U.S. media discourse on rape and sexual
harassment
A Critical Discourse Analysis
1998 - 2018
A thesis by Antonella Serrecchia
S3179079
2
INDEX
INDEX ... 2
Abstract ... 4
1.Introduction ... 5
1.2 Trump election and the Weinstein Scandal... 6
1.2 Scope and relevance ... 10
1.2 Roadmap... 11
2. Building the infrastructure: a theoretical and analytical framework ... 12
2.1 What makes us human: the importance of language ... 12
2.2 Whose language? ... 13
2.3 What is discourse? ... 15
2.4 A multidisciplinary approach towards the study of discourse ... 16
2.5 Critical discourse analysis ... 19
2.6 It is all a matter of context ... 20
2.7 Identity and discourse ... 21
2.7.1 Gender identity ... 22
2.7.2 The role of feminism in the definition of gender ... 22
2.7.3 Gender violence, patriarchy and rape-culture ... 23
2.8 The study case: a theoretical framework ... 24
3. Methodology ... 26
3.1 Designing a chronology ... 26
3.2 Sampling process ... 27
3.3 The analytical framework ... 28
3.4 Context ... 30
3.4.1. Epoch ... 30
3.4.2 Small discourse communities ... 32
3.4.3 The immediate and medium-term socio-political contexts ... 33
4. Analysis ... 34
4.1 Surface elements as markers for relevance ... 34
4.1.1 Coverage ... 34
4.1.2 Prominence ... 35
4.2 Headlines and leads ... 37
4.2.1 1998... 38
4.2.2 2008... 39
4.2.3 2016/2017 – 2017/2018 ... 45
3
4.3.1 Violence ... 48
4.3.2 Physical appearance ... 52
4.3.3 Mental instability vs. the socially accepted ... 54
4.3.4 Rape as a man’s prerogative ... 56
4.4 Actors ... 57
4.4.1 1998... 57
4.4.2 2008... 59
4.4.3 2016/2017 – 2017/2018 ... 62
4.5 Discursive strategy: Politisation ... 63
5. Discussion... 65 5.1 Coverage... 65 5.2 Empowerment or “dis-Empowerment”? ... 66 5.2 Framing ... 67 6. Conclusion ... 70 7. Bibliography ... 71
7.1 Books and scientific papers ... 71
7.2 Newspaper articles ... 73
4
ABSTRACT
This research analysed discourse of four U.S. newspapers (The New York Times,
The Washington Post, The New York Post, USA Today) in coverage of rape and
sexual harassment. Through the tools of CDA, the analysis was built around a
chronology that spans from 1998 to 2018. The choice to analyse a 30-year-long time
span was made in the intention of portraying a comprehensive picture of discourse,
highlighting possible changes. The critical discursive moments were identified in the
shift from 3
rdto 4
thwave feminism, as well as the long-debated scandals that hit
Hollywood and Washington in 2016-2017. Results highlighted a marked increase in
coverage, especially after 2016 and especially in The Washington Post. In terms of
content, this research detected some variations in discourse, including a switch in
narrative voice and the emergence of new frames. However, not significant
revolution was identified: coverage of rape and sexual harassment seems to have
remained peculiarly standardised and stereotyped throughout the whole period
analysed.
5
1.INTRODUCTION
Every 98 seconds a person is sexually assaulted in the U.S.1 From 2010 to 2014, each year an average of 321,500 Americans of 12 years of age and older were sexually assaulted or raped.2 The majority of these assaults occurred at or near the victim’s home,3 also because perpetrators of sexual violence often know the victim.4
Source: https://www.rainn.org
Of these victims, 90% of them are women, meaning millions of women in the United States have experienced sexual assault. According to the U.S. Bureau of justice statistics, as of 1998, an estimated 17.7 million American women, most of them between the ages of 16 and 24, had been victims of attempted or completed rape.5
1 Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey,
2010-2014 (2015).
2 Idem
3 Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Female Victims of Sexual Violence,
1994-2010 (2013)
4 Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey,
2010-2014 (2015).
5 Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Rape and Sexual Victimization Among
6
Despite being long-standing issues, rape and sexual harassment recently gained a renewed significance in the public debate. This could be due to several factors. First, the emergence in both, cultural studies and the public sphere, of a new branch of feminism, generally referred to as 4th wave feminism, which stressed the presence of an underlying, subtle form of gender violence in modern days democratic societies. The specific contribution of this latest development of the feminist thought will be explained in depth further on in this thesis. For now, it should be enough to understand how this cultural shift can be considered intertwined with two major scandals that hit U.S. politics and entertainment industry in the latest years.
1.2 TRUMP ELECTION AND THE WEINSTEIN SCANDAL
The election of Donald Trump as 45th president of the United States of America is an event of interest for this research because of the reaction his attitudes towards women generated in both the United States and elsewhere around the West. This was not only in the media but also among the population. In October 2016, at the end of the campaign, media reported that several women had accused Trump of sexual harassment and misbehaviour in the past (DelReal, Sullivan 2016). The biggest scandal, however, arose when The Washington Post published a hot-microphone recording of a conversation that candidate Trump had with Billy Bush, then part of the show “Access Hollywood”, in which Trump was about to participate as a guest (Fahrenthold 2016). In the leaked audio, candidate Trump tells Bush about an attempt to seduce a woman who would not accept his “avance” as she was married. Her disapproval however, did not seem to stop Trump, who is recorded bragging about his attempt to force himself on her.
“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it, I did try and f--- her. She was married.”
“And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’
“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.” (Fahrenthold, 2016)
7
Then, at that point, the article reports that Trump and Bush notice Arianne Zucker, an actress also joining in the show. The candidate is recorded saying:
“Whoa!” “I’ve got to use some Tic-Tacs, just in case I start kissing her!”
“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p---y, you can do anything.”
The content of this hot microphone recording generated a wide reaction among the public, but this was especially pronounced among women and feminists. In the aftermath of the election, 3 and to 4 million people (Broomfield 2017) flocked to the streets all across the country to peacefully protest against the sexist attitude of the newly elected president, using the demonstrations to argue in favour of civil, reproductive and immigration rights (Hartocollis, Alcindorjan 2017). The event – which was repeated on its first anniversary in January 2018 – was referred to as the Women’s March.
