Violence Against Women in the Global South: Reporting in the #MeToo era (Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South) 3031309103, 9783031309106

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
About the Book
Praise for Violence Against Women in the Global South
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Reporting on Violence Against Women in the Global South
Introduction
Global North Versus Global South
Violence Against Women
Femicide or Feminicide
Impact of COVID 19
#MeToo-related Movements and Hashtag Journalism
Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Hashtag Activism
Before #MeToo: Traditional News Framing Regarding Violence Against Women
Use of Police Sources: Violence Against Women as Episodic Cases or Social Phenomenon
#MeToo Era: Challenging the Global North Discourse About Violence Against Women
Differing Global Experiences of Violence Against Women
Three Aims of the Edited Collection
Intersectional Lens
Multidisciplinary and Multifaceted Methodologies
Solutions Journalism Approach
Book outline
Southeast Asia
Latin America
Sub-Saharan Africa
North Africa and the Middle East
Conclusion
References
Part I: South Asia
Chapter 2: Indonesian Female Journalists and Gender Activism in the #MeToo Era: From #MulaiBicara and #TalkAboutIt
Introduction
Indonesia’s Political History and Link to the Media
Negotiating the Journalist–Activist Divide
#MeToo in Indonesia
National Days of Action
Bills to Address Violence
Coalitions
Social Media
Research Methodology
Stories of Individual Female Digital Content Producers and Their Gender Activism
Hera, Editor of Magdalene.co
Digital Media and Feminist Activism
Journalists, Not Activists
Media Campaigns
Luviana, Journalist, Editor, Cofounder, and Chief Editor of Konde.co
Journalism, Activism, and Democratic Spaces
Activism Through Journalism: Collaboration Beyond Digital Campaigns
House of the Unsilenced Campaigns
Discussion
Conclusion
References
Part II: Latin America
Chapter 3: #NiUnaMenos: The Story of a Tweet That Revolutionized Feminism and Changed How Media Covers Violence Against Women in Argentina
Introduction
Purpose of This Study
Addressing Femicide in Argentina
The Global South Context of Argentina
Argentines as Pioneers: Historical Role of Women in Politics
Femicide as a Global Issue
Framing of Femicides in the News
Research Methodology
Coding Instrument
Coder Training and Intercoder Reliability
Variables
Sources
Frames
Tone
Statistical Analysis
Argentinean Press Coverage of Femicides
Framing the Stories
Sourcing the Stories
Discussion
Conclusion
Limitations of the Research
References
Chapter 4: The Judge and the Influencer: Race, Gender, and Class in Brazilian News Coverage of Violence Against Women
Introduction
The Global South Context of Brazil
Legal Framework to Address Violence Against Women
Brazilian Feminist Movements
Research Focusing on Violence Against Women from an Interdisciplinary Perspective
News Media Focusing on Violence Against Women
Reporting on Violence Against Women in the Brazilian Media
Case Study: The Judge and the Influencer
Hierarchy of Influences Model
Framing Theory
Applying Frameworks to the Brazilian Media Context
Research Methodology
Case Study 1: Judge Viviane Vieira do Amaral
Case Study 2: Social Media Influencer, Bruna Quirino
Findings
News Frames for Case 1 (White Judge, Viviane Vieira do Amaral)
No Woman Is Safe, Despite Social Status and Color
Femicide is Unacceptable
The Crime Was Planned
Power and Money
News Frames of Case 2 (Black Social Media Influencer, Bruna Quirino)
The Color of Femicide Is Black
Independent Black Woman Awakens a Man’s Blind Rage
A Crime Without Clear Motive
Power and Money
Discussion
Impact of News Frames About Violence Against Women
Pandemic Spaces (Public Versus Private)
Race and Gender
Privilege Versus Influence
Misogyny and Inconsistent News Narratives
Domination of News Sources
Conclusion
Limitations of This Research
References
Chapter 5: Moving Beyond the Protest Paradigm?: News Coverage of International Women’s Day Marches in Mexico
Introduction
Mexico in the Context of the Global South
A Rationale for Examining Mexican News Coverage of Violence Against Women
Mexico in the Context of Violence Against Women
Waves of Feminist Protests
#MeToo Inspiration to Address Violence Against Women
A Day Without Women’s Protests
Studies Focusing on the News Coverage of Feminist Movements in Mexico
Theorizing News Coverage of Protests
Framing and Qualitative Content Analysis as a Methodology
Methods for Analyzing News Coverage of Feminist Movements in Mexico
Exploratory Analysis: News Coverage of Women’s Marches, 2018–2020
Evolution of Topics in the News Narrative
Tone, Sources, and Framing of the Protests
Tone of the News Media Toward Demonstrations
Source Selection and Predominant Voices
Frames
A Paradigm Shift, or Too Early to Tell?
Conclusion
Suggestions for Future Research
Appendices
References
Part III: Sub-Saharan Africa
Chapter 6: Reporting on Rape Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa During the #MeToo Era
Introduction
Context of This Study
Rape Culture
Rape Myths
Media Coverage of the Rape Culture
Anti-rape Culture, Digital Activism, and Media Coverage
Current Study
Research Methodology
Findings
Rape Culture Narratives
Fabricated Lies for Political and Religious Persecution
Don’t Rape “Another Man’s Wife”
Victims
‘Rape Is Bad … But Think about the Church’
Anti-rape Culture
Believing and Supporting Victims
#ChurchToo Religious Discourse
Political Discourse
Acknowledging Power
Discussion
Limitations and Future Research
Conclusion
References
Part IV: North Africa and the Middle East
Chapter 7: Egypt’s #MeToo Moment: Using Social Media to Help Address Violence Against Women in Egypt
Introduction
Theoretical Framework: Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Research Methodology Embedded in a Global South Context
Research Methods and Case Studies
Role of Social Media and the Diffusion of Innovations in Curbing Violence Against Women in Egypt
Establishing a Violence Against Women Unit
Feminist and NGOs Initiatives
Social Media Campaigns
Smartphone Applications
Other Initiatives to Address Violence Against Women After the January 25, 2011, Revolution
Legal Limitations in Addressing Violence Against Women in Egypt
Social Media as a Method for Confronting Violence Against Women
Social Media Diffusion and Combating Violence Against Women in Egypt: Two Cases
Case 1: Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana # دفتر_حكايات_المدونة
Case 2: The Case of Ahmed Bassam Zaki
Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Online Activism in Contexts of War: Is There a #MeToo Echo in Libya, Syria, and Yemen?
Introduction
Conditions for Women’s Movements and Collective Action Over Time
Social Change in the MENA Region
Global Violence Against Women and the Middle East and North Africa Region
Framework for the Study
Online Activity and Activism
Research Methodology: Context, Study Rationale, and Procedure
Social Media and #MeToo Accounts for Libya, Syria, and Yemen
#MeToo and Twitter in Libya, Syria, and Yemen
Syria
Libya
Yemen
#MeToo on Facebook for Libya, Syria, and Yemen
#MeToo-like Hashtags on Social Media in Arabic
Libya, Syria, and Yemen: #MeToo on YouTube, Instagram, and Google News
Conclusion
Limitations of the Research
Suggestions for Future Research
References
Chapter 9: Shifting the News Narrative About Violence Against Women in the Global South
Introduction
Key Findings of the Collection
Southeast Asia: Addressing Violence Against Women Through Alternative Media and Gender Activism
Latin America: Feminist Hashtag Movements Address Femicide and Feminicide
Sub-Saharan Africa: Considering the Rape Culture Narrative in Mainstream Media
The Middle East and North Africa Region: Social Media Gives a Voice to Female Survivors
Addressing the Aims of the Collection
1. Intersectional Lens in #MeToo-Related Reporting
2. Multidisciplinary and Multifaceted Methodologies
Research Methodologies
Multidisciplinary, Theoretical Frameworks
3. Solutions Journalism in the Global South: Can It Work?
Shifts in Reporting About Violence Against Women in the Global South
Need for Support and Guidelines to Report on Violence Against Women in the Global South
The #MeToo Era
COVID-19 Era
Other Education and Training Programs
Conclusion: Ontologies of Media Reporting of Violence Against Women the Global South
Suggestions for Future Research
Rise of Extremism and Misinformation
References
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN JOURNALISM AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Violence Against Women in the Global South Reporting in the #MeToo era Edited by Andrea Jean Baker Celeste González de Bustamante Jeannine E. Relly

Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South Series Editors

Bruce Mutsvairo Auburn University Auburn, AL, USA Saba Bebawi University of Technology Sydney Ultimo, NSW, Australia Eddy Borges-Rey Northwestern University Qatar Ar-Rayyan, Qatar

This series focuses on cutting-edge developments in journalism in and from the Global South and illuminates how journalism cultures and practices have evolved from the era of colonization to contemporary globalization. Bringing previously underrepresented research from the Global South to the English speaking world, this series will focus on a broad range of topics within journalism including pedagogy, ethics, history of journalism, press freedom, theory, propaganda, gender, cross-border collaboration and methodological issues. Despite the geographical connotations of the term ‘Global South’ the series will not be defined by geographical boundaries, as Western countries are home to millions of immigrants and the contributions of immigrant journalists will be covered.

Andrea Jean Baker Celeste González de Bustamante Jeannine E. Relly Editors

Violence Against Women in the Global South Reporting in the #MeToo era

Editors Andrea Jean Baker School of Media, Film and Journalism Monash University Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Celeste González de Bustamante School of Journalism University of Texas Austin, TX, USA

Jeannine E. Relly University of Arizona Tucson, AZ, USA

ISSN 2662-480X     ISSN 2662-4818 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South ISBN 978-3-031-30910-6    ISBN 978-3-031-30911-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: ©Thanit Weerawan/Getty images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to journalists, feminist activists, and victim-survivors for their ongoing work in addressing violence against women in the Global South.

Acknowledgments

Like all worthy and complex academic projects, this edited volume is the result of support, effort, and expertise from an extraordinary number of people; too many to list here. Andrea Baker, Celeste González de Bustamante, and Jeannine E.  Relly would like to thank the editors (Associate Professor Bruce Mutsvairo, Professor Saba Bebawi, and Associate Professor Eddy Borges-Rey) of this series, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, and the editorial team at Palgrave/ Springer for giving the green light for this edited collection to be published and for their direction and ongoing support for this critical work. Andrea Baker would like to thank Monash University’s Faculty of Arts’ Outside Studies Program, which supported the seeds of this research project. During COVID-19, she would like to thank Scott Wright, the former Professor of Political Communication and Journalism from the School of Media, Film and Journalism (MJF) for the research funds to study the rise of domestic violence during the pandemic lockdowns, which also helped to deepen this project’s analysis. Andrea wants to also thank her former Head of MFJ, Professor Brett Hutchins, plus Professor Gil Soo Han, the staff from the  journalism section and MFJ’s  Gender and Media lab for their support and encouragement. She is also grateful to her family and friends in Australia and aboard for their love and unwavering support, and special thanks to Professor Celeste González de Bustamante and Professor Jeannine E.  Relly for being fabulous and collaborative  co-­editors and co-authors.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Celeste González de Bustamante would like to thank Andrea Baker and Jeannine E.  Relly for being such wonderfully supportive, collaborative, and compassionate co-editors. Jeannine’s and Andrea’s contributions truly made this a better piece of scholarly literature. Celeste also thanks all her long-time colleagues and friends at the University of Arizona as well as her new colleagues and friends at the University of Texas at Austin in the Moody College of Communication. She also is grateful for the financial support from Moody College, which helped to move the project toward publication. Celeste also wishes to recognize the continued and unwavering support from Héctor and Claire Bustamante. Jeannine E.  Relly would like to thank her exceptional co-editor colleagues, Andrea Baker and Celeste González de Bustamante, for their great support and insights on this project. She also extends gratitude to those who have worked with her over the years in studies of global media programs and the Center for Border and Global Journalism at The University of Arizona. She also would like to thank all of the individuals interviewed for this book for their time and most valued contributions, Hans Seyffert, her family and friends, and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences for their continued support of this work. This book was conceived of, and written during, the COVID-19 era, and as a result the global network of journalism scholars in this collection has yet to meet face-to-face. Andrea Baker, Celeste González de Bustamante, and Jeannine E. Relly would like to thank all the authors for their insights, flexibility, and important contributions during such challenging times.

About the Book

Violence against women is a universal problem, but how it is reported around the world where the majority of the global population resides (e.g. Global South) has received minimal scholarly attention. This edited collection addresses this deficit by examining the role of legacy press and social media that report on, and highlights ways to improve, coverage of violence against women in the Global South. Exploring this shadow pandemic, before and during #MeToo and the COVID-19 era, it brings together 14 journalism scholars from around the world, to conduct research on five regions of the Global South, such as Southeast Asia (Indonesia), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico), sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa), and the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen). The authors investigate the ontological limitations which present structural and systemic challenges for journalists who report on the normalization of violence against women. These include patriarchal forces, gender imbalance observed in newsrooms, authoritarian propaganda and censorship strategies by repressive, hyper-masculine, and populist political regimes, economic and digital inequities, and ongoing civil and transnational wars. Presenting a rich range of conceptual, methodological, and empirical chapters, the collection offers a revision of existing frameworks and guidelines and aims to promote more gender-sensitive, solutions-driven, and victim or survivor-centered reporting in this vulnerable region. The collection provides valuable reading for professionals working in the health and preventative sector, and for students and scholars of journalism, gender studies, media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, developmental studies, and sociology. ix

Praise for Violence Against Women in the Global South “This edited collection examines the ways legacy press and social media report on violence against women in the #MeToo era using a variety of theoretical frameworks and methodologies. A must-read for journalism, communication, and gender studies scholars interested in understanding how socioeconomic factors and geopolitical power relations influence discourse around violence against women in the Global South.” —Ammina Kothari, Professor of Journalism, Harrington School of Communication and Media, University of Rhode Island, USA “Few fields have moved as far and fast as the violence against women movement. In fact, advances in the social scientific study of this major social problem have been swifter than the vaunted leaps in some of the physical sciences. However, even highly seasoned scholars, including those based in academic journalism programs, have not been fleet of foot in examining key issues related to various types of violence against women in the Global South. Thus, this anthology makes a much-needed path-­breaking contribution to an interdisciplinary understanding of woman abuse in the five regions of the most populated part of the world.” —Walter DeKeseredy, Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, West Virginia University, USA “The #metoo movement that began on social media in the United States rapidly diffused around the world moving women from victims to power brokers, from margins to the center of old and new media. But were women in global south countries part of this movement? This impressive new collection produced through a collaboration between journalism scholars tells the, until now, untold story of how survivor-centered reporting of violence against women is challenging patriarchal gender norms and the authoritarian regimes that enforce them. The volume offers powerful insights on how to improve media reporting given the reality that blame-the-victim narratives and societal stigma perpetuate the gross underreporting of this violence.” —Professor Jacqui True, Director of Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Australia and the Indo-Pacific), Monash University, Australia

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Contents

1 Reporting  on Violence Against Women in the Global South  1 Andrea Jean Baker, Celeste González de Bustamante, and Jeannine E. Relly Part I South Asia  29 2 Indonesian  Female Journalists and Gender Activism in the #MeToo Era: From #MulaiBicara and #TalkAboutIt 31 Monika Winarnita, Nasya Bahfen, Gavin Height, Adriana R. Mintarsih, and Joanne Byrne Part II Latin America  55 3 #NiUnaMenos:  The Story of a Tweet That Revolutionized Feminism and Changed How Media Covers Violence Against Women in Argentina 57 Mariana De Maio 4 The  Judge and the Influencer: Race, Gender, and Class in Brazilian News Coverage of Violence Against Women 85 Heloiza Herscovitz

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Contents

5 Moving  Beyond the Protest Paradigm?: News Coverage of International Women’s Day Marches in Mexico113 Grisel Salazar Rebolledo and Celeste González de Bustamante Part III Sub-Saharan Africa 145 6 Reporting  on Rape Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa During the #MeToo Era147 Dinfin Mulupi and Lindsey Blumell Part IV North Africa and the Middle East 171 7 Egypt’s  #MeToo Moment: Using Social Media to Help Address Violence Against Women in Egypt173 Rasha El-Ibiary 8 Online  Activism in Contexts of War: Is There a #MeToo Echo in Libya, Syria, and Yemen?201 Saoussen Ben Cheikh and Jeannine E. Relly 9 Shifting  the News Narrative About Violence Against Women in the Global South227 Andrea Jean Baker, Celeste González de Bustamante, and Jeannine E. Relly Index251

Notes on Contributors

Nasya  Bahfen (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Journalism within the Journalism program, La Trobe University in Australia, where she coordinates the Master’s in Journalism. Previously, she worked as a reporter and producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). As a researcher within the Centre for Sport and Social Impact at La Trobe University, Bahfen is the author of 18 academic journal articles in peer-reviewed, high-ranking publications. Her recent co-authored book (on the back of an Australian Research Council grant) explores building resilience among Jewish, Muslim, and other culturally diverse groups targeted in cyber racism. The book compares social media use among Muslim students in Melbourne and New  York City where she was a visiting scholar with New  York University’s Centre for Religion and Media. Andrea Jean Baker  (PhD), is Senior Lecturer of journalism and a member of the Gender and Media Lan at the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University (Australia). Previously, she worked as a radio journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Also, as a visiting scholar to the City University of New York, the University of Texas at Austin and Freie Universitat in Berlin, she has published widely in relation to net-radio, journalism safety, feminist musicology, and reporting on sexual violence in music and media spaces across the Global North and Global South. Baker has edited two special journal editions about sexual violence and safety in journalism and is the author of four books (two

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

award-winning monographs and two co-authored and co-edited collections) and many chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. Her research has been published in Australian Journalism Review, Australian Journalism Monographs, Journalism Practice, Global Media Journal, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, and the Journal of Radio and Audio Media. Baker’s feature articles has appeared in The Conversation.com, Women’s Agenda, Sydney Morning Herald and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Lindsey Blumell  (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Journalism within the journalism program at the City, University of London in the United Kingdom, where she specializes in human rights representation in news, with a special emphasis on gender. Blumell has largely focused on how sexual violence against women is portrayed in traditional and new media. She is the author of 18 academic journal articles in peer-reviewed, high-­ ranking publications. Her previous projects include research on sexual harassment in newsrooms in Africa, South East Asia, and the Arab region, and news coverage of sexual harassment and violence within media operating in Kenya and the United States. Celeste  González  de Bustamante (PhD) is the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Journalism and Media in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin (USA), where she holds the Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Chair in Communication.  Her academic research interests include historical and contemporary issues related to media in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America. She is co-author of the multiaward-winning Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-first Century (2021), among other books, and her work has been published in a wide range of academic journals. She holds a doctoral degree in history and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona. Before entering academia, de Bustamante worked as a journalist in the United States for more than fifteen years. Prior to her position at the University of Texas at Austin, she was Professor of Journalism at the University of Arizona School of Journalism, where she helped to co-found and direct the Center for Border and Global Journalism. Joanne  Byrne is a PhD candidate and graduate researcher at the Department of Social Inquiry, La Trobe University, Australia. A digital anthropologist, Byrne explores the complex interplay between technology

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and culture. With works published in Journalism Practice, The Conversation, and Inside Indonesia, her research interests include gender, identity, and digital social spaces, as well as identifying intersections between quantitative “Big Data” projects and qualitative social research. Her PhD research explores digital social spaces as used in the work- and home-lives of entrepreneurial mothers. Saoussen  Ben  Cheikh  is based in Tunisia and works for Internews, a transnational media development organization. She is a project director for Internews’ Closed States program, which supports freedom of expression in the most challenging contexts of conflict, poverty, and repression. She is overseeing a wide range of activities with local media and civil society, which focus on development, peacebuilding, gender, and youth participation. Previously, she was a PhD candidate at the University of Nice in France, where she researched the state and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. She holds an MA in History and International Cooperation. In the last decade, she has worked in both Syria and Yemen conducting research and implementing humanitarian programs. Rasha  El-Ibiary  (PhD) is an associate professor and Chair in the Department of Political Mass Media at Future University in Egypt. She is specialized in the thematic intersections of media and politics, covering issues such as mediated gendered identities; cultural geography and geopolitics; imagery and memory; the politics of fear; media policies; censorship; and public diplomacy, among other areas. She is also an editorial board member with several academic journals, including SAGE Open, the Journal of African Media Studies, and Frontiers in Communication, as well as Political Communication, where she is editing a special issue on “Media Populism.” She is a Principal Investigator on the “Journalistic Role Performance” research project and an affiliate researcher at the Global Risk Journalism Hub. Gavin  Height is a researcher associate at the La Trobe University’s Department of Politics, Philosophy and Media in Australia. His research interests include Indonesian politics and society, democratic regression, and sexual and gender minorities. Height’s work has been published in Journalism Practice, The Jakarta Post, The New Daily, The Conversation, and Inside Indonesia. Alongside research work, he is the executive p ­ roducer of The Informer, an LGBTQI news and current affairs program on Australia’s JoyFM radio network.

