Discourse analysis of news reports on violence against women in the Tamil Press (original) (raw)

2015, The Journal of Media Studies

News on violence against women in India is found hitting the headlines almost on a day to day basis in the regional language dailies in India. Among several forms of violence that exist in the society, the ones that are'abnormal'or the nature of violence that leads to death, the one that consists of sensational aspects, the ones that are more brutal in nature alone gain newsworthiness. Most often, rape, sexual harassments, acid attacks and murders take the lead leaving behind dowry harassments, dowry deaths, domestic violence and other gender based violence as normal day to day occurrences. The news highlights on the above forms of violence serve to boost newspaper sales creating mere curiosity and titillating effects owing to the choice of texts in the news reports. In addition, the photographs of the victims and perpetrators are given in color with disturbing headlines as elements of sensationalism. Hence it is …