8 One of the several rallies held across the country, New York Nicole Craine for The New York Times - 21 Jan 2017
The public life of Donald Trump has long been accompanied so far by discourse around arrogant masculinity and his contestable relationship with women (Cohen, 2017). One possible outcome of his running for President and, finally, winning the elections, might be that this had an impact media discourse on violence against women. Therefore, coverage surrounding the time when Trump was chosen as one of the critical moments of this research.
Another critical moment shaping the chronology of this research is the Weinstein scandal. Harvey Weinstein was a Hollywood producer, and co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company. He is said to be one of the most powerful man in the entertainment industry. On 5 October 2017, The New York Times published a story detailing decades of allegations of sexual harassment against Harvey Weinstein (Kantor, Twojey 2017). Among the accusations reported are that he forced women to massage him and watch him naked. He was denounced for having used his powerful position to intimidate women, forcing them to provide sexual favours by threatening to jeopardise their careers in the entertainment industry. Among the first women to accuse the producer are actresses Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan. By the beginning of 2018, up to 65 women have blamed him of different
9
levels of unwanted sexual attention, from groping to rape, as in the case of Lucia Evans and Asia Argento (Godden et al, 2018).
Harvey Weinstein, Splash News
The reaction to the scandal was particularly strong, and Weinstein was fired from the board of his own company and was banned from the prestigious Academy of Motion Arts and
Sciences6. How much it really challenged sexism is hard to say yet though, even if the
ceremony of the Golden Globes 2018 was quite enlightening in this sense. As reported by Sophie Gilbert for The Atlantic, while almost all the present women collectively wore black in protest gender violence, brought activists for gender and racial equality as their dates, and talked about endemic sexual harassment during interviews and speeches, almost no men mentioned. “The women were left to try and transform a pivotal moment for Hollywood from a painful scandal into a necessary reckoning. And as their male co-stars and directors and producers mostly made clear, they were—and they will be—doing all this by themselves.” (Gilbert 2018)
This thesis assesses the scandal that hit Hollywood as of interest for research for several reasons. First, it is focusses on the most discussed topics of 4th wave feminism, sexual harassment and gender violence. Second, it exemplifies the distorted dynamics of
10
dominance that 4th wave feminism so strongly opposes: Harvey Weinstein has not only been accused of harassing or violating women, but also doing so in force of his powerful position, enacting the process of bidirectional dominance outlined by Van Dijk (1993), which will be further discussed in the following chapters. Moreover, the fact that these allegations came forward several years after they happened might also prompt a discussion about how society relates to victims and perpetrators in such cases. According to the witnesses of 16 separate former and current executives, his behaviour was widely known, both at Miramax and the Weinstein Company (Levin 2017). Still, women did not feel free to share their “unpleasant experiences” with Weinstein, only doing so after many years had passed, and their career and personal position were stronger, less vulnerable to similar exertions of power by film executives.
These cases address several factors, and surely each situation is different from the others. However, there is one aspect which is socially relevant and especially relevant to this analysis: women may not have spoken earlier because dominance of men over women is so widely accepted and justified that women who denounce a sexual assault can be (and usually are) frowned upon, blamed for their own misery. As the writer, feminist and human rights activist Joan Smith said to The Guardian, “the men who do this, do it because they have the power and wealth to get away with it. They deliberately pick on women who are less powerful than themselves” (Williams 2017). And powerless individuals can easily fall prey of discredit by the same cultural contempt that drove the violence in the first place.
1.2 SCOPE AND RELEVANCE
Far from being exhaustive this study attempts to examine how media discourse has changed in the last thirty years. The aim was to draw coherent conclusions about media discourses concerning rape and sexual harassment. This focusses on the importance of language in shaping our reality and the predominant position of the media in the public sphere, where discourse is performed, constructed, agreed on and perpetrated by every individual from the community. Accordingly, the relevance of this thesis lays both in such ideas, as well as in its contemporaneity. Furthermore, in the belief that changing language for the better also means improving our reality, this research was conducted with the hope that it might prompt informed considerations on possible better ways to talk about rape and sexual harassment.
11
1.2 ROADMAP
The period analysed spans from January 1998, to February 2018, with the intention of collecting noteworthy information that could account for a general, rather than specific, picture. The scope was carried out through the tools of Critical Discourse Analysis. More specifically, the model of CDA advanced by Anabela Carvalho (2008) mostly informed this research. The theoretical framework that instructed this thesis also includes linguistics studies advanced by Foucault (1972) and Fairclough (1989; 2012), sociological theories of Gramsci as outlined in Van Dijk (1993), gender and feminist studies. This is developed in full discussion in the theoretical framework chapter.
The sample was gathered through the LexisNexis platform and includes articles from four major American newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York
Post and USA Today. The study unfolded around a specific chronology, built ad hoc for the
purposes of this study. More details about the sampling process and the steps taken in analysis are included in the methodology section. Finally, results, discussion and conclusion draw from the analysis to offer a concrete picture of the achievements of this work, presenting the major findings in a critical way, outlining limitations, and presenting implications and possible future developments.
12
2. BUILDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE: A THEORETICAL AND ANALYTICAL
FRAMEWORK
The study of language and its relationship with power and society is an interdisciplinary endeavour, drawing from a quite diverse theoretical foundation: from linguistics to cognitive psychology, from sociology to political theory. This makes this topic both interesting and incredibly challenging. To apply this to the scope of one specific study though, it is necessary to focus on a set of theories outlined in their essential lines, which help create a stable and coherent bedrock on which the analysis can be built. This chapter will explore the topics of critical discourse analysis, domination dynamics within society, gender and identity in order to underpin research into US media representation of sexual violence, harassment and gendered violence.
2.1 WHAT MAKES US HUMAN: THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE
The cornerstone for this research is an ideological stance which many scholars have put forward, which is that everything related to human activity is necessarily tied to language as well. As Donald Matheson argues, "language and humanity are inextricable" (Matheson 2005:3). Without going into the debate around speciesism and its moral values, it is generally recognised by mainstream scientific theories that mankind has specific characteristics that differentiate it from other animal species. “Man has no specific identity other than the ability to recognize himself […] man is the being which recognizes itself as such, the animal that must recognize himself as human to be human” (Agamben 2004:26). Among these, the ability to self-reflect gives mankind the possibility to create meaning, not only about himself, but about everything that surrounds him. Sharing such meaning is at the origin of culture as “the set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours shared by a group of people, but different for each individual, communicated from one generation to the next” (Matsumoto 1996:267). This formation of culture is at the basis of every human social group, from the smallest community to the largest group of people for which it is meaningful to say that they belong to the same group (as, for example, we can refer to the Western culture with a general understanding that we are talking about industrialised, liberal, capitalistic countries).