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Notes on Contributors

Heloiza Herscovitz  (PhD), is Professor of Journalism at the California State University (Long Beach) in the United States. Herscovitz was born and raised in Brazil, where she worked as a journalist for more than 15 years. Today she is an academic expert on Brazilian news media. Her research interests include news framing analysis; identity, values, and professional routines of journalists; and the interconnection between journalism and politics in Brazil. Herscovitz has published several articles and book chapters and has presented numerous papers at national and international conferences. Her most recent article titled “Leading Newspapers in Brazil as Political Actors” was published by the academic journal, Interdisciplinary Studies of Latin America. Herscovitz holds a PhD from the University of Florida. Mariana De Maio  (PhD) is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Lehigh University. She is a political communication and journalism studies scholar. Her teaching and research interests lie in media influence on political attitudes and behavior, influences in journalistic practices, and portrayals of women and other minority groups in media. Originally from Argentina, De Maio is a former journalist who has been in the United States for several years and has worked as a reporter and editor in radio, television, print, and online news outlets. Adriana  Rahajeng  Mintarsih  is a PhD student and a lecturer in the English Studies Program in the Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia. She is completing a PhD in Sociology at the State University of New York at Albany in the United States. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Master’s degree in Gender Studies from Universitas Indonesia, Mintarsih has published research on gender, migration, popular culture, and activism. Dinfin  Mulupi  is a PhD student in Journalism Studies at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, at University of Maryland, College Park, in the United States. She holds an Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Journalism, Media, and Globalization from Aarhus University in Denmark, and from City, University of London in the United Kingdom. Mulupi previously worked as a business journalist for six years covering the East African region. Her research interests focus on women’s rights, particularly on sexism within the news industry in Africa, and the r­ epresentation of sexual and gender violence in the media. Mulupi’s previous projects include

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research on sexual harassment within news organizations in Africa, South East Asia, and the Arab region and news coverage of sexual violence cases involving high-profile perpetrators in Kenya and the United States. Her academic papers can be sourced in The Communication Review, Feminist Media Studies, Journalism Practice, and Violence Against Women. Grisel Salazar Rebolledo  (PhD) is Associate Professor of Journalism at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica in Mexico City, where she coordinates the Journalism Program. Her work examines the relationship between media systems and political regimes. In her research, Salazar has evidenced that particular configurations of both societal and institutional constraints can mediate the effect of attempts of censorship. She has written more than 20 publications on press-politics relations, political institutions, and news coverage. Recently, she authored a publication based on the study on mediatic portraits of gender violence in Mexico. She holds a PhD in Public Policy and a master’s degree in Political Science. Jeannine  E.  Relly  (PhD) is Professor of Journalism and Director of Global Initiatives at the University of Arizona’s Center for Border and Global Journalism in the United States. She is an associate dean in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the university and holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Government and Public Policy. She is also an affiliated faculty member with the university’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Digital Society & Data Studies, Human Rights Practice program and is among the Humanitarian Assistance Technical Support Faculty. Before joining the faculty, Relly worked for more than a dozen years as a journalist reporting in a number of U.S. states, the Caribbean and the Mexico-U.S. borderlands. Author and co-author of more than three dozen academic published papers, a monograph and a book, Relly’s research focuses on global and domestic influences on news media systems, government information policy, press-state relations, and democratic and autocratic institutions in countries in conflict and political transition. Relly’s co-authored, multi-award-winning book with González de Bustamante, Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-first Century, was published in 2021.

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Notes on Contributors

Monika Winarnita  (PhD) is Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University in Australia and a teaching associate at the Asia Institute University of Melbourne. Her research covers the experiences of journalists in Australia and Indonesia with various publications, including in papers in the journal Journalism Practice and a chapter in the edited book collection Journalism and Job Loss. Winarnita is the author of an award-winning monograph book based on her PhD thesis “Dancing the Feminine: Gender and Identity Performances by Indonesian Migrant Women” (University of Victoria BC Canada 2017 monograph of distinction chosen out of 80 titles). She has also written opinion articles for The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Globe, and The Conversation in English and Indonesian.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 9.1

#MeToo March in Latin America (Getty Images) Hera at the Magdalene stand, International Women’s Day 2019. Photo by Gavin Height Image of a woman with Stop Violence Against Women on her glasses (Getty Images)

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List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 3.5 Table 3.6 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9 Table 5.10 Table 6.1

Frame used by media outlets 71 Association of frames among the five media outlets 72 Sources employed by media outlets 73 Association of sources among the five media outlets 74 Tone employed by the media outlets to describe the victims and perpetrators 75 Association of tone among the five media outlets 75 Major frames identified in the news media coverage of femicide (2020–2021) 95 Types and names of news outlets included in the analysis (N = 25) 124 Tone of news articles by year in Mexican Media (2018–2020)128 Tone of news articles by type of media in Mexico (2018–2020)129 Local and national news sources by year 130 News media sources based on media type in Mexico (2018–2020)131 News frames used by all 25 Mexican media outlets by year (2018–2020)133 Type of news frame by type of media and year (2018–2020) 133 Ten most frequent words in 2018 138 Ten most frequent words in 2019 138 Ten most frequent words in 2020 138 Newspapers analyzed in this study (n = 9)153

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List of Tables

Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 9.1

List of interviewees (N = 8) 41 testimonies from Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana #MeToo posts on social media in English (Syria, Libya and Yemen, 2017–2021) #MeToo Arabic posts on social media (2017–2021) Summary of methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks for seven cases studies across 11 countries

178 190 212 216 235

CHAPTER 1

Reporting on Violence Against Women in the Global South Andrea Jean Baker, Celeste González de Bustamante, and Jeannine E. Relly

Introduction Six years after the revitalization of #MeToo in 2017, and well into the COVID-19 pandemic’s spread throughout the world, the present edited collection extends beyond the “ethnocentric” nature of journalism studies

A. J. Baker (*) School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] C. G. de Bustamante School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. E. Relly University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_1

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by examining how legacy, online, and social media in the Global South report on violence against women (VAW) and offers methods to improve this reportage (Mutsvairo et al., 2021, p. 996). As rates of VAW continue to surge worldwide, in 2022, the 65th session of the United Nations (U.N.) Women’s Commission on the Status of Women called on the media to consider the needs of women and girls located in the Global South during COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts (UN Women, 2022a,  b). The disciplines of criminology, sociology, and health studies focus on examining the increase in VAW cases (also known as the “shadow pandemic”) in both the Global North (e.g., US, Italy, Spain, Australia, and Russia) and Global South (e.g., Latin America; Sharma & Borah, 2020; Pfitzner et al., 2020, p. 1). These studies highlight that the increase in VAW cases worldwide during the COVID-19 lockdowns is caused by forced proximity to violence and related economic, social, and cultural stressors, —which are factors more acutely felt in the Global South region. Journalism has “an unprecedented influence on how entire societies perpetuate gender inequality, from discriminatory norms and stereotypes” to the normalization of VAW (UNICEF & UN Women, 2022, p. 2). Media reporting also “has the immense potential to combat the root causes” of this social issue by promoting “positive social and gender norms, and supporting risk mitigation through the provision of essential information to survivors, victims and those who wish to support them” (UNICEF & UN Women, 2022, p. 2). However, journalism studies conducted during the #MeToo era and now in COVID-normal times regarding VAW have tended to focus on the Global North, exploring  misinformation (e.g., Tejedor et al., 2020) or fake news (e.g., Nygaard-Blom et al., 2021). As criminologists, DeKeseredy and Hall-Sanchez (2018) noted before the COVID-19 era that most of the work focusing on VAW has focused on the circumstances of women who live in the Global North. Overall, journalism and media studies that examine reporting about the shadow pandemic of VAW before and during #MeToo and the COVID-19 pandemic in the Global South have been scant. This is disheartening because two in three women in the Global South continue to experience physical or sexual violence, mostly from an intimate partner; and this is a higher ratio than that found in the Global North (UN, 2022, a, b). The present edited collection addresses this gap by providing empirical research and methodological and theoretical directions that explore how the #MeToo movement has affected the reporting of VAW in the Global South from its emergence in October 2017 to the COVID-normal era.

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The first part of this chapter outlines the context underlying the collection, begining  with key terminology and the history of media-related VAW reporting. This is followed by discussions regarding the differences observed between the Global North and Global South and how these discourses affect the incidences and reportage of VAW in the global press and other media. The second part of this chapter outlines the aims of the edited collection and each chapter.

Global North Versus Global South The Global North comprises of wealthy, industrialized countries that are mostly located in the Northern Hemisphere, such as Western Europe (e.g., the UK), North America (e.g., Canada), Israel, Japan, Russia, Singapore, and South Korea. The Global North also includes developed countries in the Southern Hemisphere, such as Australia and New Zealand. The Global South consists of countries whose economies are usually not fully developed and who often face challenges such as unstable democracies, huge population growth, low per capita income, and excessive unemployment (Oglesby, 1969). This area includes Southeast Asia, Central Asia, China, most of the Pacific region, Africa, parts of the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean (UN, 2019). The Global South is tied to transnational, postcolonial, development, and, more recently, journalism studies (Mutsvairo & Bebawi, 2022). The term emerged during the Vietnam war in the 1960s and gained heightened use in the 1990s as a critique for no longer adequate terms such as “third world” and “developing nations,” which focused on a nation’s level of development and cultural distinctions (Oglesby, 1969). The Global South is linked to a unique set of historical circumstances and geopolitical power relations, which include “an entire history of colonialism, neo-imperialism, and differential economic and social change through which large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy, and access to resources are maintained” (Dados & Connell, 2012, p. 13). The current edited collection examines VAW reporting in 11 Global South countries that are located in Southeast Asia (Indonesia), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico), sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa), and the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen). However, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have solid economic growth figures, but are part of the Global South because of their inequity issues, which are strongly linked to wealth disparity, poverty, rising unemployment, and low education standards (World Population Review, 2022).

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Violence Against Women Violence against women is defined as any act of male violence that causes or could cause physical, sexual (e.g., harassment, assault, and rape), or psychological harm or suffering to women and girls (Reddock, 2022; UN, 2022). It includes threats of harm or coercion in public and private life and emotional, cultural, spiritual, and financial abuse (Kelly, 1988). Violence against women is targeted at ciswomen, trans women, and intersex women. Although it is often interchanged with other terms, such as gender-based violence (GBV), VAW aligns with statistical evidence illustrating that violence is gendered, as victims or survivors are predominantly women and perpetrators are usually men (Pfitzner et al., 2020; Rubenstein, 2019). The concept of VAW tends to silence and exclude children, who are also victims and survivors of violence in the family. It also steers perceptions toward nuclear or heterosexual families while excluding other relationships, such as connections between individuals who identify as non-binary and other members from the LGBTIQ+ communities (Fileborn & Loney-Howes, 2019). Further, intersecting forms of violence exist, such as domestic violence, family violence, and intimate partner violence (IPV). However, VAW is the key term used in this edited collection because the World Health Organization (2012) stated that VAW is the most common form of violence, and because VAW has often been the dominant discourse used in media reportage, especially during the #MeToo and COVID-normal era (Bradbury-Jones & Isham, 2020).

Femicide or Feminicide In the present collection, femicide and feminicide are two different concepts. Femicide is defined as “the killing of females by males because they are female” (Russell, 1975, as cited in Frías, 2021, p. 1). The term can be traced back to the nineteenth century, but it regained increased use in 1970s when feminist Diane Russell used the term at the first International Tribunal on Crimes against Women in 1976. This added critical political meaning to the term “and placed it within a broader feminist politics framework” (Grzyb et al., 2018, p. 20). Radford and Russell (1992) and Corradi et al. (2016, p. 3) refined the definition of femicide in the “context of the overall oppression of women in a patriarchal society,” further noting that the term referred to “the misogynistic killing of women by men motivated by hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of ownership

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over women” (p.  3). Concerningly, femicide is commonly observed in Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean (Carrigan & Dawson, 2020), and the present collection illustrates that Mexico and Argentina exhibit alarming rates of femicide. More recently, scholars have used the term “feminicide” to refer to the state’s connection to and complicity in the murders of women by men. Lagarde (2010) expanded on Russell’s (1975) definition to include the impunity of these crimes and the state’s neglect in addressing them. Feminicidal violence denotes an attack on women’s human rights that leads to various forms of violent death. The current collection specifically examines the high rates of feminicide in Brazil.

Impact of COVID 19 Having first emerged in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic is now associated with the term “COVID normal,” which refers to resuming practices or ways of living while adjusting for the defensive measures implemented as advised by health professionals and government emergency regulations. Precautionary regulations include maintaining a 1.5-meter distance from other individuals and wearing masks to avoid the spread of coronavirus (Lee, 2020). Media coverage of COVID-19-related deaths has also been accompanied by increased news coverage of the shadow pandemic of VAW, though this mainly occurs in the Global North. This has subsequently directed attention toward understanding both how the media influences VAW reporting and how VAW is reported. However, news outlets have generally portrayed VAW as a consequence of the pandemic itself rather than an ongoing societal issue (UNICEF & UN Women, 2022). For example, during severe lockdowns in Latin America, cases of domestic violence increased (Sigal, et  al. 2020). Reporting practices can directly affect victims and survivors, who might encounter insensitive or harmful coverage of VAW and decide against reporting their own incidents. News reports of VAW that fail to direct survivors to relevant resources and services can place victims and survivors at further risk (UNICEF & UN Women, 2022).

#MeToo-related Movements and Hashtag Journalism In their book, #identity: Hashtagging Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation, Kosnik and Feldman (2019, p. 4) noted that since 2006, Twitter has been a global political platform for tweets and that it has allowed people with

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internet access to advance social justice issues. In 2006, US social worker and community activist Tarana Burke (2021) coined the term “MeToo” to forge a visibility regarding VAW and girls of color. In August 2007, technology designer Chris Messina proposed using the “#” sign—or “hashtag”—to “group” tweets (Kosnik & Feldman, 2019, p.  4). By October 2017, #MeToo had turned into a hashtag movement, and a discourse which  was  further developed after Ronan Farrow from The New  Yorker and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey from The New York Times broke the story that Miramax film producer Harvey Weinstein was an alleged sexual abuser of wealthy and white female Hollywood celebrities (Farrow, 2017; Kantor & Twohey, 2017). The work of these journalists, along with the viral #MeToo stories led by Hollywood survivors of Weinstein’s, such as Alyssa Milano, revalidated Burke’s movement of 2006. After the Weinstein story broke in 2017, posting #MeToo experiences on social media sparked global digital movements to address VAW, resulting in  85 million people shared the hashtag in the Global North (Australia, Canada, Israel, the UK, and the US) and in parts of the Global South (e.g., India; Baker et al., 2020). Since then, the #MeToo-related hashtag movements have breathed new life into the fight to address VAW, especially in Global North countries such as the US, where the movements have been highly successful (Baker et al., 2022) (Fig. 1.1).

Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Hashtag Activism Burke’s original “MeToo” movement was founded on intersectional concerns, which were articulated in critical race theory during the 1970s by US law scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, and then later in 1989 by US law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. Critical race theory analyzes the role that race and racism play in perpetuating social disparities between dominant and marginalized groups. The theory places race in a broader perspective to include economics, history, legal systems, and media coverage (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Crenshaw (1989) coined the term, intersectionality, to describe how race, socioeconomic background, and gender intersect to create racism and discrimination against Black women in the US judicial system. Crenshaw (1989) also asserted that intersectionality considers how racism intersects with the patriarchy, heterosexism, classism, and xenophobia, and  how these overlapping

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Fig. 1.1  #MeToo March in Latin America (Getty Images)

vulnerabilities created by these systems cause various challenges for people. In 2013, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, extended on these intersectional challenges. Organized by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tomet, and Alicia Garza, US women of color and queer and trans feminists, #BlackLivesMatter questioned all forms of violence against Black people (Kilgo et al., 2019; Brown, & Mourão, 2021). In 2014, Crenshaw further co-founded the #SayHerName campaign to highlight the silencing of violence that Black women experience (Crewshaw & Monae, 2022). By late 2017, as the Weinstein and Hollywood story unfolded and the #MeToo movement went viral. Other stories about the film producer’s behavior included other women behind the scenes, aspiring actresses, and women of color (Gieseler, 2019). By 2018, Mendes, Ringrose, and Keller (2018) defined hashtag feminism as “one of the most popular forms of feminist activism” that uses “hashtags (the # symbol followed by a thematic word of phrase) to produce communities of conversation among disparate Twitter users” (p. 237). Mendes et al. (2018) affirmed that “although #MeToo is perhaps one of the most high-profile examples of digital feminist activism …

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it follows a growing trend of the public’s willingness to challenges to sexism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression via feminist uptake of digital communication” (pp.  236–237). #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and #SayHerName have achieved longevity in mainstream media headlines, though mostly in the Global North due to news hooks in phenomena known as hashtag journalism (Friedman, 2014). Another popular hashtag, #MeTooIndia, began in 2018 after #MeToo-inspired sexual violence allegations were made by Bollywood actress, Tanushree Dutta (Durham, 2021; Guha, 2021; Sreedharan et al., 2020). This edited collection offers a voice to other regions in the Global South where #MeToo-related hashtags have not been fully examined, such as: • Indonesia—#MulaiBicara and #TalkAboutIt • Latin America—#NiUnaMenos, #MeTooArgentina, #MeTooBrazil, #EuNaoMereçoSerEstuprada (“I don’t deserve to be raped”), #PrimeiroAssedio (“the first harassment”), #MexeuComUmaMexeuComTodas (“Mess with one of us, mess with us all”), #YaNoNosCallamosMas (“#WeAreNotShuttingUp”), #EleNão (“not him”) • Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—#AnaKaman, #MeToo, #‫أناكمان‬, #YouAreNotAlone, #‫لست_وحدك‬, #MeTooSyria, #MeTooYemen, #MeTooLibya, #MeTooEgypt • sub-Saharan Africa—#MenareTrash and #EndRapeCulture (South Africa); #MyDressMyChoice and #JusticeForLiz (Kenya); #BringBackOurGirls (Nigeria).

Before #MeToo: Traditional News Framing Regarding Violence Against Women Before #MeToo, media reports about VAW were heard when they related to an influential and white male or when they were categorized as horrific news associated with sexual assault, rape cases, or the extreme version of VAW—femicide and feminicide (de Benedictis et  al., 2019; Sutherland et al., 2019). Payne, Lonsway, and Fitzgerald’s (1999, p. 60) rape myth acceptance scale describes the categories of media reports on rape, such as by focusing on the concepts of “she asked for it,” “it wasn’t really rape,” “he didn’t mean to,” “she wanted it,” “she lied,” and “rape is a trivial or deviant event.” Media coverage of VAW tended to profile victims and

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survivors as white, middle class, young, and attractive women (Baker et al., 2020, p.  3). The invisibility of VAW in the news supported patriarchal perspectives, “hegemonic masculinities,” “gender inequality,” and male privilege (Lucas et al., 2016, p. 41). Media coverage of VAW before the #MeToo movement was often associated with simplistic, inadequately distorted, and sensationalizing representations (Fairbairn, 2020). Use of Police Sources: Violence Against Women as Episodic Cases or Social Phenomenon Journalism research before #MeToo highlighted that VAW cases were reported globally in two ways. First, VAW was considered an event-bound, episodic, and isolated case that focused on the who, what, where, when, and how of a specific incident (Simons & Morgan, 2018; Fairbairn, 2020). Media reports trivialized VAW, framing it as an “unpredictable private tragedy” (Ryan et al., 2006, p. 209) and a spontaneous “out of the blue” event that was perpetrated by an ordinary person (Dobash, et al., 2004, p.  577). Second, VAW reportage was associated with thematic framing that examined the social phenomena, which subsequently helped contextualize events that led to the violent behavior (Simons & Morgan, 2018). Studies have found that VAW reportage was also associated with an over-­ reliance on police and official sources (Simons & Morgan, 2018, p. 1202). Notably, this situation revealed an absence of the voices of women, victims, survivors, advocates, service providers, non-government organizations (NGOs), and researchers as key sources in news stories. To address the fault lines in VAW reporting, research projects have explored the implications of media sexism, misrepresentation, and gender inequity in the media or in the devised media guides and toolkits for journalists (Byerly, 2011).

