before assessing its dual implications for newsroom culture and the media’s representation of women. This will be followed by a brief explanation and justification of the methods used, before the teasing out of the frames, representations and discourses within the respective articles.

        To claim the existence of patriarchy within journalism is to open a metaphorical can of worms about whether the perception of male hegemony is merely the result of scholars a priori establishing that ‘gender matters’ (Steiner 2005, p.42). While there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women securing jobs in journalism, the fact remains however, that white Western men dominate global newsrooms as producers, owners and subjects (Crouteau and Hoynes 1992). The most comprehensive study on gender stratification in journalism to date, The Global Report on the Status of Women in News Media recently confirmed how men still occupy 73% of the top management positions worldwide (Byerly 2011). Scholars establish how male-dominated work environments have  direct empirical implications for women journalists, who feel obligated to report using the institutionalized tone of the dominant gender, whilst also being subjected to sexualisation as the minority ‘Other’ (Goward 2006, p.16; Tuchman 1979, p.32). More overt effects of the masculine organizational culture upon the day-to-day experiences of women have been documented in ethnographic research, where the journalists interviewed revealed how they were encouraged to straighten their curly hair to appear more ‘authoritative’  (Cooper 2008) and expressed concerns about discriminatory hiring practices that favour ‘safe and attractive women’ in the boardrooms (Carter et. al., 1998 p.305). While it is facetious to imply that all women journalists experience the impacts of unequal gender hierarchies homogeneously, the pervasiveness of a macho newsroom ethos is a global phenomenon that suggests how gender is far from irrelevant in structuring how journalists are socially conditioned to work (Steiner 2005, p.42).

 

        Not only does male hegemony at the executive level impact newsroom culture, but it retains subsidiary effects upon the representation of women within mainstream media. Since the introduction of the ‘framing’ paradigm in the 1990s, the idea that media rhetoric shapes how audiences understand and interpret norms has refocused gender research on the ways in which media content constructs images of women and femininity (Fursich 2010, p.114). One-dimensional portrayals of women as temptresses or objects ‘symbolically annihilate’ women by depriving them of their humanity and reducing them to a single ‘feminine’ characteristic (Tuchman 1978). Already a wealth of literature exists articulating how such misrepresentations reinforce women’s unequal status, with consequences ranging from the trivialisation of sexual violence in American culture (Malamuth & Check 1981), the maintenance of gender-segregated occupational stereotypes (Massoni, 2004) and the influence of flawed rhetoric upon the decision-making of powerful social actors (Fursich 2010, p.116). Critical discourse scholars consequently advocate the deconstruction of these representations wherever and whenever they occur, as a means to undermine what is offered as ‘common sense’ within the misogynic media matrix (Bamburac 2006, p.31). With that imperative in mind, attention should now be directed towards the specific representation of the Logan assault and those online articles which were most salient during the first week of coverage. In accordance with Normal Fairclough’s (1995) method of critical discourse analysis, the formal elements of these articles will be identified, before interpreting what discourses are being facilitated by the article and its readership and the implications of these narrative strategies for the practice of women correspondents in situ.

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        Simone Wilson’s article for the Los Angeles Weekly (Feb 15, 2011), entitled ‘Lara Logan, CBS Reporter and Warzone 'It Girl,' Raped Repeatedly Amid Egypt Celebration’ approached the assault using reversal tactics popular in media stories about rape, where responsibility for the sexual violence is diverted from the perpetrators - who are notably absent in the headline- to the victim (Hoagland and Frye 2000, p.206). Looking at transitivity within the copy, Logan is initially discussed in the passive voice, (‘…was brutally and repeatedly raped’), before the text underscores her active role in the lead up to her assault, (‘…her ballsy ...

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