If communication of meaning is at the basis of human cultures, from this we can recognize language has a crucial role in this process, as it allows us to communicate within a cultural environment. If we equated such cultural environments with water, we could see language as our ability to swim and communication as the actual act of swimming. We could float in water without swimming skills, as we can also communicate through, for instance, gestures,
13
facial expressions or graphic arts. However, it would be just floating not swimming. “Without language, communication would remain to a very limited degree (in very shallow water); without culture, there would be no communication at all” (Wenying Jiang 2000:329). Thus, communication without language would be basic, and in order to share more complex products of the intellect, such as abstract thinking for example, words are the most efficient tools.
Even so, language is not the only cognitive structure that allows humans to produce thoughts (Chomsky, 1984). To Noam Chomsky, language is just one of the various cognitive structures whose basic form is determined by genetics and, whose variations, by the environment. Accordingly, the study of language can represent one way of understanding human cognitive organisation, other cognitive systems and, therefore, human nature in general (Idem). Chomsky argues in fact that, even though we might think of ourselves (as different human communities and societies) as very different, we all function in the same way. Despite the different idioms, the cognitive structure of language is the same (Chomsky 1984).
2.2 WHOSE LANGUAGE?
Society and language inevitably influence each other. Since every active member of a community normally interacts with other members, everybody participates in this process to communicate basic needs and thoughts. Language however, is a very powerful tool, and it can be used to convey subtler messages – for example political uses of language for propaganda – or complex ones, as is done by scholars at symposia. Thus, according to Matheson (2005), members of a society share an array of meanings and values that each member engages in creating and perpetrating, independently from his social status or societal position. However, some social actors are in a more predominant position than others in performing this role. The media, and media actors, for example, hold particular power in this dynamic, as they are engaged in making sense of reality to and for the public, to synthesising complex scenarios into common knowledge, and potentially influencing people's perception of events.
This prominent role can put journalists in a difficult position, where they are seen as the ones who “make” the news, who “manufacture” it, and who “construct” reality (Schudson 1989:263). This definition is troublesome because it may come forward as an accusation of fictitiousness. In a society increasingly connected as the one in which we live, media’s power of framing reality has grown even bigger. If the digital revolution has challenged their
14
traditional role as gatekeepers of information, it did not change their predominant position in shaping language and, therefore, reality. As underlined by Mc Combs (2005), the fragmented landscape of the internet does not erode the media's power over the public agenda: firstly, because of the high level of redundancy among traditional media's agendas and secondly, because of people’s tendency to concentrate over a few websites, ignoring many others (Mc Combs 2005). However, having the power of making the news does not mean having the power – let alone the intention – to fake it. As explained by Schudson, studying the processes of news production and, what he himself calls, its sociology.
Journalists write the words that turn up in the papers or on the screen as stories. Not government officials, not cultural forces, not ‘reality’ magically transforming itself into alphabetic signs, but flesh and blood journalists literally compose the stories we call news. (Schudson 1989:263)
However, to say that, essentially, news are stories written by journalists for the public, does not demean the news itself – nor the job of the reporter. It just means that news, as any other cultural product, is a “socially constructed reality” (Schudson, 2005). As McCombs (2005) summarises, the process of news production is influenced by various factors. Firstly, by norms and traditions of the journalistic profession, the socially constructed habitus of practitioners in Bourdieu's words (1991); then, by the interaction within the media world among different media outlets; finally, by the interaction of the media with elite social actors as politicians, PR, spin doctors, elite sources and so forth. This last aspect embodies the continuous struggle for power that characterise society and its members. One of the most powerful weapons of this “war” is discourse and a society’s dominant discourse will be found mirrored in media discourse. Therefore, this research will be focussed specifically on it, while keeping in consideration the fact this is an ideology that may be enhanced and confirmed through media discourse, and which was originally built and nourished through social relations among a variety of social actors.
Having established language as one central aspect of human identity, society and culture, and that everybody participates in its transformation, it is easy to understand why it is so important to concentrate academic endeavours on it. Norman Fairclough called for an urgent expansion in the knowledge scholars have about this essential phenomenon of social life. According to Fairclough, the “widespread underestimation of the significance of language” is worrisome (Fairclough 1989:1). There is not only one way only to study language, it also addresses a noble and urgent aim: to “analyse, understand and combat inequality and injustice” (van Dijk, 1993).
15
2.3 WHAT IS DISCOURSE?
Before turning to how language will be explored specifically in the methodological framework, it is necessary to find a definition for the object of this analysis: discourse. Coming from the Latin verb discurrĕre (literally “running around”, then used figuratively in the sense of moving from one argument to another in a conversation)7, the concept has conflicting and overlapping meanings. In linguistics it is generally used to indicate a degree of analysis of a communicative event (this might be oral or written) which emphasizes higher-level organizational features, like for example the interaction between the producer and consumer, or the societal, historical and situational influences over the production and interpretation of the text. At the same time, this word may sometimes indicate an oral speech, in contrast to a written text, or even a typology of language used in a specific situation or by a specific group of social actors (media discourse, medical discourse,
advertising discourse…).
For a more complex definition of the term discourse however, as well as one that meets the scope of this paper, the work from the French linguist and philosopher Michael Foucault is essential. Iara Lessa summarizes his definition of discourse as "systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak" (Lessa 2006). In The
Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discursive Language (1972), Foucault digs deeply into
the concepts of language and communication as performative acts, which, according to him, not only reflect power structures in society but also, and most importantly, can reinforce, challenge or maintain those same power relations. Hence, there is a reciprocal interaction between discourse and social power. Van Dijk defines this kind of dominance as “the exercise of social power by the elites, institutions or groups, that results in social inequality, including political, cultural, class, ethnic, racial and gender inequality” (van Dijk 1993:249). To say this with Foucault,
in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality. (Foucault 1972:52)
Perhaps differently from what one might think, dominance is not monodirectional, it is not only imposed in a top-down sense and it is not always perpetrated through coercion or violence. Van Dijk, borrowing from the Gramscian concept of the cultural hegemony, states that dominance is “jointly produced” by both, the dominant and the dominated, when the
7 Treccani.it. (2018). discorrere in "Sinonimi e Contrari". [online] Available at:
16
dominated “accept dominance in the interest of the powerful out of their own free will” (van Dijk 1993:255). This happens because, almost paradoxically, the dominated are convinced that the status quo is natural, that it cannot and should not be questioned. That it could not be any different than it is. When real cultural hegemony is enacted, power is subtly imposed over the dominated thanks to everyday forms of communication (might this be oral or written) that appear naturalised and acceptable. This is what makes power institutionalised and organised according to Van Dijk (Idem).