#MeToo Era: Challenging the Global North Discourse About Violence Against Women Given that social media encompasses traditional media and digital-­ generated hashtags, journalism studies from the Global North in the #MeToo era has recently illuminated the media coverage of VAW (Fairbairn, 2020, p.  4). Noetzel et  al. (2022) found that news framing regarding VAW in the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New

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York Times, and The Washington Post shifted from single-incident reports between 2016 and 2017 to a broader, news analysis style two years later in 2017 and 2018, and the scholars credit this shift to the influence of the #MeToo movement. However, journalism research focusing on #MeToo tended to make the experiences of women from Anglophone countries the benchmark from which to theorize and examine global feminist VAW research (Baker et  al., 2020). This problematizes feminist theoretical frameworks because privileged women in the Global North are often regarded as the empirical referents of VAW, and they are prioritized over the differing needs of women in the Global South (Bull et al., 2020). As Banet-Weiser and Higgins (2023) noted in their book, Believability: Gender, Race, and the Labor of Being Believed, the #MeToo movement has been linked to cultural and political perceptions of authority in the US and UK, where credibility remains gendered, racialized, and polarized. Intersectional feminists in the Global North argue that media research in the #MeToo era should examine how sexual violence intersects with race, ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds, and sexuality (Baker & Manchanda Rodrigues, 2022). Postcolonial hashtag discourses related to race, caste, and socioeconomic backgrounds tend to portray women in the Global South as unfortunate victims of other cultures (Durham, 2021). Noetzel et  al. (2022) further asserted that future research should also examine VAW media reports that are written in native languages throughout different cultural contexts and geographical locations. Differing Global Experiences of Violence Against Women Although VAW reporting is always problematic, adopting a mainly Western lens fails to reflect what is actually occurring in the Global South, where normative journalism practices differ within “local news epistemologies” (Kaul, 2013; Mutsvairo et al., 2021, p. 997; Iqani & Resende, 2018). It is critical to resist homogenizing VAW reporting between the Global North and Global South, and within the Global South. Additionally, although this collection avoided painting each examined country with “the same socio-cultural brush,” it found six ways in which the Global South differs from the Global North (Mutsvairo et al., 2021, p. 1003). First, the many forms of patriarchy play a stronger role in daily life and in sexist newsrooms that are based in the Global South. Because women often do not want their families to find out about their abuse, and because laws might not protect them, they are silenced by “cultures of respectability” (Gouws,

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2019, para. 8). Given that some female victims and survivors originate from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, it if difficult to assess whether nondisclosure agreements would be used in Global South cases like they were often used during the #MeToo-related Weinstein scandals in the US (Koren, 2017). A code of silence linked to VAW in the Global South is illustrated by the 2021 Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index from Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (2021). This index comprehensively depicts women’s poverty and lack of inclusion, access to justice, and security. Countries with low WPS rankings such as Syria and Yemen are featured in the book collection. Second, the gender imbalance observed in newsrooms reinforces, and perpetuates, harmful gender stereotypes in the media (Iqani & Resende, 2018). For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, female journalists have expressed great difficulties in eradicating everyday sexism in the newsroom (Chandra & Erlingsdóttir, 2021). Indonesian female journalists find it hard to contest entrenched, gendered ideals (Winarnita et al., 2022). In the MENA region, normalized male domination naturally flows into the male-dominated newsroom culture (Abouelenin, 2021). In Latin America, VAW is heightened during migratory transit, but the male-dominated news media rarely reports this situation accurately (Domínguez, 2021). Third, authoritarian regimes in the Global South are linked to state-­ controlled media, which are censored and lack press freedom and independence because newsrooms are often shut down if they report on controversial issues (Baker, 2018; Mutsvairo et al., 2021; Lee & Murdie, 2021). Lee and Murdie (2021) examined the transnational influences observed in the country-level diffusion of #MeToo. By analyzing 35,211 global tweets, they found that Global North citizens had more opportunities than Global South citizens to engage in political action such as the #MeToo movement to address VAW. Female journalists in Indonesia find it challenging to coordinate political and social activism under an authoritarian regime (Winarnita et al., 2022). Violence against Women in Latin America, and the MENA region, often emerges in news coverage as horrific cases of femicide and feminicide (Chandra & Erlingsdóttir, 2021). Fourth, given the unequal relationship between the media and the government, disinformation and fake news in the Global South emerges from propaganda and censorship strategies of authoritarian regimes who control information channels to suppress independent criticism and fact checking. Wasserman and Madrid-Morales (2022) have further examined how disinformation and fake news are more diverse and nuanced in the

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Global South (e.g., Chile, Congo, the Middle East, India) because of economic, political, and cultural marginalization and colonialism. Fifth, although nations in the Global South consist of the majority of the global population, they possess greater economic inequalities and less access to digital resources than the Global North. This fact further exacerbates the challenges of reporting on VAW during the #MeToo and in the COVID-normal era (Al Ali, 2020; Ragnedda & Gladkova, 2020; Mutsvairo et al., 2021, p. 1000). Ragnedda and Gladkova’s (2020) collection on the Global South highlights how the digital inequalities in countries such as Argentina and Nigeria are intertwined with social, cultural, and economic inequalities. Some countries in the Global South depend on ubiquitous analog radio as their main form of communications, thereby rendering the digital coverage of the #MeToo movement is relatively non-­ existent (Yee & Fassihi, 2021). As Jackson et al. (2019) noted, the #MeToo boom was “made possible by the digital labor, feminist consciousness-­ raising, and alternative storytelling created” (p. 1), through the hashtag networks. If women in the Global South cannot access such digital technologies, how can they articulate their stories of “interpersonal and institutionally-­enabled gender violence?” (Jackson et al., 2019, p. 1). Finally, ongoing civil and transnational wars in the Global South—laced with repressive, hyper-masculine, and populist political leaders—have yielded stricter authoritarian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has subsequently exacerbated VAW cases. As feminist economist Alessandra Mezzidri (2020) stated, the VAW crisis in the Global South during the pandemic highlighted the region’s stark economic and health inequalities. A report about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic published by the Brookings Institute noted that VAW cases increased by more than one third during Kenya’s nightly lockdown curfew (Chuku et  al., 2020). Ramifications associated with the pandemic have also increased VAW cases in Latin America and MENA countries (Skinner, 2020). Due to a background of war and conflict, the challenges of VAW are highly significant for female refugees in Syria and Yemen because circumstances linked to COVID-19 increase the possibility of being trapped in abusive relationships (Al Ali, 2020). Revolutions in Egypt have also magnified gender inequalities (Mannell, 2021). As Abu Habib (2020) asserted, feminist activists in the region feel that the system is broken and that the media has not effectively reported about measures for addressing VAW.

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Three Aims of the Edited Collection Intersectional Lens The current edited collection offers a much-needed intersectional voice to marginalized women in the Global South who experience violence. This lens helps unpack the “classist and racist discourses of distinction and stereotyping” that have been historically linked to white supremacy and the ethnocentric mainstream media (Banjac, 2021, p. 1; Nash & Pinto, 2022). As noted previously, scholarship has begun to explore media coverage of VAW during the #MeToo era in the Global South, such as in India (e.g., Sreedharan et al., 2020). However, reporting on VAW in the Global South includes missing visions and tensions that must be considered. Multidisciplinary and Multifaceted Methodologies The current collection is derived from journalism studies, but it also incorporates a multidisciplinary discussion from media studies, feminist studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, women and gender studies, criminology, and legal studies. Recently edited collections from criminology and health studies have sections about the Global South that concentrate on VAW-related issues (e.g., Bows & Fileborn, 2022; Chandra & Erlingsdóttir, 2021; Walklate et  al., 2020; Wood et  al., 2022). Recent research by Daigle (2021), titled “Sexual Violence in the #MeToo Era: Prevention and Innovative Methodologies,” only focused on methodologies and multidisciplinary frameworks in the US context. The multifaceted approach in this collection regarding the Global South is critical because VAW reporting is complex and guided by various research methodologies and multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks that can differ from the dominant Western lens (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). The edited collection will be of interest to the journalism and media studies, news industry, governments, NGOs, policymakers, and health professionals (social workers, medical staff, and psychologists) who are reporting on, working in, or researching VAW. Solutions Journalism Approach Given that the solutions-based narrative style of reporting has its roots in the Global North, the current edited collection examines  whether the

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approach can be applied to the non-Western contexts of the Global South. Solutions journalism began in the late 1990s in the US to combat media corporatization (McIntyre, 2019). It has assumed different forms, mainly in parts of the ethnocentric Global North such as the UK and Europe, where it is also referred to as “constructive journalism” (Aitamurto & Varma, 2018, p. 695). Solutions-based stories do not celebrate or advocate responses to problems; they investigate what has been done and the evidence regarding whether the solution has worked or not, as well as “report on the limitations of a response” (Solutions Journalism Network, 2020, para. 4, p.  18). However, as noted earlier, the Global South is mostly run by authoritarian, non-Western, and state-controlled media that differs from the ethnocentric, libertarianism, and social responsibility press ideology which is tied to the ethos of solutions and constructive journalism (Siebert et al., 1956; Mutsvairo et al., 2021). As Latin American journalist Laura Dulce Romero (2022, para.2) said, journalists in the Global South “have had to deal with armed conflict for 50 years, which in addition to violence has brought us poverty, inequality, and corruption, among other problems.” Working in Columbia as a journalist, she said the constant doom about issues in the Global South took a toll on her mental and physical health. Dulce Romero’s project at the Reuters Institute in 2022 investigated whether a solutions journalism lab could be applied to a Global South context. It will be interesting to observe whether the solutions narrative style of reporting can improve VAW reporting in the Global South.

Book outline Southeast Asia This section focuses on Indonesia, which has a large population of more than 275 million people. Chapter 2, titled “Indonesian Female Journalists and Gender Activism in the #MeToo Era: From #MulaiBicara and #TalkAboutIt,” is written by Monika Winarnita, Nasya Bahfen, Gavin Height, Adriana R. Mintarsih, and Joanne Byrne. These authors examine how online feminist media use online education campaigns and local hashtags encourage women to speak about VAW. As part of the Global South, Indonesia experiences economic inequality and lacks access to resources, which continues to impact on  feminist media responses to VAW. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International (2020)

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have voiced concerns regarding VAW trends in Indonesia, a country that has reported an increase in VAW-related attacks, 29 of which occurred in 2020 alone. Building on a theoretical framework of gendered digital citizenship, Winarnita et  al. (2022) conducted in-depth interviews with two local journalists—Hera Diani and Luvianna Ariyanti—from Magdalene.co and Konde.co, respectively, who collaborated with gender activists before during and after the #MeToo movement to address VAW in that country. Latin America This section includes three chapters focusing on Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. In Chapter 3, titled “#NiUnaMenos: The Story of a Tweet that Revolutionized Feminism and Changed How Media Cover Violence Against Women in Argentina,” Mariana de Maio explores how local news outlets report on VAW and, specifically, on femicide. She noted that despite Argentina’s strong economy, it is part of the Global South because the country is in the process of development; it yet has structural, social, and political problems. In the first few months of 2022, Argentina witnessed 88 femicides, 24 of which were violent deaths related to gender and criminal activity (La Casa del Encuentro, 2022). De Maio highlights that Argentina was the cradle of feminist hashtag movements in Latin America in terms of addressing femicide and other forms of VAW years before #MeToo revitalized in 2017. She describes how #NiUnaMenos emerged from a tweet (“are we not going to raise our voices? THEY ARE KILLING US”) from local female radio journalist Marcela Ojeda in 2015. Today, #NiUnaMenos has a large following in Argentina, throughout Latin America, and in parts of Europe. With #NiUnaMenos as a backdrop, de Maio analyzes how five Argentine news outlets—Clarín, Infobae, La Nación, Página/12, and Perfil—reported on VAW, as well as how these news outlets portrayed femicide victims from January 1, 2015, to January 31, 2019. Using a quantitative content analysis approach, Ojeda analyzed stories (N=419) and how their reactionary news narratives contributed to perpetuating femicide and VAW in Argentina. In Chapter 4, titled “The Judge and the Influencer: Race, Gender, and Class in Brazilian News Coverage of Violence Against Women,” Heloiza Herscovitz examines how two cases of feminicide were reported by the local press. She highlighted that although the country had the 12th largest economy in the world, it also had the fifth highest feminicide rates in the

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world (Paiva, 2019). As part of the Global South, Brazil has experienced high inflation and unemployment rates, and half the population does not possess a basic education (Nitahara, 2022). Despite the relentless work of feminist groups and groundbreaking legislation to protect women, Brazil registered 2450 feminicides and 1,00,400 rape cases during the COVID-19 pandemic, of which most were young people of color (Agencia Patricia Galvão, 2022). Herscovitz examined the media coverage of two highly publicized cases of femicide during the COVID-19 pandemic. One case is the murder of Viviane Vieira do Amaral, an affluent 45-year-old white woman who was killed by her husband on Christmas Eve in 2020. The other case involves Bruna Quirino, a 38-year-old Black businesswoman and successful social media influencer who was killed by her husband on September 5, 2021. Applying Shoemaker and Reese’s (2014) hierarchy of influences model and Robert Entman’s (1993) framing theory, Herscovitz analyzed stories (N=75) about the two cases from Google News Brazil. She investigated how the intersection of gender, race, and socioeconomic background affected the media coverage of these two VAW cases in Brazil. In chapter 5, titled “Moving Beyond the Protest Paradigm: News Coverage of International Women’s Day Marches in Mexico,” Grisel Salazar and Celeste González de Bustamante analyze media coverage of the anti-femicide demonstrations between 2019 and 2021  in three national Mexican media outlets—Reforma, El Universal, and La Jornada. Salazar and González de Bustamante noted that VAW was reported extensively in Mexico’s news media, and that coverage of protests against femicides has increased over the years. In 2022, although Mexico is ranked as the 15th largest economy in the world, it is still part of the Global South due to its great disparities of wealth (World Population Review, 2022). Between March 2015 and March 2022, the number of femicides registered in Mexico increased significantly (McGinnis et al., 2022). McLeod and Hertog (1999) used a protest paradigm as a conceptual framework, and they examined how news coverage about anti-femicide demonstrations—held annually on International Women’s Day on March 8—has changed over a three-year period. Employing a qualitative content analysis using framing as a methodology, Salazar and González de Bustamante examined three years of news coverage (N = 1008) among 25 Mexican news outlets from March 2019 (two years after #MeToo) to March 2021 (two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began).

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Sub-Saharan Africa This section contained one chapter that focuses on how #MeToo affected media coverage in three sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa). In Chapter 6, titled “Reporting on Rape Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa During the #MeToo Era,” Dinfin Mulupi and Lindsey Blumell examine the presence of rape culture acceptance and anti-rape culture narratives. Like other Global South countries, these African countries are characterized by traditional roles, in which poverty, property ownership, and access to financial services is gendered, and in which sexual violence is often normalized (World Economic Forum, 2021). Blumell and Mulupi focused on cases of sexual misconduct after #MeToo that involved a Kenyan politician and senator (i.e., Mithika Linturi, who ruled the Jubilee Party), a Nigerian celebrity pastor (Biodun Fatoyinbo), and a South African politician (Pule Mabe, national spokesman of the African National Congress party). The men possess powerful positions in African society and have been accused of numerous sex crimes, including attempted rape (Linturi), rape (Fatoyinbo), and sexual harassment (Mabe). Exploring the rape and anti-rape culture discourse, Mulupi’s and Blumell’s study quantitatively analyzed the media coverage (N = 102) between 2019 and 2022 of nine newspapers. The countries studied included Kenya (The Nation, The Star, and The Standard), Nigeria (The Nation and Vanguard), and South Africa (The Sowetan, Mail & Guardian, The Star, and Daily Dispatch). The authors also conducted in-depth interviews between 2018 and 2019 with journalists (n=40) who worked in these countries to uncover how VAW reporting is understood in African newsrooms. North Africa and the Middle East This section has two chapters from the MENA region (Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen). In Chapter 7, titled “Egypt’s #MeToo Moment: Using Social Media to Help Address Violence Against Women in Egypt,” Rasha El-Ibiary analyzes the state-controlled and commercial media bias, which delegitimized women’s experiences of sexual assault and rape that were based on two events. The first event is known as the “#Fairmont_crime,” which involves the rape of an 18-year-old woman by prominent men in 2014. The second event involves the jailing of a serial rapist, Ahmed Bassam Zaki, in April 2021. El-Ibiary refers to a blog, Daftar Hekayat ElModawana, which began in July 2020 and offers a safe space for

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anonymous testimonies of VAW survivors. Like in some Global South countries, VAW is normalized in Egypt in many forms, such as domestic violence, female genital mutilation and sexual harassment, assault, and rape. According to an NGO (Edrak Foundation for Development and Equality), 813 VAW cases were reported in Egypt in 2021. By extending from Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory, which analyzes the social diffusion of new behavior patterns and psychological factors, El-Ibiary examines these two events mentioned earlier in this paragraph by conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews (N=8) with activists, journalists, and women’s affairs specialists. El-Ibiary also analyzes a census of testimonies (N=41) from a blog created by or for VAW survivors. The author’s qualitative research involved investigating the impact of Egypt’s #MeToo movement and examining how women bypass the mainstream media and combat VAW by using social media. In Chapter 8, titled “Online Activism in Contexts of War: Is There a #MeToo Echo in Libya, Syria, and Yemen?,” Saoussen Ben Cheikh and Jeannine E. Relly analyze social media accounts (N=226) from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. They also investigate news coverage in Google News archives between October 15, 2017, and August 31, 2021, using key resistance terms and hashtags that emerged from #MeToo posts (N = 226) in both Arabic (n = 174) and English (n = 52). Wars in Libya (2011, 2014–2020), Syria (2011–present), and Yemen (2014–present) have elevated VAW to higher levels. However, since the emergence of #MeToo, hashtags in these MENA countries have included #MeToo #‫ أناكمان‬or #YouAreNotAlone #‫لست_وحدك‬. Using a transnational and domestic feminism framework (Relly & González de Bustamante, 2017) to research networks of collective action for institutional and social change, Ben Cheikh and Relly examine the resistance patterns from grassroots initiatives, NGOs, governmental actions, and intergovernmental actions to address VAW in the repressive regimes of Libya, Syria, and Yemen after the Arab Spring of 2011.