This dynamic of domination and acceptance between genders is easily traceable. What gender scholars now call gender violence (meaning with it, the reiterated domination of men over women) has been explained as “a natural and universal consequence” for centuries (O’Tool 2007:3). The ideas of the natural masculinity and femininity have been internalised by individuals, both men and women, has led to it being perceived as an unquestionable matter for a long time. This is why, for example, it is still hard to fight, even among women, the misconception that somehow victims of assault are the cause for their own misery (O’Tool 2007:8). Such categories ended up nourishing and institutionalising the system that feminist call patriarchy.
Not every member of the dominant group has the same access to the forms and practices that participate in institutionalising power. Again, if talking about gender for example, even though men generally have more access to discourse than women, not every man has the same access to, let’s say, political discourse. Those men who do have that active and predominant access – in this case, politicians – are considered power elites. These power relations are not fixed but, in a Gramscian sense, are continuously negotiated and renegotiated. Media practitioners also have that power and stand in a predominant position compared to the public, whose participation in discourse is only in forms of interpretation and understanding (and then, as actors of the public sphere themselves, to reinforce or challenge the dominant discourse).
2.4 A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TOWARDS THE STUDY
OF DISCOURSE
In his “Language and Power” (1989) Fairclough outlines a brief guide over the social sciences that might be included in this academic endeavour, explaining their contribution and limitations. The first one is linguistics: the study of grammar in its broader sense as he defines it. This includes phonology (the sound systems of language), morphology (its grammatical structure), syntax (the sentences linking system) and semantics (the study of
17
meanings). Due to its concentration on the systemic, theoretical dynamics behind the structure of language itself however, linguistics does not seem to provide analysts with the necessary tools to understand the complex links between words and reality (Fairclough 1989:7). Fairclough (1989) argues that linguistics lacks a real connection with language practice and its diachronic transformations, which are fundamental for a conscious analysis of the implications carried with discourse.
Therefore, the linguistic contributions of research need to be enriched by notions coming from sociology, the science that deals with the structures and functioning of human communities. Combining the two approaches allow research to consider the variations of a language according to space, time, media, and social status of the speaker. However, Fairclough (1989) argues that the sociolinguistic eye alone would tend to reinforce the ideologies carried with language itself, as it does not problematise how or why a certain relation of power exists in society and is then mirrored in the use of language. Instead it just describes reality and discourse, which is not enough. Both reality and discourse need to be evaluated and then compared to the values that we believe to be crucial in a just society (Fairclough 2012).
Borrowing from Ferdinand De Saussure, language is assumed to be constitutive and not
representational: “Words and sentences must be understood not separately, but within a
system of words” (Ahl 2004:64), which is then called language and whose meanings are not unilateral but may vary according to culture. The meaning attached to a word is socially constructed and is called the signified; the actual word, which is arbitrary, is the signifier (Idem). According to Foucault (1972), the signified is always in dialogue with other discourses, other times and other actors: its meaning it is multi-dimensional and can be fully captured only if all its interrelations are considered: “Language always seems to be inhabited by the other, the elsewhere, the distant; it is hollowed by absence” (Foucault 1972:118)
Understanding the dichotomy of meaning, which differentiates what is said from what is
pronounced or written, is essential to understand the complexity of discourse and its power
to construct reality/ies according to its use. However, if on the one hand the theoretical framework to study language as a socially constructed practice was established, the tools to understand how discourse constructs practice are still missing. In order to do so, language needs to be considered as a form of action, a perspective brought into the field by the pragmatic approach. Because discourse is practice, it can also be defined as a set of “anonymous, historical rules”, determined in time and space, which define a given period or area (be this social, economic, geographical or linguistic) (Ibidem:124).
18
Even though the importance of society’s influence over one’s mental activities was underlined several times in this dissertation, it should not be forgotten that a person’s mind is also – to a certain extent – independent. The processes of thought that regulates one man or woman’s mind are depending on several variables. It would be ludicrous to assume that we are just what society makes of us.
Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. (Chomsky 2003:402)
The inner dynamics that control our minds are still obscure to our understanding. What we do know is that knowledge (meaning by it, in a Foucauldian sense, any version of an event that is somehow considered to be true [Foucault 1972]) plays a very important role in them. This is what makes the dominant discourse so relevant for the interpretation of alternative discourses: each discourse claims to be true. The more the people accept that discourse as knowledge, the more powerful it becomes and the harder it is to challenge it via alternative discourses (Ahl 2004).
In his Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), Foucault introduces us to the concept of ‘epistemes’: mental structures used to understand the world, that act on an unconscious level in the mind of the subject, setting the boundaries of his/her knowledge, influencing the way s/he thinks, acts or understands his/herself (Foucault 1972:191). Therefore, controlling knowledge means controlling discourse, and vice-versa. If, assumedly, discourse is practice, it also means controlling society to a certain extent. Van Dijk argues in fact that controlling the mind of the public is a fundamental aspect of dominance. He calls this social
cognition: the link between dominance and discourse, the mediation between “micro and
macro levels of society, between discourse and action, between the individual and the group” (van Dijk 1993:257).
The relation between the personal and the societal field in the construction of knowledge was widely studied by cognitive psychologists. However, there is very little knowledge of what Van Dijk (Ibidem:258) defines as “softer” forms of social cognitions (opinions, attituded, ideas and so forth). Fairclough argues, borrowing from cognitive psychologists, that we “do not simply 'decode' an utterance,” but we “arrive at an interpretation through an active process of matching features of the utterance at various levels with representations you have stored in long-term memory” (Fairclough 1989:10). Arguably, in philosophical terms, this approach is symmetrical to the idea of social constructionism, a school of thought that believes in the impossibility of getting an objective, ultimate knowledge of the existent
19
without the mediation of the observer. This does not mean that social constructionists do not believe in the existence of the outside world as independent from the observer. In the same way, even if it would be impossible to study the processes that regulate the production and interpretation of discourse without considering the influence of the individual’s mind, we would never say that dominant discourse exists only when the individual recognises it or applies it consciously. Most of the time, this is not the case: even when the existence of a dominant discourse, making the interest of the powerful and weakening the powerless, is very clear, individuals are not conscious of their participation in its perpetuation. Patriarchal discourse, is a very good example of this dynamic: before feminism it was hardly questioned, and hardly noted.
2.5 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
The analytical model that more than others embraces the multi-disciplinary approach required to analyse the relations between discourse, power and dominance is critical discourse analysis. This approach is considered to be the study of language in its practice, meaning the study of language and how it is used to carry out meaningful actions (Gee and Handford, 2012). Crtical discourse analysis is referred to as “the study of language above the level of a sentence, of the way sentences combine to create meaning, coherence, and accomplish purposes” (Gee and Handford, 2012:1). The cornerstone for this approach is the idea that the language is constitutive, that it is able to “make the world meaningful in certain ways and not others” (Gee and Handford 2012:1). This process must be considered as bidirectional: the world that we contribute in shaping through the use of language, shapes the language (and ourselves) in return (Gee and Handford 2012:5). “In the end, discourse analysis matters because discourse matters."
The tradition of a critical approach in the study of the language and communication can be traced back to Aristotele, passing through the Enlightenment, Marx and the Frankfurt school of Adorno and Benjamin. Another important influence in the field, as foresaid, came from the neo-Marxist school inspired by Gramsci and Hall (van Dijk 1993:251). Fairclough (1989) and Van Dijk (1993) follow up on this heritage, claiming that taking a stance, being partisan and standing on one side or the other, is essential when performing critical discourse analysis. In order to be meaningful, discourse analysis needs to be critical, to be ideological. Generally, the side that analysts take is the one of the dominated, as the ultimate ambition of CDA, as according to Van Dijk and Fairclough, is to contribute in changing a social condition believed to be unfair or unjust, to undercover the structures of discourse (being
20
this written or oral) in the reproduction of social structures of power, dominance and social inequality.
According to Foucault, there are some elementary principles to consider when performing discourse analysis (Foucault 1927:229). First, it is essential to look for what is not there, what discourse excludes and not what that conveys; this is the reversal principle. Secondly, the principle of discontinuity, which prescribes that analyst should not try to “uncover” any hidden truth within discourse because this ultimately consists, in its turn, in “a series of interrelated discourses”. Third, specificity: discourse is not regulated by social rules; social rules are constructed through discourse. Finally, the principles of exteriority states that the analyst should look for the external conditions of existence of discourse, not for its inner essence (Idem).
These principles could be summarised with the brief but essential definition that Gee and Handford (2012) advance for discourse analysis, and that can be considered valid for CDA as well: the analysis of language in context. Even though minimizing, this connotation leads us to what Gee and Handford (2012) talk about as “a problem and a tool” of DA: the frame issue. On the one hand, context gives discourse analysis the appropriate perspective to see “what information and values are being left unsaid or effaced in a piece of language” (Gee and Handford 2012:4); on the other, it makes interpretation vulnerable to changes because, as we widen the context of this analysis, the interpretation itself may be completely transformed (Idem).
2.6 IT IS ALL A MATTER OF CONTEXT
The centrality of context, as theorised by Halliday and explained by Hyatt, “is exemplified in the success of mutual comprehension between interlocutors. This is achieved through predictions made and expectations of what one’s interlocutor will say in any given situation” (Hyatt 2005:516). If the participants did not share a set of common knowledges and beliefs – some sort of shared societal, historical, economical context – communication would not be possible. Context is not static, but extremely fluid and dynamic and so are the categories which Hyatt designed to study it (Ibidem:523). Firstly, the ‘immediate socio-political context’ should be considered, in actuality, all the current news in that moment. Secondly, the medium-term socio-political context is the one that considers longer time spans, which are however still too temporary to be defined as ‘culture’. This category may include any political, cultural or economic category that has an impact over the way society is structured and perceived by its members. These can overlap, as society is multifaceted, and
21
phenomena take place simultaneously. The third level of contextual discourse influence is imposed over society by influential individuals or groups (from ‘small discourse communities’ to ‘larger macro-societies and cultures’). Finally, the category that includes all of the above, is the one that Hyatt defines as ‘epoch’, using a Foucauldian term: “This might include the various assumptions of order, structures of inclusion and exclusion and generally how a society legitimates itself and achieves its social identity” (Ibidem:522). Given the importance of context, when performing critical discourse analysis, for some scholars it is advisable to define beforehand the frame of the analysis, its specific time span. According to Anabela Carvalho, it is necessary to move away from the analysis of very short time spans and draw a largest picture, considering all the moments of the “life" of the issue analysed, "from the condition of emergence in the public arena, to their constitution into political problems, formulation of answers, adoption of measures, implementation and evaluation" (Carvalho 2008:164). As underlined by Van Dijk, “if contextual analysis should be relevant, it is crucial not only to define possible contexts, but especially to limit them” (van Dijk 2004 as quoted in Carvalho 2008:163)
2.7 IDENTITY AND DISCOURSE
Thus far, this section has identified the object of analysis, the analytical frameworks and their theoretical foundations, and the relations of power between different social actors through media discourse as the arena where such social actors “fight” for their power. Now, this chapter turns to discuss culture as the “the set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours shared by a group of people” (Matsumoto 1996:267). From these bases, then, culture shapes the societies which we live and, to a certain extent, also the people and the way they act and perceive reality. But how do all these social, cultural and interactional processes influence the way people perceive and think about themselves? In brief, how do we create our identities?
Identity is a very hard concept to define. Generally, social scientists agree on the fact that identity is not innate, but it is the result of a social and cultural process and therefore can be linked to language and discourse. Moreover, it is always relational because it is constructed through the interaction with other people. In this sense, Bourdieu talks about identity construction as the process of making and unmaking groups. What he means is that social identities are constructed through delimitation, a process of inclusion and exclusion of certain ideas, beliefs and categories, which are imposed by the monopoly of power as legitimate definitions of divisions of the social world (Bourdieu 1991). More recent
22
schools of thought have accordingly talked about identity as a fluid, changing category, the subject of a constant negotiation. If, on the one hand, identity is something that is unique and consistent to each of us (as it is what distinguishes us from other people), on the other it includes the relationship with other people, as it is a matter of what we share (or not share) with them (Buckingham 2008).