Conclusion In the concluding Chapter 9, titled “Shifting the News Narrative About Violence Against Women in the Global South,” Andrea Baker, Celeste González de Bustamante, and Jeannine E. Relly highlight that the Global South discourse—#MeToo and the COVID-19 pandemic—continue to shape media VAW coverage differently than the Global North. Summarizing

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the key empirical findings from Chapters 2–8, the authors illustrate how VAW was reported in 11 countries in the Global South, which included Southeast Asia (Indonesia), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico), sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa), and the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen). Based on this empirical research and other emerging works in the field, the final chapter offers an overview of the methodologies and multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks used. It also discusses revised media guidelines that have been linked to solutions-driven narrative journalism to improve the reporting of long-term VAW shadow pandemic in the Global South. It concludes by empathizing with the need for further research on this topic in other Global South countries, such as Central Asia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

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Paiva, R. (2019). #MeToo, feminism and femicide in Brazil. Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture, 10(3), 241–255. https://civilresistance.info/ biblio-­item/2019/metoo-­feminism-­and-­femicide-­brazil Payne, D. L., Lonsway, K. A., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1999). Rape myth acceptance: Exploration of its structure and its measurement using the Illinois rape myth acceptance scale. Journal of Research in Personality, 33(1), 27–68. https://doi. org/10.1006/jrpe.1998.2238 Pfitzner, N., Fitz-Gibbon, K., & True, J. (2020). Responding to the “shadow pandemic:” Practitioner views on the nature of and responses to violence against women in Victoria, Australia during the COVID-19 restrictions. 10.26180/5ed9d5198497c Radford, J., & Russell, D. E. (1992). Femicide: The politics of woman killing. Open University Press. https://www.worldcat.org/title/femicide-­the-­politics-­of-­ woman-­killing/oclc/25367570 Ragnedda, M., & Gladkova, A. (2020). Digital inequalities in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­ 32706-­4 ?utm_sour ce=springerlink&utm_medium=r efer ral&utm_ campaign=bookpage_about_buyonpublisherssite Reddock, R. (2022). CEDAW and violence against women: Reflections after 40 years. Violence Against Women, 28(8), 1723–1727. https://doi. org/10.1177/10778012221086003 Relly, J. E., & González de Bustamante, C. (2017). Global and domestic networks advancing prospects for institutional and social change: The collective action response to violence against journalists. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 19(2), 84–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/15226379177026 Rubenstein, H. (2019). A summary of global rights for women’s recently published report, time for a change: The Need for a binding international treaty on violence against women. Global Rights for Women. https://globalrightsforwomen. org/how-­we-­work/time-­for-­a-­change-­the-­need-­for-­a-­binding-­international-­ treaty-­on-­violence-­against-­women/ Russell, D. (1975). The politics of rape: The victim’s perspective. Stein and Day. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-­library/abstracts/politics-­rape-­victims-­ perspective-­0 Ryan, C., Anastario, M., & DaCunha, A. (2006). Changing coverage of domestic violence murders: A longitudinal experiment in participatory communication. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21(2), 209–228. https://doi. org/10.1177/0886260505282285 Sharma, A., & Borah, S. B. (2020). Covid-19 and domestic violence: An indirect path to social and economic crisis. Journal of Family Violence, 37, 759–765. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-­020-­00188-­8 Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https://

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www.routledge.com/Mediating-­the-­Message-­in-­the-­21st-­Century-­A-­Media-­ Sociology-­Perspective/Shoemaker-­Reese/p/book/9780415989145 Sigal, L., Ramos Miranda, N. A., Martinez, A., & Machicao, M. (2020, April 27). Another pandemic: In Latin America, domestic abuse rises amid lockdown. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-­health-­coronavirus-­latam-­ domesticviol-­idUSKCN2291JS Siebert, F., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press. University of Illinois Press. Simons, M., & Morgan, J. (2018). Changing media coverage of violence against women: Changing sourcing practices. Journalism Studies, 19(6), 1202–1217. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1266279 Skinner, C. (2020, June 3). Covid-19 and new struggles over gender and social justice. Institute of Development Studies. www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/covid-­19-­ and-­new-­struggles-­over-­gender-­and-­social-­justice/?fbclid=IwAR0BoeW4UR C6kWDjLHtKym_xqaxb2SY8LNkIRc55XDstOmQ4-­0AVPdBaWnM Solutions Journalism. (2020, December 10). Solutions journalism: What is it and why should I care? Solutions Journalism. https://thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/solutions-­journalism-­what-­is-­it-­and-­why-­should-­i-­care-­e5acd0ab5332 Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E., & Gouthi, A. (2020). Time’s up. Or is it? Journalists’ perceptions of sexual violence and newsroom changes after #MeTooIndia. Journalism Practice, 14(2), 132–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/1751278 6.2019.1682943 Sutherland, G., Easteal, P., Holland, K., & Vaughan, C. (2019). Mediated representations of violence against women in the mainstream news in Australia. BMC Public Health, 19, 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-­019-­6793-­2 Tejedor, S., Cervi, L., Tusa, F., Portales, M., & Zabotina, M. (2020). Information on the COVID-19 pandemic in daily newspapers’ front pages: Case study of Spain and Italy. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(17), 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176330 UN. (2019, March 20). What is “South–South cooperation” and why does it matter? United Nations. https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/ intergovernmental-­coordination/south-­south-­cooperation-­2019.html UN. (2022). International day for the elimination of violence against women. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/observances/ending-­ violence-­against-­women-­day UNICEF and UN Women. (2022). Executive summary: Mapping the nexus between media reporting of violence against girls: The normalization of violence and perpetuation of harm to gender norms and stereotypes. https://www.unicef.org/ media/126551/file/Executive%20Summary%20%28English%29.pdf UN Women. (2022a). Commission on the status of women. https://www.unwomen. org/en/csw

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UN Women. (2022b). Facts and figures: Ending violence against women. https:// www.unwomen.org/en/what-­w e-­d o/ending-­v iolence-­a gainst-­w omen/ facts-­and-­figures Walklate, S., Fitz-Gibbon, K., Maher, J., & McCullock, J. (Eds.). (2020). The Emerald handbook of feminism, criminology and social change. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/ detail/The-­E merald-­H andbook-­o f-­F eminism-­C riminology-­a nd-­S ocial-­ ChangeThe-­E merald-­H andbook-­o f-­F eminism,-­C riminology-­a nd-­S ocial-­ Change/?k=9781787699564 Wasserman, H., & Madrid-Morales, D. (Eds.). (2022). Disinformation in the Global South. Wiley Blackwell. Winarnita, M., Bahfen, N., Rahajeng Mintarsih, A., Height, G., & Byrne, J. (2022). Gendered digital citizenship: How Indonesian female journalists participate in gender activism. Journalism Practice, 16(4), 621–636. https:// doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2020.1808856 Wood, M. A., Richards, I., & Illiadia, M. (2022). Criminologists in the media: A study of newsmaking. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Criminologists-­ in-­t he-­M edia-­A -­S tudy-­o f-­N ewsmaking/Wood-­R ichards-­I liadis/p/ book/9780367422554 World Economic Forum. (2021, March). Global gender gap report 2021. https:// www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf World Health Organization. (2012). Understanding and addressing violence against women: Intimate partner violence. https://apps.who.int/iris/ handle/10665/77432 World Population Review. (2022). Global South countries 2022. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-­rankings/global-­south-­countries Yee, V., & Fassili, F. (2021, May 3). Audio-only app stirs fresh political debate within the Middle East. New York Times, Section A, 14.

PART I

South Asia

CHAPTER 2

Indonesian Female Journalists and Gender Activism in the #MeToo Era: From #MulaiBicara and #TalkAboutIt Monika Winarnita , Nasya Bahfen , Gavin Height , Adriana R. Mintarsih , and Joanne Byrne

Introduction As part of the Global South, Indonesia is a postcolonial country in Southeast Asia that is under a relatively new authoritarian regime led by President Joko Widodo (Power, 2018). This regime challenges the country’s diverse and robust democratic media ecosystems, as well as its freedom of speech (Iqani & Resende, 2020). Linked to the long-term effects of economic inequality and a lack of access to other resources, these challenges continue to reshape feminist media responses to violence against women (VAW) in Indonesia (Al Ali, 2020; Moorti, 2018; Skinner, 2020).

M. Winarnita (*) Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_2

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Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have voiced their concerns regarding VAW trends in Indonesia. For example, Amnesty International (2020) reported that 29 VAW-related attacks occurred in two months in 2020 alone. Opposition to reporting on gender issues comes not only from religiously conservative Indonesian voices but also from female journalists’ employers in  local newsrooms (Simorangkir, 2020; Alliance of Independent Journalists, 2019). Despite this opposition, other Indonesian female journalists are committed to reporting on issues of gender equality (Oktavianti, 2020). The chapter’s two-year ethnographic research (2018–2019) explores how Indonesian female writers and journalists use online platforms to engage in gender activism in their own country (Winarnita et al., 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). As scholars, we conducted multiple interviews with ten writers, journalists, and contributors in Indonesia to examine how they navigated the challenges and opportunities afforded by digital media such as the #MeToo hashtag movement. From this interview process, two personal narratives were selected to form the crux of Chap. 2: those of Hera Diani and Luviana Ariyanti, two journalists and founders of two media platforms (Magdalene.com and Konde.co,1 respectively) that advocate for women and minority rights. Our findings have revealed that these two Indonesian journalists have implemented numerous strategies for simultaneously engaging in online gender activism and consciously negotiating the blurred line between journalism and activism.

Indonesia’s Political History and Link to the Media Following Indonesia’s independence in 1945, the country embarked on a process of nation building. In this regard, it faced the same challenges as other Global South countries that followed a postcolonial trajectory. 1

 Link to websites: https://magdalene.co/ and https://www.konde.co/.

N. Bahfen • G. Height • J. Byrne La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] A. R. Mintarsih University of Indonesia, Depok City, Indonesia e-mail: [email protected]

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Indonesia’s political developments and its effect on media practice within the country have often blurred the demarcation between journalism and activism. The notion of having journalistic freedom is a victory after a hard-fought struggle, which is exemplified by the banning of notable media outlets such as Tempo during the New Order period in Indonesia from 1966 to 1998 (Eng, 1998). However, this notion contrasts with traditional perspectives regarding the role of journalistic practice in Global North neighbors (e.g., Australia). These neighbors tend to have less authoritarian-driven governments and press freedom, which theoretically prioritizes transparency, accuracy, and objectivity (Plaut, 2014). The tensions between journalism practice as information gathering and journalism practice as activism in Indonesia’s media landscape tend to reflect the tensions of neighbors such as Singapore and Malaysia. However, these two countries maintain a tighter media leash than Indonesia regarding the operation of their respective journalistic outlets (Weiss, 2014).

Negotiating the Journalist–Activist Divide Previous research has documented how Indonesian women navigate new social spaces as a way of expressing, challenging, and organizing (Winarnita, 2008). Mendes et al. (2018) acknowledge the complicated use and experience of hashtag movements in the European context of the Global North, which suggests a sense of optimism [regarding] digital activism’s potential for starting and maintaining conversations [and a sense of priority] over hidden topics like VAW. However, Mendes et  al. (2018) advise caution regarding the social consequences and impact that public VAW declarations can have on individual struggles in terms of addressing this societal issue. For example, in the context of Indonesia, online platforms can facilitate social movements (e.g., #MeToo), and they enable the success of gender activism in specific historical moments. By following this trajectory, our work in this chapter provides critical insights regarding women’s creative use of digital technologies for gender activism in a rapidly developing Global South country that is grappling with human rights issues (Winarnita et al., 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). In the chapter, we discuss the contentious delineation of defining activists as people who influence debate and journalists as people whose work creates informed debate (Adhikari, 2017). The two Indonesian female journalists we interviewed—Hera Diani (cofounder of Magdalene.co) and Luviana Ariyanti (founder of Konde. co)—aspired to use journalistic methods through their online media

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outlets to drive social change in relation to gendered violence. This included reporting perspectives from groups who have been marginalized and oppressed because of their gender and sexuality.

#MeToo in Indonesia Before the revitalized #MeToo movement of 2017, Indonesian gender equality activists used online campaigns to encourage women to speak about VAW issues (e.g., sexual assault and harassment). In conjunction with Indonesian activists, in 2016, the online feminist magazine Magdalene. co launched a multi-platform education campaign that focused on sexual violence and encouraging women to speak about their experiences. Launched in 2013, Magdalene.co is bilingual (English and Indonesian), web based, and primarily focused on gender and diversity issues. In April 2016, the magazine partnered with Lentera Sintas Indonesia (Lentera ID), a support group for survivors of sexual violence (Lentera Sintas Indonesia, 2016b). In addition to promoting online discussions using the hashtag #MulaiBicara (“#TalkAboutIt”), Magdalene.co, Lentera ID, and other partners held in-person panel discussions and film screenings to promote change in societal attitudes regarding gender and sexuality.

National Days of Action Indonesian female journalists have promoted the cause of gender activism by mobilizing through global and local events, such as the annual International Day of Workers (IDW) and International Women’s Day (IWD). They have also marked an annual day to commemorate the life of Indonesia’s first nationally celebrated feminist heroine, Raden Adjeng Kartini, who started the nation’s first school for girls. Similarly, Indonesian-­ language online magazine Konde.co (named after a traditional Indonesian hairstyle) was established in 2016 for women and underrepresented people. This magazine promoted and supported these groups, and it was actively involved in performing demonstrations with female workers’ unions on IDW in 2018 and IWD in 2019. Union membership in Indonesia mostly comprises women who work in local textile factories and overseas as domestic helpers (e.g., maids and nannies in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore). These women demonstrated on IDW and IWD in support of amendments to bills that would protect their

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rights against exploitation, harassment, and sexual violence in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Bills to Address Violence A national bill in Indonesia, which has been the focus of gender activism, was recently renamed the Sexual Violence Crime Bill (previously known as the Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill), and it includes cyber sexual assault (Afifa, 2022). As of January 2022, the bill had been ratified in Parliament and signed by President Joko Widodo of Indonesia.2 Australianbased Indonesian journalist Helen Souisa (2022) reported that since being drafted in 2016, the bill was consistently rejected by the conservative Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS); this group argued that the bill would legalize adultery and same-sex relationships because of the phrase “consent to have sexual relations.”3 However, Indonesian gender activists stated that misconceptions exist regarding the definition of sexual consent (Souisa, 2022; Widodo, 2018).

Coalitions Since 2017, a coalition of women’s and LGBTIQ+ groups have used international and national events to have their voices publicly heard regarding gender rights issues, which is linked to a greater unified focus to ratify the Sexual Violence Crime Bill. The main organizers of Indonesia’s IWD march in 2017 were members of a Facebook group called the Jakarta Feminist Discussion Group (JFDG).4 Founded in 2015, this closed group worked with people interested in feminism and gender issues. Since 2019, JFDG has become a legal entity of programs and activities, with 2400 members as of January 2022. Social media campaigns for and promotion of JFDG events though online feminist magazines such as Magdalene.co (Fig. 2.1) and Konde.co have significantly generated interest and will continue to do so. For example, IWD march attendance rates have grown

2  Further details can be found on the Indonesian Parliament website in Indonesian: Parlementaria Terkini—Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (dpr.go.id). 3  The draft legislation is available through the “Komisi Nasional Anti Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan” document on page 6. 4  Further details can be found at: https://jakartafeminist.com.

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Fig. 2.1  Hera at the Magdalene stand, International Women’s Day 2019. Photo by Gavin Height

considerably; they doubled each year up to 2019, when 4000 people attended.

Social Media The 2019 Indonesian Presidential election also saw growing polarization on the topic of gender activism. Research by an Indonesian policy analyst named Dyah Ayu Kartika (2019) predicts a growing conservative and anti-feminist movement. Anti-feminism is not new to Indonesia; however, a shift in approaches occurred in 2019. Instagram accounts such as @ Indonesiatanpafeminis (“Indonesia without feminism”) were created during the campaign. Although this account has since been deleted, it had great potential. The associated hashtag, #indonesiatanpafeminis, still exists and is used to counter a perceived unwelcome inroad from nebulously defined Western feminism. Ostensibly comprised of educated and

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conservative Muslim women, this reactionary group engaged in religious identity politics during the 2019 election campaign period as a counter to growing digital feminist activism in Indonesia. For example, the perceived Western feminist slogan “my body is my own” was changed to “my body is not my own” because it belongs to the Almighty (Padukone, 2015). This recontextualized phrase was posted on the @Indonesiatanpafeminis Instagram account and then used by participants in street demonstrations. In the context of the 2019 presidential election between incumbent Joko Widodo and second-time challenger Prabowo Subianto, Western feminism became a catch-all term for any gender-based activism that targeted social and political systems. The conservative, anti-feminist movement portrayed this gender-based activism as being incongruous with religious values, despite such activism being associated with two planks: first, as a response to contextual and specific issues in the Indonesian context, and second, related to the rise and influence of Islamic feminism in Indonesia since the 1990s (Anwar, 2018). The anti-feminist backlash movement also deliberately organized counter-­protests using these banners and hashtags to refute the JFDG’s campaigning on IWD events (which has been previously mentioned). The backlash against Western feminist activism contributed to JFDG’s decision to postpone their 2019 annual IWD march until after that year’s polarizing presidential election. This postponement coincided with the national heroine Kartini Day, a month later instead (Jakarta Feminist Discussion Group, n.d.). The next subsection of the chapter details the research methods used and then focuses on the stories of the two Indonesian female journalists and editors of online feminist magazines, as well as on their collaborative gender activism projects.

Research Methodology By extending from the findings of ethnographic work that was previously conducted by the authors (see Winarnita et  al., 2020a, 2020b, 2020c), this chapter uses interviews with two female journalists to investigate gender activism. We approached potential interviewees within established research participant networks. For example, Mintarsih had volunteered at Lentera ID from 2016 to 2019. Using her established connections, she reached out to Hera Diani and Luviana Ariyanti, who had collaborated with Lentera ID previously. In the chapter descriptions, we used first names, Hera and Luviana, instead of surnames to align with Indonesian

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cultural contexts. Additionally, Indonesia has over 300 different ethnic groups, in which descent is from both mother and father and there are no surnames. After gaining their consent to become research participants, Mintarsih conducted semi-structured interviews with Hera and Luviana in September 2018. These interviews enabled and encouraged the two participants to reflect on their own life narratives and world perspectives. This process allows themes, ideas, and meanings that may not have been considered in the question formulation stage of research to be recorded and discussed with participants (Crouch & McKenzie, 2006; Madden, 2017). This interview style also maximizes the amount of qualitative data that can be feasibly collected in a relatively short time frame. In the interviews that lasted two hours long, the interviewees provided a wealth of rich, qualitative data that were then thematically coded by Winarnita. In addition to the participants’ own publications and previous ethnographic works, these data will now be discussed and contextualized.

Stories of Individual Female Digital Content Producers and Their Gender Activism Hera Diani and Luviana Ariyanti implemented various writing forms and platforms to amplify their voices and those of marginalized communities. Their personal reflections as women who face gender-based violence and discrimination have inspired their writing and their later establishments of Magdalene.co and Konde.co as outlets for their work. This foregrounding of personal narratives to enact social change regarding VAW can be described as a third-wave feminist pursuit. Although third-wave feminism continues the work of the previous first and second waves in terms of countering discrimination against women, it also foregrounds “personal narratives that illustrate an intersectional and ‘multi-perspectival’ version of feminism” to acknowledge the differences in the experiences of womanhood at the intersections of gender, class, and ethnicity (Snyder, 2008, p.  175). The personal narratives noted below discuss how conventional media had limited the experiences of Indonesian female journalists and their sense of independence before the internet emerged.

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Hera, Editor of Magdalene.co Hera Diani, a single mother in her mid-40s, was dissatisfied with mainstream media. Having almost two decades of journalism experience, Hera has worked for well-known English-language newspapers in Indonesia, such as The Jakarta Post, The Jakarta Globe, Strategic Review Journal, and Voice of America. Throughout her career, Hera faced stigmatization and marginalization in the workplace. She wrote an article in Magdalene.co in which she shared her personal experience as a divorcee with a young son, who she gave birth to when she was 38 years old, and her time spent making ends meet on a freelancer’s pay. In Indonesia, a janda (“female divorcee or widow”) is no longer part of the valued social category of ibu (“Mrs./Mother”). This marginalization, which was linked to her social status, further emphasizes the precarious societal and economic situation that women like her face in Indonesia. As the cofounder and managing editor of Magdalene.co, Hera describes her position as going “beyond the typical gender and cultural confines … channeling the voices of feminists, pluralists and progressives … those who are not afraid to be different” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). Hera spent the first two decades of her career working for mainstream media organizations. Feeling that freelance journalism did not allow opportunities for in-depth reporting, and being dissatisfied with how women and women’s issues were presented, Hera founded Magdalene.co to “be the middle ground … We want to reach as many people, as many women as possible” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). Hera did not relate to how women were being presented in mainstream media because they were either too “lightweight” or too academic. “There’s just a fraction of what women’s very diverse experiences are. So, we also want to present the other sides of women’s experiences” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). Magdalene.co exhibits articles written in English and Indonesian by its staff and contributors about various gender issues. The online magazine often covers events that the mainstream media does not. In addition to the website, Magdalene.co has produced audio content through its podcast, Magdalene’s Mind, since 2018. The magazine also conducts offline activities as part of the Magdalene Learning Club, such as writing workshops.

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Digital Media and Feminist Activism According to Hera, the primary advantage of digital media over traditional media is the low cost of publishing—though she also believes that digital publishing can foster more engagement and faster interactions with users. Magdalene.co uses numerous kinds of social media to promote content and engage with audiences. In these forums, the online magazine enacts a form of digital gender activism that centers on media practice to change practices and discourses that are detrimental to women and minorities. As Hera explained: In mid-2018, we launched a campaign on Instagram called #WTFMedia, where we call out the media for publishing articles or reports that are misogynistic, sexist, demeaning [to] women, particularly in cases of VAW and minority groups. The media tend to use [a] sensationalistic tone that does not adhere to journalism standards and ethics, or even basic human decency. The #WTFMedia campaign has had an impact, as some media listened, apologized, and pulled out the reports, as well as giving sanction to the reporters and editors. (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13)

Magdalene.co also covers other marginalized groups, such as minoritized communities in terms of sex, gender, and religion, because Hera believes that these issues are often addressed in a biased manner and only covered in mainstream media superficially. This is similar to what Veronika Novoselova and Jennifer Jenson (2018, p.  257) found; they described how Canadian and American feminist bloggers “participate in the political sphere through systematic production of oppositional knowledge and counter-discourses.” Using Magdalene.co’s public platform to highlight media bias could similarly be an act of digital feminist activism.