2.7.1
G
ENDER IDENTITYAmong the several aspects that can characterise our identities, gender is one of the most studied, especially thanks to the contribution of feminist thought starting from the late 16th century. In brief, there are generally two ways of looking at the category of gender: one that argues that “because women and men possess sex-specific evolved mechanisms, they differ psychologically and tend to occupy different social roles”; the other, contrasting one, believes that “because men and women tend to occupy different social roles, they become psychologically different in ways that adjust them to these roles” (Eagly, Wood 2014:265) These two perspectives, though diametrically opposed, find a contact point in intersectional theory, which considers both the biological and the social aspect, only in different prioritising levels (Ibidem:267). There is no straight line that divides these two sides, delimiting what is right from what is wrong, what is true from what is false. Surely, finding the limit between culture and nature is not a simple task to accomplish. However, the stance of this research tends to lean more on the social constructionist approach, in the belief that our evolution of ‘gendered beings’ is the sum of all the patterns that we observe in society, from family to peer or reference groups (O’Tool et al 2007:8).
2.7.2
T
HE ROLE OF FEMINISM IN THE DEFINITION OF GENDERAs gender studies owes a lot to feminism, the debate around gender must be looked through the framework of the feminist history. Scholars and historians talk about three to four waves of feminist though. Even though feminist symbols can be traced far back in history, from Sappho to Jane Austen, the social and political movement is considered to be born in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth (Rampton 2008). At its early stages, in an epoch of big changes, from the emergence of the middle class to urbanisation and industrialisation, feminism was mainly focussed on obtaining equal political right among men and women, especially suffrage, property rights and political candidacy (Idem). The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s and it stretched out until the 1990s. This phase is characterised by the influence of the liberal socio-political environment, and thus focussed on civil rights and unofficial inequalities, as well as the inclusion of minorities. The second
23
wave was much less practical and more theoretical, and “began to associate the subjugation of women with broader critiques of patriarchy, capitalism, normative heterosexuality, and the woman's role as wife and mother” (Idem). Also, it is in this phase when sex and gender were differentiated, indicating respectively biological and socio-cultural identities (Idem). The third wave of feminism began in the mid-90s and was influenced by post-colonialism and post-modernism. Its main belief is the celebration of diversity and individualism, and the refusal of the second-wave rhetoric of us versus them (Idem).
Recently, scholars and journalists alike have put forward the idea that a fourth wave of feminist thought might have started in the first decade of the 2000s. According to feminist scholar Prudence Chamberlain, its endeavours are focussed on the elimination of all those subtle (and less subtle) consequences of decades of male hegemony – which, “incredibly”, still exist (Chamberlain 2017). In an article published on The Guardian by the journalist Kira Cochrane, she argues that fourth wave feminists fought sexual harassment, cat-calling and other types of street harassment, discriminations in the workplace, body shaming, sexist imagery in the media, online misogyny, assault on public transport, and intersectionality (Cochrane 2013). This wave is affected by the use of social media, mostly twitter, and for this reason it has involved the participation of very many young women, teenagers, and those or in their twenties (Idem). Going further, British journalist Caitlin Moran calls for a
fifth wave of feminism targeting the anti-feminist feelings that spread in the last few years,
especially through the web, with feminists being considered as radicals who hate men –
“feminazi”: "What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men,
however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy, and smug they might be” (Moran 2017).
2.7.3
G
ENDER VIOLENCE,
PATRIARCHY AND RAPE-
CULTUREThanks to the contribution of feminist thought, academics tend to consider the power inequality of men and women as taken for granted. This assumption is derived from the observation of current reality, where “in many world societies, women have less power and status than men and control fewer resources” (Eagly, Wood 2014:274), as well as from the study of the history of society. Some scholars even trace back this domination dynamic to the early days of civilisation, when women were considered a war prize, treated like sex slaves by the conquering clan (O’Tool 2007:6). Marx and Engels were the first philosophers to give a sociological explanation to women’s deteriorated status in society: “the emergence of the concept of private property, and its appropriation by men, according to Engels, are
24
the central historical events from which the modern social order, and systematic gender violence, have emerged” (O’Tool 2007:4).
However, biological determinism dominated the debate on gender relations for decades, shaping a society where masculinity and femininity are two fixed, unescapable ideals that people must comply with. The individual’s characteristics are caged in a hegemonic gender “standard”: powerful, aggressive, rational and invulnerable men versus emotional, nurturing, sexually desirable and malleable women (O’Tool 2007). Such a dichotomic model is at the origin of what scholars refer to as rape culture: a general acceptance of a social, verbal, psychological and even physical violence of men over women. The ‘mindset’ that affects everyone, “shaping how we view and respond to the world” (Friedman, Valenti 2008:228).
Accordingly, the feminist school of thought describes patriarchy as an unjust social system which implements gender roles in a way that is oppressive to both men and women (Richards, 2014). This social constructionist theory focuses its endeavours on the critical reflection of any social, political, or economic system that supports male dominance over women, in order to subvert it.
2.8 THE STUDY CASE: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
As asserted by Van Dijk, where there is inequality, there is dominance and, where there is dominance, there must be a set of social rules, norms, discourses and practices that support the status quo in a way that is justified by both the dominant and the dominated. Therefore, one of the objects of analysis of the feminist theory has to be discourse. In this research discourse on violence of men over women of four U.S. newspapers will be analysed: The
New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Post and USA today. The focus will
be set on a form of violence which is physical, psychological and ideological at the same time: sexual assault. This kind of violence, as explained by Brownmiller, can be described as “an act against person and property” (Brownmiller, 2013:181). Such violent acts are accordingly the expression of a sentiment of hatred towards the woman, and the desire of having her as one’s own property: the intent of harming the woman is enacted by “taking” her against her will (Idem).
Michael Kaufman talks about sexual violence as like “a ritualized acting out of our social relations of power: the dominant and the weaker, the powerful and the powerless, the active and the passive […] the masculine and the feminine.” (Kaufman 2007:33). This crime represents, at the same time, the violence of an individual man and the violence of a society
25
that imprison both females and males into a binary repressive framework which sees women as the passive side, and men as the active one, with few possibilities to escape without undergoing social stigmatisation (Ibidem:41). Rape is generally “an expression of a social ideology of male dominance” (ibidem:69) and of women as the property of men (Ibidem:67). Furthermore, violence against women is just one of the “points” of what he calls the “triad of men’s violence”: the violence of men against women, the violence of men against other men (violence among men is generally accepted when not even encouraged) and the violence of men against themselves (the forced denial of any feeling associated with passivity – namely, fear, pain, sadness etc.) (Kaufman 2007).