Journalists, Not Activists However, as a journalist who still writes in-depth and investigative pieces for Magdalene.co, Hera has stated that they are not activists, but rather journalists: We like to call ourselves journalism with a cause, where we want to present the marginalized voice—we want to voice marginalized groups that have not been given [a] place by mainstream media. But we are not activists; I

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[would] just like to underline that … because our backgrounds are [as] journalists, Devi and I. (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13)

According to Hera, Magdalene.co is not a non-governmental organization (NGO); it is a commercial or for-profit entity. The magazine’s attendance at the IWD march or other marches signifies its support for the cause and report on the march itself. Hera’s distinction of being a journalist instead of an activist is important to her. However, some campaigns with which Magdalene.co has been involved could be deemed as activism. For example, #MulaiBicara (“#TalkAboutIt”) was a social media campaign that involved Magdalene. co becoming the media partner of activist group Lentera ID, which contributes several kinds of advocacy and public education work relating to sexual violence. Further, the #WTFMedia campaign aimed to create a safe atmosphere especially for women that allowed them to talk openly about sexual violence in Indonesia, and it aimed to challenge victim-blaming culture. Initially, the campaign was enacted in response to the horrific rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl by 14 men in Sumatera. Following the case, in 2016, Magdalene.co worked together with Lentera ID to promote and distribute a survey on change.org,5 in the lead-up to a campaign to ratify the previously mentioned Indonesian sexual violence bill. More than 25,000 people responded to the survey, and the accompanying online petition that lobbied the government to pass the bill amassed 2,68,695 signatures as of November 2019.6 The survey data were sent to legislatures, and they contributed to the Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill, which was classified as a high-priority legislation during President Joko Widodo’s first term. Using digital media to produce practical legal challenges is the epitome of the type of work promoted by third-­ wave digital feminists (Gorman, 2008; Guillard, 2016; Novoselova & Jenson, 2018).

5  The change.org campaign link: https://www.change.org/l/id/changeorg-indonesiachangeorg-blog. 6  The link to the petition: https://www.change.org/p/dpr-ri-sahkan-uu-penghapusankekerasan-seksual-mulaibicara.

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Media Campaigns Campaigns that can be considered forms of digital gender activism—such as the #TalkAboutIt and global #MeToo movements—also generated more interest in stories that focused on women’s rights issues. As Hera noted, they were receiving more submissions that focused on sexual violence. However, the difficulty in making a distinction between digital gender activism and journalistic work is evident in her description: It’s not that we want to distance ourselves; sometimes, the lines blur, but it’s two very different kinds of things. Activism is good and noble, but we are basically journalists. It’s what we do, it’s what we love, it’s what we are passionate about … When the line is blurred, I think it’s difficult to present quality journalism, or to present the facts. There will be bias. And when we are biased in a time when … the trust towards media is at a low level, it will be dangerous. The medium where people get information will be even fewer. (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13)

When asked if Hera could regard some of Magdalene.co’s campaigns as being on the side of activism, she responded, “Sometimes the line is very blurry, because we don’t live in an ideal situation […] But we try hard to maintain the ethics of not crossing the line between journalism and activism” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). Giving an example of navigating the blurred line, Hera made the example that Magdalene.co would report on protests but not partake in them: “We report about the issue, and to inspire people to take action—to inspire, to drive … people in power to take action” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). However, for Hera, a key element of journalism is being skeptical, even when reporting on issues that journalists believe in. According to her, if one cares about an issue, good journalism “can and it should inspire activism,” though journalism “places the premium on truth, to present the truth” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). Hera also cautions that social media activism is not effective in a vacuum. The revitalized #MeToo movement of 2017 has given a voice to marginalized survivors of abuse, but the movement alone cannot enact lasting social change. Hera worries that digital activism promotes the risk of being “too superficial; it doesn’t touch the root of the problem. It’s good to attract, to get attention from people, but it’s not enough” (Hera, personal communication, 2018, September 13). Although she

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acknowledges the flaws, Hera ultimately perceives the creation of a forum for discussion and the wide distribution of information as positive aspects of digital activism. Therefore, although the boundary of her role is often blurred, Hera emphasizes that she is a journalist rather than an activist.

Luviana, Journalist, Editor, Cofounder, and Chief Editor of Konde.co Luviana Ariyanti is a journalist and editor in her late-40s who has accumulated over 25 years of experience across radio, television, and print media. Having received formal training in journalism, Luviana also teaches at the University of Indonesia and Paramadina University, both located in Jakarta. She has also worked alongside United Nations agencies, in which she trained labor and domestic workers in journalism for the International Labour Organization (ILO). Further, she has authored a report for the Women’s Conference Network Beijing and was an Indonesian author of a report from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Luviana had the initial idea for a digital outlet dedicated specifically to women and minorities back in 2013, but it took her until 2016 to establish the idea. A catalyst for establishing Konde.co was losing her job at Metro TV, one of the main commercial television stations in Indonesia. After working at the station for nine years, Luviana was retrenched from her position as a production assistant because she criticized Metro TV staff’s working conditions and demanded improvements.7 She had also planned to create a union and request organizational improvements that were sensitive to gender and human rights. Further, Luviana and her Konde.co co-founders felt the need to establish a digital media presence that could also focus on the plight of farmers and factory laborers, who were overlooked by the mainstream media. Moreover, Konde.co, in cooperation with its network, has also organized monthly offline and online discussions—such as Jurnalis Perempuan Bicara (“female journalists talk”), which focuses on issues relating to women and the media, and “Kond.come women’s talk” on Instagram, which has involved discussing current women’s issues since 2020.

7  The online article regarding the intimidation Luviana faced in her workplace in retaliation for seeking better staff conditions and rights can be accessed in Liputan6. (2013).

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Focusing on women and marginalized groups, Konde.co’s feature articles generally follow two styles. The first is called Peristiwa (“events”), which involves conducting coverage from “on the ground” news reporting. The second is called “perspective,” which comprises research findings from NGO press releases that are rewritten into a more consumer-friendly format, reflective pieces on issues that affect women, and research from experts or academics. In addition to its website, Konde.co also has Konde Productions and Konde Institute. Konde Productions has produced a documentary titled More than Work (2019), which Luviana directed. Released on June 15, 2019, the documentary discusses women’s struggles regarding work in the media industry and the discriminations that they face. Cooperating with its network of different communities, institutions, universities, and labor unions, Konde.co has screened the documentary in 120 locations throughout Indonesia. The Konde Institute also focuses on knowledge and data production. For example, it provides data relating to women in the media for the International Report of the Beijing Platform for Action, as well as information about the working conditions of female workers for the ILO conventions report.

Journalism, Activism, and Democratic Spaces Contrary to Hera, who refuses the label of activist for herself, Luviana sees herself as both a journalist and an activist. This is concisely conveyed through her description of her weekend time commitments: “On Saturdays, I can use the whole day to produce Konde.co’s content. I bring my work with me everywhere … [Then] on Sundays, I make time to volunteer for workers’ rights, the laborers, and the urban poor” (Luviana, personal communication, September 27, 2018). Similar to Magdalene.co, Konde.co frequently partners with Komnas Perempuan or the National Commission on Violence Against Women, as well as NGOs like #SaveJanda, to be a media partner for their events. Luviana asserts that her extensive career as a journalist and ongoing membership in the Indonesian Journalist Association (AJI) also signifies that she has a professional network that can help Konde.co further disseminate its digital content. She acknowledges obvious advantages about the magazine being digital, such as its low maintenance costs, interactions though comment sections, and speed of reaching new readers. Luviana further acknowledges the importance of consistently producing content and attributes credit to Konde.co’s contributors. Despite not

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having formal training, these contributors draft articles on topics such as motherhood and domestic work. Luviana further explained that the magazine’s contributors are slightly different from Magdalene.co’s. Konde.co mainly comprises activists and citizen journalists, such as factory workers and domestic workers, which has prompted Luviana to classify the magazine as alternative media. However, Luviana has noted the downside to this categorization, which is partly attributed to Konde.co’s small size: NGOs do not yet consider alternative media a platform for effective publication or campaigning. They mostly consider Konde.co as a friend they can ask for data or reports and advocacy on media mapping. Additionally, social media has not become the new democratic space that Luviana first thought it would become (Tapsell, 2017). She highlights that mainstream media and large companies have taken most of the space and control of social media. This strongly coincides with contemporary digital anthropology scholarship. Rather than online spaces becoming democratizing spaces, in which offline influences do not hold power, digital spaces are instead created for and by the communities that use them (Horst & Miller, 2012). Since Indonesia’s democratic Reformasi era (beginning in 1998), Luviana has noted a high level of positive improvement in terms of media coverage on women’s rights. She says that Konde. co hardly encountered any difficulties in writing issues that related specifically to women. However, certain topics such as LGBTIQ+ rights and religion are considered taboo or too sensitive to discuss.

Activism Through Journalism: Collaboration Beyond Digital Campaigns A distinct feature of Indonesian gender activism through digital journalistic practice is the collaborative approaches to activism. Digital content producers such as Magdalene.co and Konde.co will often unite to support causes for women and minority rights. One such campaign called House of the Unsilenced brought together sexual assault survivors and artists to develop new works about survivors’ lives (InterSastra, 2019). The art project included workshops, panel discussions, and exhibitions in central Jakarta, as well as an online presence component from August 15 to September 2, 2018. The project’s primary media partner was Magdalene. co, but Harper’s Bazaar (Aditya, 2018) and The Jakarta Post (Thee, 2018) also covered the story. Although The Jakarta Post article did address the

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serious issues that the House of the Unsilenced encountered, it should be noted that, as with most mainstream reporting of sexual violence in Indonesia, there was little depth to the issue beyond basic facts. Discussing sexual violence seriously and in-depth is still taboo in mainstream Indonesian media.

House of the Unsilenced Campaigns The House of the Unsilenced workshops involved approximately 50 survivors working with 20 artists (e.g., writers, visual artists, performance artists, and musicians), in which they would find ways to express their stories in their own way. This foregrounding of personal narratives through art as a method for sparking conversations, raising awareness, and enacting change in social attitudes toward sexual violence victims aligns with third-­ wave feminist activism in other contexts. The project’s creator, Eliza Vitri Handayani, stated that the project is a form of “activism through art,” and that “telling these stories is a form of fighting. This is how we can help open the public’s eye about the nature of sexual violence and the impact. And what it costs them [survivors] to actually come and speak up” (Vitri Handayani, personal communication, September 10, 2018). Vitri Handayani affirmed that, beyond sharing stories and creating artworks, the project was about “creating a community that can support each other” (Vitri Handayani, personal communication, September 10, 2018). In addition to transnational connections, social media has also led to connections and collaborations with others focusing on gender issues in the digital space. When Vitri Handayani conducted writers’ workshops that were promoted via social media, a reporter from Magdalene.co made contact. The magazine later became the primary media partner for the House of the Unsilenced project. As opposed to direct activism such as organizing marches or petitions, Vitri Handayani’s activities aim to spark discussion about taboo topics, as well as offer ways for survivors and the marginalized to express themselves. These aims align with those of Magdalene.co and Konde.co through their digital media platforms. Some of the participants have later used the artwork they created at the House of the Unsilenced at public protests. Supporting activism through art projects such as House of the Unsilenced through online media outlets such as Magdalene.co and Konde.co and using a combination of online discussion, journalism, and digital activism that leads to mobilization and protest is one possible path to societal change. Effective legal change is

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often enacted through digital campaigns that are launched in tandem with lobbying. As another example, the previously discussed online petition calling for sexual violence law reform launched by Lentera ID and supported by Magdalene.co and Konde.co gained 1,00,000 signatures before being presented to the national legislature (Lentera Sintas Indonesia, 2016a). The petition was the most public element of a concerted lobbying effort from a group of organizations who supported the #GerakBersama or “joint movement” campaign. This campaign called for the previously named Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill or RUU Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual (RUU PKS; Wardhani, 2018) that has now been ratified in the legislature, as described earlier in the chapter. Social media platforms complement digital journalistic practice by enabling awareness raising, recruiting new activists, and facilitating further actions by digital citizens. Nevertheless, Hera cautioned that there are limitations to digital platforms. For example, although social media is effective for sparking conversation and sharing knowledge, it does not supplant other on-the-ground activism. This echoes Julianne Guillard’s (2016) argument that although knowledge can be gained and awareness can be spread through digital platforms, communities will continue to suffer due to harmful attitudes if this knowledge and awareness does not engage others outside the reach of these digital platforms. If the growing numbers at the 2019 women’s marches (IWD and Kartini Day) are any indication, then digital activism can spark, facilitate, and change social movements; however, concrete changes ratifying the bill against sexual violence required sustained activism. Luviana notes that diverse gender-based issues affecting rural women with a lower socioeconomic status garner less media attention than the sexual violence bill. Through its digital journalistic practice, Konde.co aims to continue highlighting the voices of these marginalized labor workers as well as emphasize its focus on ratifying the bill. This has also worked for various organizations that advocate for women’s rights, including the JFDG.  A highlight of this collaboration was the joint task force, #GerakBersama (“#MoveTogether”), that was intended to pressure the government to pass the sexual violence bill during the “16 days of activism” campaign. Luviana used journalistic practice to actively participate in the JFDG, in which she disseminated news about female laborers’ marches. One example is when she posted the list of organizations that supported the 2018 May Day female workers march, titled “action to end violence

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on the basis of gender in the workplace,” which reflects her position as both an activist and journalist.

Discussion By aiming to understand journalists’ contribution to gendered activism in Global South countries such as Indonesia, Chap. 2 focused on the narratives of two Indonesian female journalists, Hera Diani and Luviana Ariyanti. These journalists produce and circulate digital content focusing on gender issues, as well as support projects by writer, artist, and gender activist Vitri Handayani. Their narratives highlight two challenges that they face: first, creating positive social change by reporting on and giving a voice to people who have been marginalized and oppressed by gender rights issues; and second, negotiating the labeling associated with journalism and activism. More importantly, this chapter has examined how Hera and Luviana use digital and social media activism to enact impactful social change before, during, and after the #MeToo movement. The critical question regarding the fine line between activism and journalism centers on how journalists also advocate for diversity, equity of access, inclusion, and the development of new literacies, such as female empowerment beyond the global #MeToo movement. Nevertheless, some ambiguity is observed regarding the role of journalists in gendered digital activism. For example, Hera is reluctant to identify herself as an activist. Being an active digital journalist or citizen does not necessarily equate to identifying as an activist, but rather to being active in advocating for gender rights issues. Hera negotiates this ambiguity by expressing herself and her work with Magdalene.co as “journalism with a cause.” She stresses that the organization’s members are journalists rather than activists—but that they are journalists who amplify marginalized voices that have not been given a place in mainstream media. Further, the magazine does not operate as an NGO; however, Hera works with various organizations to campaign on gender issues and influence related discussions. As a former television reporter, Luviana perceives herself as a journalist and long-term activist. After experiencing gender discrimination in her previous workplaces,8 she founded Konde.co with fellow activists. The 8  See this link for Luviana’s documentary: Cipta Media | 642—Film Dokumenter Kekerasan Perempuan di Dunia Kerja. https://ciptamedia.org/hibahcme/642.

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magazine actively covers the struggles of female factory workers and farmers, as well as women in vulnerable employment conditions. Its feature articles are intended to be a bridge between the public, NGOs, and academics. Konde.co’s cross-platform digital activism involves regularly posting online stories onto the JFDG Facebook group. Both Magdalene.co and Konde.co have participated in IWD marches that were initiated by this social media group. Therefore, regardless of their perspectives concerning what constitutes activism, Hera and Luviana use journalistic practice to advocate for diversity, equity of access, inclusion, and the development of new literacies on gender rights and issues related to VAW that people who have been marginalized by mainstream media face. The distinctions between journalist and activist are significant to these women in terms of personal narrative and their public positions as digital content creators who creatively support gender activism in the face of mainstream media control. This extends their role as journalists, in which they engage with social, cultural, and political issues and champion social justice for women in marginalized positions who seek equal citizenship rights. However, Hera believes that social media activism can only do so much. She feels that such activism must be combined with other methods to ensure lasting social or legal change. Hera and Luviana implicitly acknowledge this point as Indonesian female journalists and founders of digital media for local women and marginalized voices; they engage in international and global movements, such as the May Day workers’ rights movement, IWD marches, and the #MeToo movement. The most recent event in May 2020 working under the banner of the Indonesian Alliance for Independent Journalists (2020),9 of which Luviana is a member. The banner called for more equal and safe workplaces and demanded that female journalists and gender minorities are free from discrimination.

Conclusion Before the global #MeToo movement of 2017, Indonesian journalists and gender equality activists were already using online education campaigns to encourage women to speak about VAW. The chapter focused on the stories of two Indonesian journalists who collaborated with gender activists before, during, and after the #MeToo movement. Indonesia’s 9

 Link: AJI Jakarta, Media Wajib Beri Ruang Aman bagi Jurnalis Ragam Gender.

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postcolonial nation building has struggled with the same issues that other Global South countries face, such as ensuring a free and strong independent media and gender and economic equality. In this context, the interviewees, Hera Diani and Luviana Ariyanti, believed that the line between activism and journalism was blurred and that gender bias and discrimination have been the main challenges for women in Indonesian legacy or traditional media. Their respective platforms, Magdalene.co and Konde/co, address these issues by providing niche outlets for people who have been marginalized by Indonesia’s mainstream media. The interviewees’ creativity in using their platforms to further gender rights issues distinguishes them from other digital media outlets, and it illustrates how female journalists and writers in Indonesia perceive the capacity for digital technologies to support women-specific empowerment. By highlighting gender-specific narratives and acts of gender digital activism performed by Indonesian journalists such as Hera and Luviana, this chapter contributes to an underrepresented area of journalism studies research regarding the intersection of activism, gender, and digital technologies from Global South countries.

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Souisa, H. (2022, January 14). A death in Indonesia highlights the issue of consent and puts new focus on sexual violence bill. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/ news/2022-­01-­14/sexual-­harassment-­and-­consent-­indonesia/100688474 Tapsell, R. (2017). Media power in Indonesia: Oligarchs, citizens and the digital revolution. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. https://rowman. com/ISBN/9781786600363/Media-­P ower-­i n-­I ndonesia-­O ligarchs-­ Citizens-­and-­the-­Digital-­Revolution Thee, M. (2018, August 16). House of the Unsilenced helps sexual abuse victims through art. The Jakarta Post. https://www.thejakartapost.com/ life/2018/08/16/house-­o f-­t he-­u nsilenced-­h elps-­s exual-­a buse-­v ictims-­ through-­art.html Wardhani, W.  K. (2018, November 20). RUU Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual terancam gagal disahkan lagi [The Bill on the Elimination of Sexual Violence is threatened to fail to be endorsed again]. Magdalene. https://magdalene.co/ story/ruu-­penghapusan-­kekerasan-­seksual-­terancam-­gagal-­disahkan-­lagi Weiss, M. (2014). New media, new activism: Trends and trajectories in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. International Development Planning Review, 36(1), 91–109. https://doi.org/10.3828/idpr.2014.6 Widodo, J. [@jokowi]. (2018, March 3). Membangun Indonesia. Kita butuh perempuan2 yg tangguh [Building Indonesia. We need women who are tough]. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/jokowi/status/969780385075703808 Winarnita, M. (2008). Motherhood as cultural citizenship: Indonesian women in transnational families. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 9(4), 304–381. https://doi.org/10.1080/14442210802506412 Winarnita, M., Bahfen, N., Mintarsih, A.  R., Height, G., & Byrne, J. (2020a). Gendered digital citizenship: How Indonesian female journalists participate in gender activism. Journalism Practice, 16(4), 621–636. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/17512786.2020.1808856 Winarnita, M., Bahfen, N., Mintarsih, A.  R., Height, G., & Byrne, J. (2020b, January 26). #MeToo Indonesia. Inside Indonesia. https://www.insideindonesia.org/metoo-­indonesia Winarnita, M., Bahfen, N., Mintarsih, A.  R., Height, G., & Byrne, J. (2020c, November 19). How Indonesian female journalists take part in gender activism: The line between journalism and advocacy. The Conversation. https:// theconversation.com/how-­indonesian-­female-­journalists-­take-­part-­in-­gender-­ activism-­the-­line-­between-­journalism-­and-­advocacy-­148535. Translated into Indonesian https://theconversation.com/bagaimana-­jurnalis-­perempuan-­ memperjuangkan-­kesetaraan-­gender-­antara-­jurnalisme-­dan-­advokasi-­149901

PART II

Latin America

CHAPTER 3

#NiUnaMenos: The Story of a Tweet That Revolutionized Feminism and Changed How Media Covers Violence Against Women in Argentina Mariana De Maio

Introduction Today, femicide statistics in Argentina remain alarming. Every 23–32 hours, a woman is killed violently (Ahora Que Sí Nos Ven, 2022; Mumala, 2022a).1 To address this issue of femicide, the #NiUnaMenos movement initiated on May 11, 2015, with a tweet from Argentinean radio 1  Between January 1 and April 29, 2022, 134 violent deaths of women, transvestites, and trans people occurred, of which 88 were femicides; 24 were violent deaths related to gender and connected to criminal activity; 16 were violent deaths in the process of investigation; and 6 were femicide suicides. Additionally, 162 femicide attempts also occurred (Mumala, 2022b).

M. De Maio (*) Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_3

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journalist, Marcela Ojeda (2015), which said, “Actresses, politicians, artists, business women, community leaders, women, all of them, bah … are we not going to raise our voices? THEY ARE KILLING US.” This single tweet sparked the global movement of #NiUnaMenos (“not one less”). Ojeda’s tweet was a response to the reporting performed for the discovery of the body of a pregnant 14-year-old child named Chiara Páez. Her body was found buried in the backyard of her boyfriend’s house in the town of Rufino, in the Santa Fe province of Argentina. Her family had been desperately looking for her since the day before she was found. Chiara was three months pregnant and was found beaten to death; her femicide reignited social outrage against gender-based violence, in which social media became a sounding board. Ojeda’s tweet prompted the organization of demonstrations that intended to denounce femicides (Pomeraniec, 2015). Along with other female journalists in Argentina and later across Latin America and the world, Ojeda used Twitter to promote collective action and reach as many people as possible. The journalists-turned-activists deplored violence against women (VAW). They were joined by women’s organizations, feminist groups, and relatives of victims of femicides in Argentina and other countries in Latin America. Just one day after the first exchange of tweets in May 2015, they had organized a date, time, place, and hashtag for a public protest (La Nación, 2015). However, the origins of the #NiUnaMenos movement can be traced to a few months earlier. It was promoted by a group of journalists, writers, activists, and artists and then ignited by the discovery of the body of 19-year-old Daiana Ayelén García on March 16, 2015, who had been missing for five days. Her body, half naked, was placed in a garbage bag and left in a vacant lot in the Buenos Aires town of Lomas de Zamora. The incident caused a strong commotion in society and the media. The date on which Daiana’s body was discovered (March 16, 2015) also marked the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of university student Florencia Pennacchi from Buenos Aires. Both events pushed the #NiUnaMenos movement to convene a marathon of readings on March 26, 2015, to make gendered violence visible and to express anger against femicides. This was the first time the hashtag #NiUnaMenos was used. #NiUnaMenos was coined by Mexican poet and human rights defender Susana Chávez, who in 1995 began protests against femicides in Ciudad Juárez in northern Mexico. Her public denouncements often included statements, such as “Not one woman less, not one more dead.” In 2011, Chávez herself became a victim of femicide (Carbajal, 2019).

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Purpose of This Study Building on the impact of the #NiUnaMenos movement, this chapter analyzes how five Argentinean news outlets—Clarín, Infobae, La Nación, Página/12, and Perfil—covered femicide and other forms of VAW between January 1, 2015, and January 31, 2019. This chapter also assesses the implications for societal perceptions that arise from these stories that were published online in the given timeline, which is just before the #NiUnaMenos movement began and nearly two and half years after the global #MeToo movement was revitalized in October 2017. Following the World Health Organization’s (2012) definition, this study conceives VAW as a “wide range of acts—from verbal harassment and other forms of emotional abuse to daily physical or sexual abuse,” in which femicide, at the extreme end of the spectrum, denotes “the intentional murder of women because they are women” (p. 1). Other researchers have also used this definition (e.g., Bilbao & López, 2015; Campbell et al., 2007; Central American Human Rights Council Ombudsman, 2006). The quantitative content analysis in this chapter focused on sources, frames, and tone to examine how femicide was covered in the selected news outlets.

Addressing Femicide in Argentina Femicides occurred at alarming rates in Argentina, and the local news media covered them in graphic detail. The most extreme face of gender-­ based violence was displayed for the public to see. Further, in June 2015, following a catharsis on social media, female journalists and activists organized a march. Before that moment, the historical claims made against VAW had been anchored in the field of the women’s movement. The call for #NiUnaMenos brought the problem to the forefront. This movement and its demonstrations had unprecedented support from public figures, such as soccer players, actors, artists, journalists, athletes, and political and union leaders. This activism was enhanced with illustrations by famous cartoonists, whose drawings went viral on social media. More than 300,000 people walked onto the streets on June 3, 2015, to scream “enough” to VAW and femicides. The cries against VAW were unanimous and signaled a milestone. The #NiUnaMenos movement expanded to other Latin American countries in the region, such as Uruguay, Ecuador,

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Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Paraguay, and beyond to countries in Europe, such as Spain, France, and Italy. The awareness generated by the call was observable in the victim assistance lines (Carbajal, 2019).2 The community associated with this cause against VAW also created an official #NiUnaMenos Twitter account, which now has over 82,000 followers dedicated to continuing the organization and mobilization of the public under its campaign. The swell in activism and social media campaigns placed the problem of VAW on the news media’s agenda in Argentina as a critical subject to cover. However, many cases involved the media coverage lacking a human rights approach to reporting on VAW (Ferrari & Rey, 2016). Coverage favored the emergence of other movements to denounce the mistreatment of women and sexual abuse in different spaces such as the rock and roll world, which gave rise in 2016 to #YaNoNosCallamosMas (“#WeAreNotShuttingUp”) in Argentina. Other hashtag movements soon followed, like the revitalized #MeToo movement of October 2017 in the United States (US), which led to complaints of sexual harassment against various public figures in entertainment, the media, and universities, among other sectors of society (Carbajal, 2019). The #NiUnaMenos mobilizations imply a kind of collective mourning, which is inscribed in the powerful tradition of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Although #NiUnaMenos did not stem directly from these networks, it used them and continues to use them effectively. Further, while femicides did not decrease in these years,3 the 2015 #NiUnaMenos movement undoubtedly favored a revival of feminism in Argentina. It placed the discussion regarding effective equality of women’s rights in the domestic space, where it had not previously reached; it also placed the discussion in other spaces such as community centers, media, education, politics, unions, and artistic spheres, where demands for gender equity were unthinkable a decade ago (Carbajal, 2019).

2  In Buenos Aires, the calls increased by 300% in the weeks before the march. Additionally, the free line 144, which receives queries and complaints from all over the country, went from an average of 1000 daily calls to 13,700 (Vallejos, 2015). 3  There were 286 femicides in 2015, 290 in 2016, 295 in 2017, 273 in 2018, 299 in 2019, and 300 in 2020 (La Casa del Encuentro, 2022).

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The Global South Context of Argentina Argentina, the center point of research for this chapter, is part of the Global South because the country is in the process of development, and it faces significant structural socioeconomic and political problems (World Population Review, 2022). The distribution of wealth is more unequal than the distribution of income in Argentina; the lowest decile in the labor market earns only 1.3% of the total income, while the top decile captures 32.4%, or about 25 times more (Telechea, 2021). Further, more than 37% of the population fall below the poverty line (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos República Argentina, 2021). Nevertheless, Argentina’s socioeconomic development is relatively strong. The literacy rate for both males and females in Argentina as of 2018 is 99% (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2022). Concurrently, Argentina has been the cradle of many social movements advocating for women’s rights, as exemplified by the #NiUnaMenos movement. The coverage of femicides in the country has also become increasingly more prominent because of news media covering the massive and successive demonstrations that demand justice and more effective laws. However, the femicide rate has not decreased as expected. Between 2008 and 2020, the number of femicides in Argentina grew by an annual average of 3.4% (La Casa del Encuentro, 2022). Argentines as Pioneers: Historical Role of Women in Politics For a few years, feminism has had a vertiginous and exponential rate of growth that witnessed the participation of thousands of young women who were driven mainly by the crests of the marea verde (“green tide,” or abortion rights movement in Argentina) and the #NiUnaMenos marches. Today, one of the greatest concerns of women’s rights activists in Argentina is the problem of femicides. As noted previously, the rate of femicide in the country is alarming, and the fight against this form of VAW cannot be excluded from the historical efforts of the leadership who fight for women’s rights in Argentina. The role of women and their position and importance in society in promoting and supporting a civilian status for women, including their right to vote, has been actively discussed in Argentina since the beginning of the twentieth century. These conversations have increased over time and have become more significant in the current era of feminist hashtag activism (Menzies et al., 2018).

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Historically, women in Argentina were excluded from accessing education, the right to apply for citizenship, and the ability to make decisions in their homes and places of employment. However, women had some political autonomy and control in places such as philanthropic organizations. Until the early part of the twentieth century, women could not be legal guardians of their children. It would not be until much later in the twentieth century that women gained more rights, such as shared parental custody of their children (Guy, 2009). It would not be until the 1940s that the political rights of Argentinian women would emerge as a theme in public discourse. At that time, President Juan Perón’s wife, Eva Perón, popularly known as Evita, was a significant figure in helping her husband’s administration and in promoting and advocating for women’s rights in Argentina. Although she did not start the suffrage movement in Argentina, her role in supporting the right of women to vote in 1947 became central to her husband’s political efforts. Evita built on the fights of many other feminists from the early 1900s and became Argentina’s first prominent female political figure (Barrancos, 2012). However, Evita suffered a tragic death in 1952 and never held office. During the 1960s and 1970s, women in Argentina gradually became involved in political activities, such as by participating in political parties and armed movements. Through their actions and narratives, women challenged the country’s patriarchal traditions, including norms about dress, gender roles, and sexuality. By 1970, the number of women who were considered economically active was 28% (Manzano, 2014). These changes were partly fostered by ideas of feminists in the Global North (e.g., Europe and North America); consequently, women began to fight for greater inclusion and equality (Manzano, 2014). In 1973, Isabel Martínez de Perón was elected vice president through a ballot she shared with her husband, Juan Domingo Perón. When he died in 1974, she became the first female president in Latin America and worldwide. The brutal dictatorship led by the military junta steered by Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, and Orlando Ramón Agosti that began in March 1976 and ultimately overthrew her government was preceded by the so-called Triple-A and its illegal repressive actions that occurred before and during Isabel Martínez de Perón’s time in government. People were unlawfully kidnapped or detained, and many would disappear and never return. It was then that relatives, in addition to presenting the indispensable habeas corpus before the justice system, began to knock on the doors of police stations, facilities of the Ministry of the

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Interior, and Church institutions such as bishoprics, archbishoprics, and military chaplains in search of information that would help them find the whereabouts of missing children, siblings, and other family members. People often had to check morgues and hospitals to try to identify their missing loved ones. Many women became involved in the searches for missing persons. The perseverance of women in locating the whereabouts of their family members and in demanding news and information prompted the title of Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (“Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo”) (Barrancos, 2012). Their activism had commenced during the military junta dictatorship (1976–1983) and increased in notoriety after 1983. The Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo protested while the military was still in power. Their physical presence in the Plaza de Mayo, right across the Pink House (presidential palace), attracted much media attention, and their denunciations played a significant role in ensuring that perpetrators of crimes against humanity faced justice in Argentina once the dictatorship ended. They marched, and still do, every Thursday and remain a visible icon of resistance and protest (Bonner, 2010).

Femicide as a Global Issue Femicide is a global problem, and it is considered a shadow pandemic (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean [ECLAC], 2020). On a list of 25 countries with the highest femicide rates, Latin America is the region with the higher representations; 50% of countries on the list are in the Americas. In 2011, El Salvador was ranked as the worst femicide country in the world, with a rate of 12 per 100,000 people. This was followed by Jamaica (10.9 per 100,000), Guatemala (9.7 per 100,000), and South Africa (9.6 per 100,000) (Alvazzi del Frate, 2011; Carrigan & Dawson, 2020). In Argentina in 2020, 1.1 per 100,000 women were victims of femicides (ECLAC, 2020). The #NiUnaMenos movement brought thousands of people to the streets of Buenos Aires on June 3, 2015, to protest against VAW and to demand institutional commitments to stop femicide. The movement fostered a process of VAW awareness and empowerment at many levels, of which one was media coverage. This has subsequently led to increased scrutiny of VAW media coverage in Argentina.

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Framing of Femicides in the News The media play a key role in shaping social perceptions of reality by influencing what is considered positive and negative, normal or extraordinary, and isolated or structural. In short, news can influence the cognitive processes of media readers (Shah et al., 2009). Scholars have argued that news media members frame events to organize facts (Entman, 1993; Goffman, 1974; Tuchman et al., 1978) and that these frames affect people’s understanding of issues and public policies (Andsager & Powers, 1999). That is, frames help construct social meaning (Reese et al., 2001). Media coverage of VAW worldwide shapes public opinion in ways that could lead or not lead to possible solutions to the problem (Bouzerdan & WhittenWoodring, 2018). Consequently, researchers have concluded that mass media’s portrayals of women tend to reflect the overall treatment of women in society (Gillespie et al., 2013; Richards et al., 2014). Substantial research has been conducted on the media’s portrayal of VAW in the Global North; however, few studies have examined the specific problem of femicide. Even fewer studies have analyzed Latin America, especially Argentina, where data suggest that femicides are increasing substantially. This is especially the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, when murders of women reached a ten-year high (López, 2020). The unequal way in which women are treated in the media reflects how society treats them (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). The framing of public events and affairs in news media platforms plays a central role in defining social problems, raising public awareness, and establishing specific ways of interpreting the problems (Hove et al., 2013). As defined by Reese et al. (2001), “Frames are organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (p. 19). Consequently, frames provide news consumers a method for categorizing, administering, and labeling what occurs around them (Gillespie et al., 2013). Scholars have found that the news media represent an important force that can shape public policy processes by incorporating new issues into public debate and legitimizing their solutions (Koch-Baumgarten & Voltmer, 2010). Therefore, by using frames, news audiences interpret whether damage should be compensated, whether it is possible to change the conditions that made it possible, and whether someone can be held responsible (Gamson, 1992). Therefore, in the case of media coverage of femicide, prevailing culture and stereotypes influence how people process news coverage, and how a subject is covered helps

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explain resistance to changing news coverage styles (Shoemaker & Reese, 2013; Weil, 2016). Jill Radford and Diana Russell (1992) argued that misogynistic ideas influence how VAW is portrayed in the media. In the specific coverage of femicides, it has been documented how the predominant frames involve blaming the victim and justifying the perpetrator (Meyers, 1996). Easteal et  al. (2015) found that news coverage repeatedly framed VAW with a theme of mutual responsibility. Other scholars have highlighted that victim blaming detracts from the underlying social causes of the violence and that it is a huge barrier to social change (Meyers, 1996; Ryan, 2010). For example, Sofía Danés (2012) demonstrated that the use of incriminating language against female victims in VAW cases characterizes reporting in the Monterrey region of northern Mexico. Another important frame found in the coverage of femicides presents the problem as an isolated event (Gillespie et al., 2013). In general, the news media cover the assassinations of women as single events rather than as part of a larger trend or systemic problem. This frame suggests that gender-related crimes are mostly motivated by circumstantial and disconnected causes (Bouzerdan & Whitten-Woodring, 2018). Some news stories only present what the journalist perceives as facts, without any personal or social context or any narratives that might explain the motives underlying the crime. A different approach that the news media could take to curb VAW is to develop a “connection frame” that links the abstract concept of violence to the violation of women’s rights. In the same way that the media coverage has connected climate change to massive changes in weather conditions and the need for public policy, femicides could also be connected to structural problems (García-Del Moral, 2016). Camelia Bouzerdan and Jenifer Whitten-Woodring (2018) claimed that journalists could contribute by connecting individual femicides to the larger social problem of VAW in a society. This would support the call for policy changes and improve law enforcement to protect women. Other frames that researchers have found in the news coverage of femicides include a focus on shocking details. This frame detracts attention from human rights and women’s rights (Meyers, 1996); considers femicides tragic spectacles, sources of amusement (Gil et al., 2019), or sources of crimes of passion or passion killings (Exner & Thurston, 2009; Meyer, 2022); and privileges the use of official sources—especially law enforcement—over private sources such as the victim’s relatives and friends

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(Richards et  al., 2014). However, research has also highlighted critical differences that underpin the use of certain frames and that it is impossible to generalize and find uniform patterns and trends throughout the press (Hove et al., 2013). For example, Elizabeth Tiscareño-García and Oscar Miranda-Villanueva (2020) found that coverage varied among news outlets in Mexico and that El Universal engaged in these framing practices more often than La Jornada. Bouzerdan and Whitten-Woodring (2018) found that victims who came from more favorable socioeconomic backgrounds received more coverage and fewer revictimization frames, while the femicides of African American and Hispanic women were framed in narratives that justified the perpetrator or alluded to broader contexts of crime and violence.

Research Methodology Given this topic’s historical and contemporary context and extensive literature, Chap. 3 examines how femicide cases are framed in news coverage in Argentina. It aims to answer questions such as: How do femicide cases vary across news media? What types of sources are used in femicide stories? What tone is used to describe the victim and perpetrator? The study in this chapter used a quantitative content analysis approach to analyze 419 stories that focused on femicides and that were published online between January 1, 2015, and January 31, 2019, in five Argentinean news media outlets. The media outlets selected for analysis include: • Clarín. This is Argentina’s largest newspaper, and it is owned by the Clarín Group, which is Argentina’s largest media conglomerate and one of the most powerful in the region (de Maio & Wanta, 2022). • Infobae. This outlet was founded by journalist and media entrepreneur Daniel Hadad in 2002, soon after Argentina’s greatest economic downturn, and it has grown to become Argentina’s largest online newspaper. With more than 21 million visits in 2021, Infobae now outweighs the online reach of well-established competitors such as Clarín and La Nación (Daniel Hadad, 2022; Infobae, 2022; Total Medios, 2022; Zunino, 2020). • La Nación. This outlet was founded in 1870 by former Argentine president, Bartolomé Mitre. It is the country’s second largest and leading conservative newspaper, as well as Clarín’s main competitor (de Maio & Wanta, 2022).

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• Página/12. This is a smaller newspaper with a more progressive approach, and it was founded in 1987 by Jorge Lanata (now one of the most iconic journalists of the Clarín Group), Osvaldo Soriano, and investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky. Despite its smaller circulation, many have considered Página/12 their second source of information for numerous years because it usually engages in longer and more in-depth commentary on several current events compared to other outlets (de Maio & Wanta, 2022). • Perfil was initially established in 1998 with Jorge Fontevecchia as director, and it was the first newspaper in Argentina to release a web version. However, because of Argentina’s poor economic circumstances in the late 1990s, and despite Fontevecchia’s experience in the media industry, Perfil was quickly shut down. It was relaunched in 2005 as a weekly outlet (Jorge Fontevecchia, 2022; Perfil [Argentina], 2022). The stories in this study’s content analysis were collected from the online databases of the five Argentinean media outlets. The following key terms in Spanish were used to identify stories that were pertinent to the study: “femicidio [femicide],” “crimen pasional [crime of passion],” and “violencia de género [gender violence].” Of the collected stories, those that did not refer to femicides were discarded. To answer the questions regarding how the news media in Argentina report  on femicides, this study focused on certain paradigmatic cases that received significant press attention during the years chosen for the present study. For that purpose, of the 729 stories left for analysis, those that did not cover a specific case were also discarded. Therefore, a total of 419 news stories were identified for the present study, in which the story/report was the unit of analysis. Coding Instrument For the quantitative part of the content analysis, each element under review was assigned a case number and was coded for length, byline, journalist’s gender, type of story, sources cited, frames present in the story, and tone used to describe the victim and perpetrator. For the qualitative content analysis, details of the specific femicide cases being covered in the news were collected to illustrate the quantitative data.