Another vantage point to look at rape and sexual violence from a theoretical perspective is the one provided by Peggy Reeves Sanday. She distinguishes rape prone and rape free societies. In the former, “sexual assault by men on women is either culturally allowable or largely overlooked,” and “men are posed as a social group against women” (Sanday 2007:63); whereas the latter “are characterised by sexual equality and the notion that the sexes are complementary” (Ibidem:65). Moreover, she found in her research that rape free societies are generally also violence free societies, proving that “men are not necessarily prone to rape, rather, where interpersonal violence is a way of life, violence frequently achieves sexual expression” (ibidem:66).
It should be remembered that, as already outlined before with Van Dijk and Gramsci, dominance does not need to be physically violent to be enacted. This is also the case for gendered violence, which can be traced not only in rape or sexual assault, but also in
mansplaining, inappropriate sexualisation of women or other unfortunate behaviours.
If rape and sexual harassment is so frequent in most societies, this is also because, so far, both men and women contributed in making it “normal”, accepting it as a “natural” reality and not as a cultural construct. Within family for example, which is the first embryonal society that we are in relation with, the behaviour patterns are crucial. If the child, and future adult, is prone to justify or enact violence, it might be also because s/he experienced or witnessed violent patterns of behaviour in his/her own family. The sexuality of men and women is not encoded in genetics or programmed by instinct. Men are human beings whose sexuality is biologically based and culturally encoded (Sanday 2007:70).
26
3. METHODOLOGY
The aim of this research is to study U.S. newspapers’ media discourse around rape and sexual harassment, and to understand whether and how cultural shifts had an impact on coverage of rape and harassment. This thesis utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis to explore a set of articles published on different media outlets. In the attempt of exploring news media across quality and ideological spectra, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA
Today and The New York Post were analysed.
3.1 DESIGNING A CHRONOLOGY
This thesis addresses coverage across a large time span. As this could otherwise include a large amount of text, it was necessary to build a chronology of the key moments of the public life of the issue to focus on feasible moments of research. This approach was also useful to identify the variations in discourse across the whole period tested, whether and how arguments changed, and whether and which alternative views arose.
The time span of analysis goes from the late 1990s, until today. The reason for this choice is related to the impact of 4th wave feminism which, as explained earlier, started in the early ‘00s and developed at the end of the decade. Therefore, this chronology was built as follows:
i. 01/1998 – 12/1998, before the emergence of 4th wave feminism. This sub-interval has been set as an antecedent, with the aim of having a point of comparison.
ii. 01/2008 – 12/2008, when 4th wave feminism started to develop, especially thanks to the success of social media such as Twitter.
iii. 2016-2018, when the topic of sexual harassment became hot in the US, and elsewhere, as a consequence (also) of Trump’s campaign and the Weinstein scandal. This is subdivided to
1. 09/2016 – 02/2017 2. 09/2017 – 02/2018
As one may notice, this last sub-interval is longer than the others. This was due to the necessity to include the last months before Trump’s election – after the hot microphone recording scandal – and all the possible unfolding of the Weinstein affair. This is why, in the
27
attempt of finding balance with the other samples, this last sub-interval was divided into two six-month fragments.
The ‘critical discursive moments’, as Carvalho (2008:166) calls these, are represented in the chronology by the development of 4th wave feminism, – which is especially focussed on topics such as sexual harassment, unofficial power imbalance, sexualisation of the woman in inappropriate times and spaces – Donald Trump’s election, and the Weinstein scandal, – which both had a great impact (surely in terms of coverage, results will show if also in terms of content) on media discourse over such themes.
3.2 SAMPLING PROCESS
The articles for the analysis were selected through the power search tool on LexisNexis. The sampling process selected every article longer than 500 words and shorter than 1000, that included “sexual harassment”, “sexual violence”, “rape” (and the morphological variation “raped”) in the headline. The query was formulated as follows:
HEADLINE(sexual harassment) OR HEADLINE(sexual violence) OR HEADLINE(rape) OR HEADLINE(raped) AND LENGTH >(500) AND LENGTH <(1000)
The query was repeated for each of the newspapers analysed, for each time slot. The resulting articles were analysed through a two-step data gathering process. First, the whole sample (consisting of 481 articles) was scanned through with the aim of building a general idea of the coverage, as suggested by Carvalho (2008). The first reading was therefore conducted “without very specific questions or hypotheses constraining the analysis” (Carvalho 2008: 166). The scope of this first step was to identify potential “debates, controversies and silences, and possibly suggest specifications and amendments to initial research goal and questions” (Carvalho 2008).
Afterwards, 10% (48 articles) of the entire corpus was selected for further analysis. This percentage was distributed equally, selecting 5 stories per newspaper/per chronological interval. This choice was due to the fact, that any consideration about relevance could already find data material in the first step of the gathering process. In this second step the scope was rather to identify in the stories which discursive strategies were utilised and, therefore, a balanced corpus seemed to be the best choice.
28
The principle behind the choice of articles was a mix of relevance to the topic and random selection. During the first reading, the articles that mentioned the key words in the headline but were not consistent in content were discarded. Then, among the remaining stories, priority was assigned to the ones strictly related to rape and harassment cases, eliminating all those about trials in progress, late comments on past events, cases which happened in war zones or other situations whose context might be radically different than the one within the country of analysis (except for cases of harassment within the army, which were considered as domestic). Then, in the circumstance that the number of resulting stories was still excessive, the whole group of articles was divided by 5 and selected the first one for each group. In two cases (USA today 1998 and 2008 intervals), there were fewer articles per newspaper/per time interval. This resulted in the whole sample being smaller by three news stories: thus, CDA was finally performed on 45 stories. This data will be further explored in the next section.
One final clarification: as far as it concerns the last time spans, 5 articles were selected for the whole 12 months period (even if stretched across 2 years), not per each 6-month-subsection. Again, the decision was taken in the attempt to produce a balanced corpus of analysis.
3.3 THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
The analytical framework utilised in this research builds on the model proposed by Carvalho (2008) and further includes approaches outlined in Wodak’s Methods of CDA (2009), and Hyatt’s theorisation of context (2005). Beside the chronology outlined above, Carvalho’s framework, in particular, informed the twofold structure of the analytical framework: textual and contextual. This focuses on different layers of analysis: first, the “surface” characteristics of the story, (such as the length of the article, the position in the paper, the relevance given to it, etc.). Following Carvalho, specific attention was given to the headlines, the subheading and the first paragraph. Secondly, the focus moved towards the objects of discourse: what objects does the text constructs? How is rape constructed, for example? What “counts” as rape? And also, which are the connections made by the reporter? Do they make discursive connections between rape and society, or rather do they attribute the event individual psyche of the perpetrator? What are the intertextual dynamics? Thirdly, analysis should look at the actors presented: who is included and how are they portrayed? Does the
29
victim have a voice? Does the perpetrator? Whose perspective dominates? How are their roles presented? What prominence is given to other sources in the text?
At a deeper layer, analysis pinpoints the linguistic features of the text, including: grammar (lexicon, syntax, semantics, etc.) and rhetoric (metaphors, similes, analogies, etc.). As Wodak emphasises, CDA “strongly relies on linguistic categories”, still not discarding content and topics (2009). Nevertheless, a definite list of CDA relevant linguistic devices cannot be given, “for the selection depends mainly on the specific research question” (Wodak 2009). This thesis looked at idioms, sayings, clichés, vocabulary, style and rhetorical figures that might have contributed to the construction of one discourse type, rather than another. For example, utilising lexica from the animal world, might reproduce the idea that rape is somehow natural (the same goes for similitudes, metaphors, and analogies that go in the same direction). A special effort must be made in order to see all these features of the text in a light that helps identify the said and unsaid, the implications of language use, and any presuppositions and allusions (Wodak 2009).
Carvalho (2008) argues that all texts undergo a ‘discursive intervention’ – more or less consciously – by the author. This intervention can be identified, for instance, in the selection of the angle of the storytelling, the selection of facts, the framing, to “organise discourse according to a certain perspective” (Carvalho 2008:169) of the events. Framing a story, according to Carvalho, is not optional, is not something that the author might choose to do or not to do. It should therefore be considered as a discursive strategy used to talk about reality (Ibidem:169). This strategy utilises reporting, description, narration or quotation of events and utterances to offer a perspective of the event (Wodak 2009). Other discursive strategies listed by Carvalho (2008:169) include positioning (putting actors in relation to each other, so that some are more powerful than others), legitimation (justifying, for instance, harassment as due to the woman’s attitude or outfit), politicisation (attributing political status to a certain issue, which normally would not be essentially political). An example of the latter might be stressing the foreign origin of the rapist, bringing discourse to the political level of migration and integration rather than placing stress on the assault itself.
Each relevant social actor is linked to a discourse, and within each of these discourses different discursive strategies are detectable. The aim of this research is to highlight “the relations between the discursive strategies of each social actor and the news discourse” (Carvalho 2008:170). How is discourse presented? Whose discourse dominates and how?
30
3.4 CONTEXT
Having explained how Anabela Carvalho’s analytical framework is applied to this research, and having outlined the contribution of Wodak’s work, this chapter will now discuss the role of Hyatt’s context theories as they will be applied.
For each interval of the chronology, the different layers of context that may have had an impact on media discourse were analysed, starting from the most comprehensive category: epoch. As explained in the previous chapter, this includes all the assumptions of a society, how it legitimates itself through structures of inclusion and exclusion, and how it achieves a social identity (Hyatt 2005).
3.4.1.
E
POCHThe features of the epoch here analysed – or at least, the ones that are interesting for this research – are represented by a set of values and beliefs which are coherent through the whole period of study.
One aspect which is important is the centrality of the independence of the press in American ideals, however there remain variations, ideological persuasions, and other facets of news media in the U.S. which make this picture more complex. Scholars have long debated over the sacred grail of American journalism: objectivity. Donsbach argues that objectivity is the chief occupational value of American journalists, as well as what distinguishes their practice from their European colleagues (1995). Still, other scholars found the presence of bias. For example, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky elaborated a list of filters that are applied to the news in a market that is strongly profit oriented. Since the news market in the US is dominated by 6 big corporations – who own 90% of the media outlets of the country (Lutz 2012) - Herman and Chomsky talk about corporate control, pro-power and pro-government bias, infotainment and oversimplification of the news (Herman, Chomsky 1988). Moreover, a 2005 study by political scientists Groseclose and Mylo tried to quantify bias among news outlets using statistical models. According to their results, the US media landscape is fairly centrist, even though slightly slanting towards the left (2005). Surveys among the population have reflected this in public opinion, and Americans tend to perceive the media as biased – 46% as too liberal, 13% as too conservative (Mendes 2013). Finally, a field study among reporters from 115 mainstream US newspapers found that journalists tend to favour liberal viewpoints, holding the point of view of minorities more often than not (Kuypers 2002).
31
Another aspect involves equality. If, for argument’s sake, we assume that the identity of the US is strongly reliant on the idea of being a liberal country, where everyone is equal and, therefore women are as well, we will see in the following chapters if such assumptions are
reflected more (or less) in the discourse of the media pre and post-4th wave feminism. As part of this, the attitude of the American society towards feminism and patriarchy should be considered: while the States are surely a progressive country, which in this sense overcame the most odious limitations to women’s freedom such as male suffrage or exclusion to certain fields by law, the patriarchal imprint can still be identified in various aspects of society. A study from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2016 stated that women earned up to 44% less than men for high educational jobs: “personal financial advisors had the greatest percentage difference in median weekly earnings between men ($1,714) and women ($953), followed by insurance sales agents ($676 women; $1,166 men); physicians and surgeons ($1,476 women; $2,343 men); real estate brokers and sales agents ($780 women; $1,222 men); and securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents ($951 women; $1,458 men)”.8 Moreover, women represent less than a fourth of the US Congress, putting the country at №99 on the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s list of percentages of women in national governments.9
8 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Women’s median earnings 82 percent of
men’s in 2016, [available at: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/womens-median-earnings-82-percent-of-mens-in-2016.html]
9 Interparliamentary Union, December 1st, 2017, World classification – Women in national parliaments [available at site: http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.html ]