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Coder Training and Intercoder Reliability This study calculated Klaus Krippendorff’s (2019) α coefficient to determine the degree of agreement among coders. The floor for intercoder reliability was set at 0.8 because this level is commonly considered acceptable in mass communication research for non-exploratory content analysis (Lombard et al., 2002). Two coders participated in a training session and then independently coded 10% of the sample for intercoder reliability testing. Both worked independently and were instructed to contact only the researcher if they had any questions or concerns. A timeline was provided to each coder to promote a prompt completion. Once reliability was achieved, the coders worked independently. Variables Every element that was analyzed was coded for three variables: sources cited, frames present in the story, and tone used to describe the victim and perpetrator. Sources The source(s) quoted in the news story under review were coded in terms of presence or type. Most stories had some type of source, with only 2.9% of them having no sources. Type was coded as (1) police, (2) lawyers, (3) judicial system representatives, (4) victim’s family/friends, (5) perpetrator, (6) perpetrator’s family/friends, (7) experts, (8) activists, (9) NGOs, (10) politicians, (11) public officials, (12) other news media, and (13) other. Frames Each story was analyzed to determine the presence or absence of the following frames: (1) crime of passion, (2) tragic spectacle or source of amusement, (3) victim presented as someone’s wife or girlfriend, (4) perpetrator absent in the story, (5) victim blaming, (6) isolated incident, (7) focus on shocking details, and (8) connection/human rights implications/hate crime.

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Tone The tone was analyzed in terms of how the victim or perpetrator was portrayed in the news stories under review, which included using a three-­ point Likert-type scale in which 1 was “positive,” 2 was “neutral,” and 3 was “negative.” Coders were instructed to determine the tone used to refer to the victim and/or perpetrator from each unit of analysis. For example, the reporting would be positive toward the perpetrator if the reported story mentioned that the neighbors were all surprised and that they mostly had positive comments about him. Conversely, a perpetrator was portrayed negatively if he was described as abusive toward the victim before the crime occurred. In the case of the victim, a positive tone portrayed her as a hardworking and good person, while a negative portrayal usually denoted blaming her as partially responsible for her death as a drug addict or as someone who cheated on her partner.

Statistical Analysis To determine whether two or more categorical variables are statistically associated, this study performed a Pearson Chi-Squared test, as described later in this chapter. The null hypothesis of this test is that the variables under study are not associated with each other. They are statistically independent. The significance threshold was set at the 5% level. If the reported significance was 5% or below, then the null hypothesis is rejected, indicating a statistical association among the variables. The reported Cramer’s V test measures the relative strength of an association. A value of 0.10 provides a floor for a threshold, suggesting the association is substantial.4 Argentinean Press Coverage of Femicides Out of the 419 stories analyzed for this study, 101 were published in Clarín, 66 in Infobae, 84 in La Nación, 95 in Página/12, and 73 in Perfil. These stories were published in the following sections: metro (56%), police (37%), region (3%), lifestyle (2%), gender (1%), world (1%), and breaking news (1%). The most frequently identified type of source was “victim’s family/friends” (39.4%), followed by “justice system representative” (34.8%) and “police” (17.4%). Regarding intercoder reliability for 4

 The test was performed using the IBM SPSS software (version 28.0.0.0 [190]).

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sources, Krippendorff’s α was 0.82 for presence, 0.75 for police, 0.85 for lawyers, 0.76 for judicial system representatives, 0.76 for victim’s family/ friends, 0.82 for perpetrator, 0.78 for perpetrator’s family/friends, 0.78 for experts, 0.86 for activists, 0.85 for NGOs, 0.80 for politicians, 0.76 for public officials, 0.77 for other news media, and 0.76 for others. The most frequently identified frame was “isolated incident” (present in 75.2% of the stories), followed by “focus on shocking details” (38.7%) and “tragic spectacle or source of amusement” (32.2%). The intercoder reliability for attributes using Krippendorff’s α was 0.98 for crime of passion, 0.88 for tragic spectacle or source of amusement, 0.98 for victim presented as someone’s wife or girlfriend, 0.9 for perpetrator absent in the story, 0.98 for victim blaming, 0.79 for isolated incident, 0.86 for focus on shocking details, and 0.82 for connection/human rights implications/ hate crime. Most of the homicide coverage in Argentina during the selected time frame was neutral toward the victim (85.4%) and perpetrator (53.5%). The media outlet that was the most negative toward the perpetrator was Infobae (68.2%), while the most negative outlet toward the victim was Clarín (12.9%). The most positive outlet toward the perpetrator was Perfil (5.5%), while the most positive outlet toward the victim was Infobae (22.7%). The intercoder reliability for tone using Krippendorff’s α was 0.85 when describing the victim and 0.75 when describing the perpetrator. Framing the Stories The data collected in this study were further analyzed to more deeply investigate how femicide cases were framed in the news media coverage in Argentina between the assigned dates from 2015 to 2019, as well as to examine variations across the media outlets. Despite the changes and increased awareness regarding the issue of femicides in Argentina since 2015 caused by the #NiUnaMenos movement, femicides are still more frequently reported as isolated events. The data regarding the use of news frames (expressed as percentages of stories) were also used for the analysis. Table 3.1 illustrates how the different frames studied were used in each outlet. As the table illustrates, the data are clear: the five news outlets in the study framed 75% of the stories that were published as isolated incidents. The numbers across the media outlets reveal a remarkable degree of homogeneity regarding this news frame. Further, the second most used

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Table 3.1  Frame used by media outlets

Isolated incident Focus on shocking details Tragic spectacle Crime of passion Connection/human rights Victim as someone’s wife or girlfriend Victim blaming Perpetrator/s absent in the story

Clarín Infobae La Nación

Página/12 Perfil

Total

28.89 40.12 51.85 30.17 18.52 18.60

14.29 22.22 25.19 28.45 14.81 13.95

19.37 24.07 18.52 28.45 16.67 18.60

20.32 3.09 0.00 7.76 38.89 16.28

17.14 10.49 4.44 5.17 11.11 32.56

75.18 38.66 32.22 27.68 12.89 10.26

80.00 0.00

6.67 0.00

0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00

13.33 100.00

3.58 1.91

Note: All values are percentages; the values in the Total column indicate the percentage out of the total number of observations

frame in the coverage was a focus on shocking details, which was another method of drawing attention away from connecting these crimes to human rights and women’s rights. However, with this frame, the study found that Clarín, Infobae, and La Nación are different from Página/12 and Perfil. This suggests an apparent degree of heterogeneity in the selection of gore to attract readership. The same can be also said for the framing of femicide as a tragic spectacle or source of amusement. Remarkably, Página/12 did not employ the frame in any of its stories. Crime of passion was used in almost 28% of the stories. The often-colorful characteristics of such stories are led by Clarín, immediately followed by Infobae and La Nación. In contrast, Página/12 and Perfil used this frame less often. This finding is consistent with the other data in Table 3.1. Clarín, Infobae, and La Nación seem to be more willing than either Página/12 or Perfil to employ more tragic spectacle, gore, and color to frame its stories. Conversely and notably, the data revealed that almost 13% of the stories alluded to connecting femicides as a systemic rather than isolated concern, however minuscule the allusion was. Página/12 employed the frame for almost 39% of those stories, which is much more than the other outlets. Remarkably, 10% of the stories framed the victim as someone’s wife or girlfriend, with Perfil using this frame the most. Blaming the victim was not a frame widely employed. However, 80% of the stories using that frame were from Clarín alone (and none from Página/12), suggesting a theme of heterogeneity across the media

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Table 3.2  Association of frames among the five media outlets

Connection/human rights Crime of passion Focus on shocking details Isolated incident Perpetrator/s absent in the story Tragic spectacle Victim as someone’s wife or girlfriend Victim blaming

Chi-square

Cramer’s

Significance

13.433 57.032 97.717 20.172 42.037 145.371 11.271 33.967

0.127 0.261 0.279 0.155 0.224 0.42 0.116 0.165

0.098 0.001* 0.001* 0.01* 0.001* 0.001* 0.187 0.001*

Note: * = 5% two-tailed significance

outlets in Argentina, the case studied in this chapter. Regarding the absence of a perpetrator in the crime, the only outlet that employed this frame, which was Perfil, with 11% of their stories on femicides framing the crime as if no one committed it. Further, a Chi-square test combined with a Cramer’s V test were performed to explore the extent to which a significant difference in frame use was observed in the coverage of femicides among the five news outlets (see Table 3.2). The data in Table 3.2 do not suggest a significant difference in the percentage of frames employed among the five news outlets regarding crime of passion, tragic spectacle, absent victim, blaming the victim, isolated incident, and shocking details. The Cramer’s test suggests a weak-to-­ moderate association among the media outlets’ practices, in which it is specifically strong in terms of framing stories as spectacles that are sprinkled with shocking details. Conversely, the data suggest that the outlets act independently from one another when framing the victims as “someone’s wife” or as a systemic social problem. Sourcing the Stories Using sources influences the news coverage of femicides. Data regarding which sources were cited in the femicide stories were used to explore the type of sources used in the selected five news outlets. Almost 40% of the stories used family and friends of the victim as a source, and Clarín used this source the most compared to the others, even though this newspaper’s most used source was the perpetrator’s family and friends. The

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Table 3.3  Sources employed by media outlets

Victim’s family/friends Justice system representative Police Perpetrator Other Other news media Lawyers Experts Perpetrator’s family/friends Public officials Activists NGOs Politicians

Clarín Infobae La Nación Página/12 Perfil

Total

27.88 23.29 23.29 27.27 23.44 22.03 24.49 20.00 41.18 25.00 20.00 0.00 28.57

39.38 34.84 17.42 15.75 15.27 14.08 11.69 10.74 4.06 3.82 2.39 1.91 1.67

21.21 15.07 8.22 22.73 17.19 10.17 10.20 22.22 17.65 12.50 10.00 0.00 0.00

18.79 17.81 31.51 10.61 10.94 38.98 10.20 37.78 11.76 25.00 20.00 37.50 28.57

20.61 31.51 20.55 22.73 21.88 1.69 34.69 11.11 29.41 12.50 50.00 50.00 42.86

11.52 12.33 16.44 16.67 26.56 27.12 20.41 8.89 0.00 25.00 0.00 12.50 0.00

Note: All values are expressed as percentages

second most used source was representatives from the justice system, in which Página/12 had more stories that used this source compared to the other outlets. The third most used source was the police, with La Nación displaying a relatively more frequent presence of this source than other outlets. The values in Table 3.3 indicate a slight heterogeneity across the five media outlets regarding the three source categories described in this paragraph. The fourth most used source was the perpetrator. Clarín, Infobae, and Página/12 exhibited similar percentages for using this source, followed by Perfil. In terms of percentage, La Nación’s use of this source was less than half that of the leading three news media outlets. It is noteworthy that the perpetrator’s voice, always a male in this study’s cases, was attributed similar importance among three outlets that were otherwise ideologically distinct. Página/12, known for its progressive views, sits diametrically opposed to Clarín and Infobae, which reveals the persistence of patriarchal values across the political spectrum. The fifth most used source was the category of “other,” which was divided equally among witnesses, neighbors, and unnamed sources. Remarkable differences across the five media outlets can only be observed in the employment of experts, other media, and the perpetrator’s family and friends as sources. A Chi-square test combined with a Cramer’s V test was used to determine the extent to which a significant difference can be observed

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Table 3.4  Association of sources among the five media outlets

Activists Experts Justice system representative Lawyers NGOs Other Other news media Perpetrator’s family/friends Perpetrator Police Politicians Public officials Victim’s family/friends

Chi-square

Cramer’s

Significance

5.419 14.677 11.739 10.754 7.263 9.297 30.796 6.231 6.255 9.224 3.958 1.628 12.94

0.114 0.187 0.167 0.113 0.132 0.105 0.271 0.122 0.122 0.148 0.097 0.062 0.176

0.247 0.005* 0.019* 0.216 0.123 0.318 0.001* 0.183 0.181 0.056* 0.412 0.804 0.012*

Note: * = 5% two-tailed significance

regarding source use in the coverage of femicides among the five news outlets (see Table 3.4). The data for the sources in Table 3.4 do not suggest a significant difference in terms of percentage of sources employed among the five media outlets for police, justice representative, victim’s friends and family, experts, and other news media. This implies that no statistical association exists among the outlets regarding their use of the other sources. The Cramer’s V test suggests that the association among the outlets is moderate for all the significant categories except for “other news media,” in which the association is relatively stronger than the rest. Conversely, the results suggest that in the use of lawyers, perpetrators, the perpetrator’s family and friends, activists, NGOs, politicians, public officials, and other sources, the five news outlets make their decisions independently from each other. Regarding the tone used to refer to the victim and perpetrator in the femicide stories, the five news outlets were remarkably homogeneous in terms of employing a neutral tone to describe the victim in most stories. Conversely, the tone used to describe the perpetrator was split between neutral and negative among the outlets, revealing a degree of homogeneity among the news media (see Table 3.5). Chi-square and Cramer’s V tests were again performed to gain deeper insights regarding variations across the news media. The data in Table 3.6 pertaining to tone suggest a remarkable similarity regarding how the news

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Table 3.5  Tone employed by the media outlets to describe the victims and perpetrators

Victim Clarín Infobae La Nación Página/12 Perfil Perpetrator Clarín Infobae La Nación Página/12 Perfil

Positive

Neutral

Negative

5.0 22.7 14.3 4.2 2.7

82.2 72.7 82.1 93.7 94.5

12.9 4.5 3.6 2.1 2.7

4.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 5.5

45.5 28.8 52.4 66.3 71.2

50.5 68.2 47.6 33.7 23.3

Note: All values are expressed as percentages

Table 3.6  Association of tone among the five media outlets

Tone used to describe victim Tone used to describe perpetrator

Chi-square

Cramer’s

Significance

40.308 43.663

0.219 0.228

0.001* 0.001*

Note: * = 5% two-tailed significance

media characterized femicide victims and perpetrators. The significance, the size of the Chi-square and Cramer’s V test suggest a strong statistical association among the five news outlets. This is unsurprising, given the remarkable homogeneity revealed by the descriptive data.

Discussion Argentina has historically been on the vanguard of the fight for women’s rights, and 2015 was no exception. Argentina ignited a battle against femicide, in which women and allies there and in other Latin American countries advocated for their rights, walked onto the streets, and demanded safety and protection using the #NiUnaMenos hashtag. The movement was instrumental for creating public awareness and generating discussion about the many women who were assassinated and who did not have

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a voice to advocate for them, even after their violent deaths. The #NiUnaMenos movement raised awareness in the public at large. Although the impact of the massive demonstrations is still difficult to measure, some consequences were almost immediate. For example, two days after the 2015 demonstration, the Supreme Court in Argentina announced the creation of a femicide registry (Centro de Información Judicial, 2015). At the end of that year, Congress approved a law that allowed a free sponsorship service to be created for victims of gender-based violence (Carbajal, 2019). Despite these steps, some positive outcomes were also contrasted with negative ones. Former president Mauricio Macri’s administration in 2016 presented an ambitious national plan against sexist violence and announced its implementation to be between 2017 and 2020. However, in the following years, his administration weakened the National Comprehensive Sexual Education Program and implemented economic policies that resulted in increased rates of poverty, inflation, and unemployment, which strongly affected the lives of women. Therefore, without more economic autonomy, many women find it difficult to leave violent relationships (Lorenzo, 2016; “Pliego de demandas colectivas,” 2022). Nevertheless, since 2015, the #NiUnaMenos movement also pushed a gender-based agenda in high schools; for example, the claim for implementing comprehensive sexual education became a slogan for the student movement in Buenos Aires (La Ruffa, 2018). Since 2016, gender committees have flourished in student unions and organizations—and from there, they have begun promoting different projects, which reflects how the #NiUnaMenos movement has impacted adolescents. Waves of students have participated in marches against femicides in Argentina and for the decriminalization and legalization of abortion. Among other initiatives, these actions prompted certain reflections on “micromachismos at school” and on inclusive language, which discards the masculine plural when naming subjects and spaces to denounce sexist violence (Centenera, 2018). The changes in Argentina were also visible in the media coverage of femicides, as demonstrated in the current chapter. However, there is still work to be done in terms of improving coverage and conceptualizing femicide as a human rights problem. The killing of a woman, especially in a domestic setting, is often reported as an isolated incident that does not further threaten the public; however, this fails to recognize the structural characteristics of a patriarchal society. Such descriptions dismiss the scale of the issue and fail to acknowledge gender-based violence as a societal issue. Although the Argentinean news media employed the term

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“femicide” and used the victim’s family and friends as a primary source, they continue to cover these acts as isolated events, tragic spectacles, or crimes of passion instead of a social problem. Even though they are sourced, most stories lack diverse sources, and the media are often limited to using government spokespersons as a single source or, in many cases, the police spokespeople, or even the perpetrator. Moreover, the language used in the stories is intended to attract attention, generate curiosity, or entertain, and the responsibility of informing readers becomes secondary. This occurs partly because media narratives are already limited to isolated cases. Even though the data suggest a nuanced, gradual, and positive evolution, the Argentinean media do not intentionally advance the feminist cause to address this shadow pandemic. In relative terms, some of the media outlets are beginning to recognize the systemic nature of femicides as a human rights violation and an issue that, above and beyond its spectacle, is becoming more critical. For example, the data show that Página/12, a progressive outlet, discusses the notion of femicides as a systemic problem more often than other media outlets; however, Página/12 is not doing it as often as it should. Further, other media outlets have failed to make necessary changes to address this problem. The most common news frame to cover femicides in Argentina is an “isolated incident.” Clarín used this frame more frequently than the other outlets. This is a conservative news media appealing to a patriarchal readership, so it is not surprising. However, data suggest a degree of heterogeneity among the other four news outlets in terms of using this frame. The difference is more evident in the other two most commonly used frames, “focus on shocking details” and “tragic spectacle.” For Página/12 and Perfil (to a lesser extent), these frames are either completely absent in their coverage or they are not used as often. This could indicate that coverage has improved. The heterogeneity observed among the news outlets in terms of using sources demonstrates some differences in coverage. For example, Clarín’s use of sources is more favorable toward the perpetrator, in which he and his family and friends are used more often than any other sources. This trend helps perpetuate patriarchal views of VAW. Meanwhile, outlets like Página/12 more frequently use the voices of activists and NGOs than any other source type to produce stories that address the systemic roots of this shadow pandemic.

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This study’s data also reveal that Clarín provides the most horrific coverage of femicides by far. Their stories frequently blamed the victim, described the crimes as tragic spectacles or crimes of passion, and mostly focused on using shocking details instead of trying to connect these crimes to human rights violations. Conversely, even though Página/12 is not optimal regarding its coverage because of its alarming use of the “isolated incident” frame, the outlet demonstrated the highest use of the “connection/human rights” frame, while the “tragic spectacle” and “victim blaming” frames were completely absent from its coverage. Most coverage used a neutral tone to refer to the victim and perpetrator across all news outlets in the study. However, Infobae exhibited more positive coverage regarding the victim and more negative coverage regarding the perpetrator than the other outlets. Clarín demonstrated the most negative coverage regarding the victim, while Página/12 was surprisingly one of the most neutral news outlets.

Conclusion The way the five news outlets in this study—Clarín, Infobae, La Nación, Página/12, and Perfil—cover femicides can be strongly criticized. However, based on what previous research has demonstrated regarding VAW and specific femicide coverage, gradual improvements can be observed. For example, femicides are not framed as passion crimes as often as before, and using the police as the sole source of information has lost importance over time. More prominence has been assigned to the victims’ friends and families and to individuals in the justice system. These nuanced changes observed in Argentinean media coverage suggest that the #NiUnaMenos movement has had some impact. Over time, this has possibly contributed to creating coverage that is more likely to raise awareness about the systemic nature of the problem. Nevertheless, the general approach to covering these crimes continues to be tainted with patriarchal values. To say “#NiUnaMenos” meant and continues to mean weaving a fabric of resistance and solidarity against the patriarchal scripts of women’s rivals and of moral panic in the face of those who do not define themselves as men or women. (Ni Una Menos, 2016)

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As long as VAW is not recognized as a concrete crime against women in Argentina, victim blaming and spectacle-related frames will likely continue being reproduced. Policies that aim to comprehensively prevent femicides and VAW are not likely to emerge. Journalists can connect these acts to systemic gender-based violence and provide more nuanced coverage, so that these killings are framed in the context of violations of women’s rights. Journalists should also avoid the perverse use of clickbait to attract readers to femicide stories and headlines that do not aim to inform and raise awareness about the problem. Concurrently, raising awareness among media professionals does not happen overnight. Training around gender-­ based violence should be provided in journalism schools and newsrooms to avoid promoting and perpetuating VAW stereotypes and justifications.

Limitations of the Research The primary data presented in the chapter, along with the quantitative content analysis, rendered an original contribution to a complex and evolving social problem. However, all approaches have limitations, and this study is not an exception. An obvious extension to this analysis could involve a comparative study of media coverage of femicides among Latin American countries and other countries in which the #NiUnaMenos movement gained momentum. Comparative studies could also provide additional empirical evidence and insights about whether news media coverage of femicides has improved. Acknowledgments  I would like to thank Adolfo Ruiz Ferreira and his work at the Universidad Nacional de Asunción, as well as Tomás Giri at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, who participated in the content analysis and supported the research to make this chapter possible.

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CHAPTER 4

The Judge and the Influencer: Race, Gender, and Class in Brazilian News Coverage of Violence Against Women Heloiza Herscovitz

Introduction This chapter examines the frames, sources, and social context related to two of the most highly publicized cases of feminicide in the Brazilian media that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021). The chapter’s analysis illuminates the connections between gender, race, and class in the news, as well as reveals the news media’s inability to provide a fair and in-depth coverage of violence against women (VAW) during Brazil’s fourth wave of feminism in the #MeToo era (Paiva, 2019). The author uses intersectionality and hierarchy of influences as conceptual frameworks and framing as a methodology. The study aims to answer the following questions: What were the dominant sources in the news stories regarding VAW and, in the extreme, feminicide? Did the news stories

H. Herscovitz (*) California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_4

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incorporate sources from feminist or activist groups? Were the events presented in a broader social context, indicating that they were part of a social problem (e.g., gender inequality, public health crises, human rights violation)? The chapter’s qualitative interpretive analysis examined two of the most published cases of feminicide in the 2020–2021 period, in which one involved a prominent White woman and the other a middle-class Black woman. The corpus included 75 news stories that were published on Google News Brazil regarding the two cases. Further, the author uses the term “feminicide” throughout the chapter. As noted in the Introduction of this book, feminicide denotes the state’s complicity in or failure to address VAW, which is the case in Brazil (Lagarde, 2010). Although the relentless work of feminist groups and groundbreaking legislation for protecting women are encouraging, recent data regarding VAW in Brazil reveal a darker side of the situation. In the world’s 12th largest economy, which is the largest in South America, one feminicide occurs every seven hours, and one woman is raped every hour (Brazilian Public Security Forum, 2022). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil was ranked fifth in femicide rates worldwide (Paiva, 2019), and this rank did not improve by late 2022. The Brazilian Forum of Public Security (2022) noted that the country has 2.7% of the world’s population and 20.4% of the world’s homicides. Brazilian law enforcement authorities registered over 2450 feminicides and 100,400 cases of rape between March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, and December 2021 (Agencia Patricia Galvão, 2022). Additionally, over the past 13 years, Brazil possessed the highest number of transexual and transgender murders in the world (Grigori, 2021). During the first year of the pandemic, in 2020, victims of domestic violence were locked down at home and called national emergency helplines—100 (human rights), 180 (VAW), and 190 (military police)—in which they pretended to order food, when they were really seeking support. Helpline operators quickly understood their pleas, and some cases were found in news headlines (Band, 2021; Record TV, 2021a).

The Global South Context of Brazil In Brazil, the largest country in the Latin American region of the Global South, the social order imposed by colonialism marked the beginning of sexual exploitation and violent control of women (Lacerda, 2010; Santiago & Coelho, 2011). Over 520 years later, following 350 years of

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slavery, gender, race, and social class biases remain deeply entrenched in society. A White, male-dominated power structure with little diversity controls Brazilian politics and the justice system, despite being continually challenged by women and minority populations throughout the country’s history. However, 52% of the population are either Black (Preto) or brown (Pardo), and half of Brazil’s population are women, according to the 2010 Census.1 Further, Afro-Brazilians are one the poorest segments of the population, with Black women being the poorest, making them the primary target for VAW (The Brazilian Report, 2020). The 2021 Brazilian Forum of Public Safety indicated that one in four women (24.4%, equivalent to 17 million women), older than 16 years old, state that they have suffered some type of gender violence or aggression during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, over 26.5 million women suffered some type of sexual harassment in 2020 while walking down the street (32%), being at work (12.8%), or taking public transportation (8%). Most VAW victims during the pandemic were Black or brown and aged 18–44 years old. Approximately 45% of these women just continued with their lives, 35% sought help from family and friends, 12% reported their cases to a women’s police station, and the remaining 8% either went to a regular police station or called the emergency helplines (Brazilian Forum of Public Security, 2021). In 1985, special law enforcement stations for women were established in Brazil in response to the problem of VAW.

Legal Framework to Address Violence Against Women The most prominent piece of legislation for protecting women, the Maria da Penha Law, was enacted in 2006. It is named after a woman whose husband attempted to murder her twice in 1983, with the second attempt leaving her paraplegic. She became a symbol of women’s rights in Brazil (Paiva, 2019). Then, in 2015, Brazil approved the Femicide Law to include femicide as a qualifying circumstance of homicide; femicide was officially placed on the list of heinous crimes, including those people convicted and who received a pardon or parole (Daltoé, 2020). Additional laws have since been passed, the latest of which is a 2021 law aiming to 1  In Brazil, racial categorization has a long and complicated history. Census categories connected to race are defined in colorist terms, which tends to exacerbate a long-standing pigmentocracy (Travae, 2011).

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prevent VAW during elections (Agencia Senado, 2021). However, aggressors (mostly men) did not receive prison sentences because they claimed they were defending their honor or that the crimes were committed in a moment of insanity (Agencia Senado, 2021).

Brazilian Feminist Movements Since the 1990s, feminist groups across the political spectrum have flourished; more recently, they have used social media to build national and transnational coalitions. Depending on their capacity, the groups monitor VAW cases; publish research and testimonies; produce public campaigns against sexual harassment, catcalling, verbal harassment, domestic violence, and feminicide; provide services to victims and survivors; and educate the public regarding women’s rights. Some prominent groups include the Rede Feminista de Saúde (“Feminist Health Network”), Agencia Patricia Galvão [Patricia Galvão Agency] (2009), Blogueiras Negras [Black Women Bloggers] (2012), Think Olga (2013), Themis (2013), Azmina (2015), Catarinas (2016), and the #MeTooBrasil movement (2020). Led by lawyers, #MeTooBrasil has partnered with the organization Justiceiras [female vigilantes] to help sexual harassment and abuse victims through their online websites and WhatsApp, an instant messaging platform accessible to most Brazilians. Leaders of #MeTooBrasil seek to increase their popularity in Brazil, as has occurred in other countries hosting the movement. Partnerships among activist groups are common, but no united front against VAW exists. Countless collectives (i.e., grassroots groups), Twitter hashtags, and Facebook groups have mobilized women through viral VAW campaigns, such as: • Quem Ama Não Mata (“he who loves doesn’t kill”), which was active since 1980 • Chega de Fiu-Fiu (“enough with the whistling”) in 2014 • #EuNaoMereçoSerEstuprada (“I don’t deserve to be raped”) in 2014 • #PrimeiroAssedio (“the first harassment”) in 2015 • #MexeuComUmaMexeuComTodas (“mess with one of us, mess with us all”) in 2017 (Paiva, 2019, p. 244). In 2018, after the #MeToo movement globalized, Brazilian women also mobilized via a social media campaign, #EleNão (“not him”), against

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then presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, and his misogynist, racist, and homophobic discourse and declarations. Bolsonaro’s remarks shocked feminists and the LGBTQIA+ community. For example, regarding a female member of Congress, he stated, “I would never rape you because you are ugly” (Carta Capital, 2018, paragraph 23). After four years of conflict between Bolsonaro and feminist groups, he sought reelection by late 2022 but lost the election to former president Lula da Silva, who won a second term (Ellsworth & Paraguassu, 2022).

Research Focusing on Violence Against Women from an Interdisciplinary Perspective Despite the news media’s role in informing the public about VAW, few studies have focused on the issue in Brazil. Research on gender and media in Brazil tends to center on the fields of sociology, history, anthropology, and psychology (Martinez et al., 2016). Afro-Brazilian feminist scholars started their own social movement in 1975, when they released the Manifesto das Mulheres Negras (“Black women’s manifesto”), which denounced the oppression of women and racism. Beginning in the 1980s and lasting over the past decades, new VAW studies emerged from the fields of legal and criminal justice, health, and social work. Two Brazilian feminist scholars and activists, Heleieth Saffioti and Eva Alterman Blay, pioneered academic work focusing on VAW in Brazil and have published countless feminist studies that employed different theoretical perspectives, such as intersectionality. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality is a critical framework employed to investigate how overlapping social identities (e.g., race, class, gender, ethnicity, citizenship status, and age) influence power relations and social and economic inequalities (Collins & Bilge, 2020). For example, the framework clarifies how oppression affects the lives of a Black woman or an immigrant woman in a given society because social identities are inseparable. As a critical framework for analysis, intersectionality emerged after two decades of Black feminist critique being directed at hegemonic White feminism in both the Global North and Global South (Rodrigues & Gonçalves Freitas, 2021). Recently, Black feminists in Brazil, such as Bianca Santana, have published their views on women’s status through an intersectional lens, in which they argue that the color of justice in Brazil is white (Santana, 2014, p.  3). Brazilian feminists began paying attention to gender and the media in the

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1990s in journals such as Revista de Estudos Feministas and Cadernos Pagu. As Matos (2019) observed, there is a lack of theoretical perspectives and empirical studies that focus on gender and the Brazilian media, with most related works being theoretical (Martinez et al., 2016).

News Media Focusing on Violence Against Women Few studies have investigated news media representations of VAW using numerous theories and methodologies (e.g., Correia de Oliveira, 2010; Miranda, 2017; Moreno, 2012; Reis et  al., 2019). Findings from these studies align with the data collected by the Agencia Patricia Galvão, a multimedia feminist organization that has published research about women’s rights since 2001, with a focus on public debates and news media coverage. Findings from one of the agency’s studies revealed that most VAW news stories (n = 2000, published between 2015 and 2016) lacked context and details, tended to blame the victims, and endorsed the killer’s justification by romanticizing the crimes (Sanematsu, 2019, p.  30). Further, the findings from the study also indicated how infrequently the word “feminicide” was used in related cases, how the old concept of “crimes of passion” was continuously referenced, and how Brazil’s groundbreaking legislation on domestic violence, such as the Maria da Penha Law, was barely mentioned (Instituto Maria da Penha, n.a.). The same study also demonstrated that news stories in Brazil rarely mentioned the victims’ race, though Black and brown women were the main victims of gender violence (Sanematsu, 2019).

Reporting on Violence Against Women in the Brazilian Media Case Study: The Judge and the Influencer Only a few scholars have examined Brazilian news frames in relation to VAW (NordMedia Network, 2022). This chapter contributes to this critical area of research. By analyzing the news coverage of two high-profile cases (one involving a Black female influencer and the other a White female judge), this study improves understanding regarding the complex relationship between race, gender, and VAW news coverage. These pre-­ COVID-­19 pandemic findings and the context of #MeTooBrasil call for

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further investigation, given that violence against women has increased during the pandemic. The present study examines news coverage through Google News Brazil regarding two of the most publicized VAW cases that occurred during the pandemic. The first case occurred on December 24, 2020, in Rio de Janeiro, and it involves the murder of Viviane Vieira do Amaral, a White female judge from Rio de Janeiro. The second case occurred in São Paulo on September 6, 2021, and it involves the murder of a Black female social media influencer, Bruna Quirino. The ensuing subsections of this chapter describe the study’s theoretical framework and methodology, as well as findings from the qualitative framing analysis, before providing a discussion that offers concluding thoughts. Hierarchy of Influences Model Research has demonstrated that mediated reality—that is, the worldview portrayed by the news media—offers a representation rather than a mirror for people, events, and issues (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014 p. 39). The process of constructing a mediated reality in the form of news involves the work of many journalists and content producers who are engaged in professional routines developed by the legacy media. Journalists aim for their work to manage the flow of information, as Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen Reese (1991, 2014) explained in their hierarchy of influences model. This model contains five interdependent levels of influence on content that are arranged in concentric circles. The five influence levels represent the concepts of individual, media routines, media organizational, extra media, and ideological (Shoemaker & Reese, 1991, p. 86). Connected to these influences, news is shaped by ownership, sources, interest groups, governments, members of the political, economic, and social elite, citizens participating in new media spheres such as WhatsApp groups or bloggers, and other stakeholders that keep joining the expanding digital media environment. The journalist (at the individual level) decides what is news and sits at the center of the model. Framing Theory As a media-centered perspective, framing theory first emerged in the 1970s, when Erving Goffman (1974) stated that the media pay attention to certain events and place them within a field of meaning, thereby influencing the choices that people make about processing the information.

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Feminist Gaye Tuchman (1978) hypothesized that news reports are the product of cultural resources and active negotiation (p. 5) and that reports perpetually define and redefine social phenomena (p. 184). Tuchman also asserted that news is contextually embedded in the social structure of news organizations, in which it follows bureaucratic routines based on the rhythms of news making. Tuchman (1978) further noted that, in contrast, “news stories are frequently divorced from the context of their production” (p.  192) because they lack sources beyond official ones, or they ignore the context in which a news item occurs. The current chapter embraces Reese’s (2003) definition that “frames are organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (p. 11). The study in this chapter also aligns with Marie Hardin and Erin Whiteside’s (2009) pairing of framing theory and feminist research, as both concepts take interest in the distribution of social and political power and its relationship to the content (frames) produced. Applying Frameworks to the Brazilian Media Context In this chapter’s study, theories that focus on news media content and feminist theories converge on the assumption that violence against poor and Black women in Brazil is less likely to prompt media coverage than violence against White, middle, and upper-class women because of systemic racism (Meyers, 1994). The chapter applies Shoemaker and Reese’s (2014) model to Brazil’s highly concentrated and mostly commercial media system that is mainly controlled by a few wealthy families, politicians, and evangelical churches (Media Ownership Monitor, 2017). Concurrently, at the ideological level, social forces with diverse varying degrees of power exist in civil society. Thus, feminist groups that make up part of civil society such as Agencia Patricia Galvão, Blogueiras Negras (“Black women bloggers”), Think Olga, Azmina, Catarinas, and #MeTooBrasil strive to influence the public opinion and are reflected at the ideological level. Through the combined lenses of the hierarchy of influences and framing theory, journalism is assumed to emulate similar distorted social patterns of non-linear democracy by interacting mostly with official and dominant sources that represent the status quo and sporadically with

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numerous alternative sources when framing events and the people involved in them. Given the application of Shoemaker and Reese’s (2014) hierarchy of influences model and Entman’s (1993) framing theory, and the gaps in the literature and research identified for this subject, this chapter aims to answer three research questions: • RQ1—What were the main frames presented in the corpus? • RQ2—What were the dominant sources in the VAW news stories, and did they incorporate sources from feminist/activist groups? • RQ3—Were the events presented in a broader social context, indicating that they were part of a social problem?

Research Methodology The qualitative framing analysis for two of the most highly publicized femicide cases that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic aims to illuminate the power of news media in defining a national issue that directly affects the lives of 52% of the Brazilian population (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 2019). This chapter’s study examined the dominant frames of two sets of news stories that focused on two separate femicides—one involving the murder of a Black female activist and the other involving the homicide of a White female governmental figure. The study paid specific attention to news coverage quality, including the overreliance on official sources, potential reasons underlying the murders, and lack of causes and consequences. The corpus for this study was collected from Google News Brazil, through which the most published cases of VAW between 2020 and 2021 were found. Google News Brazil generated 75 news stories that were published by all types of news organizations—from mainstream media such as the mega portals UOL of São Paulo and G1 of Rio de Janeiro to magazines of national circulation and small, independent news websites. The analysis included all stories. Further, a holistic approach was used to analyze the following framing devices: storyline, sources, metaphors, catchphrases, key quotations, headlines/subheads, and visual images. The researcher avoided any urge to count frames by placing herself in the position of a curious and avid media user. The findings from the two cases are presented in chronological order.

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Case Study 1: Judge Viviane Vieira do Amaral On Christmas Day in 2020, seven cases of femicide in different Brazilian states filled the news media’s homepages with dramatic headlines. This occurrence was the culmination of the pandemic’s first year, which yielded thousands of obits connected to COVID-19. When considering all news stories dedicated to VAW cases (45 news stories were obtained from Google News about this case) during that holiday season, the greatest number of stories focused on the murder of a White female judge from Rio de Janeiro. Viviane Vieira do Amaral, an affluent 45-year-old White woman, worked as a civil court judge in Rio de Janeiro state. On December 24, 2020, her ex-husband, Paulo José Arronenzi, a 52-year-old unemployed engineer, stabbed her to death 16 times in front of their three daughters, who were all under ten years of age (Nunes, 2020). According to family members, Vieira do Amaral’s horrific death followed a turbulent, 11-year marriage and violent separation. Months before her death, she reported her case to the police and asked for protective measures as established by the Maria da Penha Law; the law forbids a perpetrator from meeting or contacting his victim, but enforcing it proved challenging. Local police arrested Vieira do Amaral’s husband, reporting that he showed no signs of remorse. The murder of a prominent figure would likely generate extensive coverage, but the feminicide of a White female judge such as Vieira do Amaral made headlines throughout Brazil. One year later, news reports focused on new VAW legislation in Brazil, such as laws against stalking and psychological violence. One news story published by legacy newspaper O Estado de Minas in Southeast Brazil depicts how the news media framed the crime: “Being White and upper class, holding a prestigious position in society, were not enough to keep a woman safe” (Ricci & Pereira, 2020, headline). This straightforward portrayal of “no woman is safe” represents the tone used by numerous reports who focused on the case (see Table 4.1). Case Study 2: Social Media Influencer, Bruna Quirino Bruna Quirino was a 38-year-old Black businesswoman who was known for her exuberance and entrepreneurship. A Zumba teacher turned digital influencer, Bruna became popular by posting about organic hair extensions, fashion, and healthy lifestyle choices, which earned her over 25,000 followers on Instagram. Along with her husband of 20 years, she

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Table 4.1  Major frames identified in the news media coverage of femicide (2020–2021) Judge (Viviane Vieira do Amaral)

Social media influencer (Bruna Quirino)

No woman is safe, despite social status and color Femicide is unacceptable

The color of femicide is Black

The crime was planned Power and money

Independent Black woman awakens a man’s blind rage A crime without clear motive Power and money

established partnerships with clothing brands, beauty clinics, and restaurants in Valinhos, São Paulo. The couple lived in a condominium complex, owned a beauty salon, and had recently rented a space to produce videos for social media (UOL, 2021b). On September 5, 2021, a Sunday night, neighbors heard the couple screaming at each other. Bruna’s daughter came out of her bedroom to find her father, Rodrigo Quirino, 42 years old, stabbing Bruna in the living room. He turned to his daughter and tried to stab her as well, but she retreated into her bedroom and locked the door. Bruna ran out of the apartment, trying to ask for help, but she was caught by Rodrigo on the stairs. When the police arrived, both Bruna and her husband were dead. Rodrigo had killed himself, and his body lay on the stairs of the building beside hers (Cristine, 2021).

Findings The analysis for these two cases revealed four frames for each case (see Table 4.1). News Frames for Case 1 (White Judge, Viviane Vieira do Amaral)  o Woman Is Safe, Despite Social Status and Color N On the one hand, the brutal crime against a White female judge reminded members of the elite that they were not immune to domestic violence. Conversely, audiences engaged with the Brazilian news events by commenting on news websites, suggesting that if a wealthy, educated woman

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holding a prestigious position in society could not obtain effective protection against her former partner, there was little hope for justice for most other victims who were not members of the nation’s elite. The news media validated the notion that VAW cuts across social class and race. A lawyer dedicated to defending victims of violence added, “All women are subject to domestic violence. We are talking here about people of any social class, of any race, of any level of education, any position, even if it is a position of power as a judge” (Ricci & Pereira, 2020, para. 9). However, the news media failed to explain that VAW is rooted in male privilege, control, and domination in a social hierarchy, as demonstrated by other critical studies (Meyers, 1994). Moreover, Brazilian news media scarcely published analyses of the roots of VAW unless using expert sources. Reporters could have easily contacted Brazil’s many feminist groups, such as #MeTooBrasil. This sort of reportage did not emerge in the Google News search, except for one news story that was published in the El País newspaper on December 29, 2020, which linked feminicide  (femicide?) to Brazil’s structural machismo (male chauvinism) that was reproduced by most institutions. The news story highlighted that despite the solidarity of Brazil’s Supreme Court regarding the death of a judge like Viviane Vieira do Amaral and its announced commitment to preventing VAW, the courts have been criticized for ruling in favor of perpetrators and for frequently humiliating victims. El País published videos of an online court session in São Paulo, in late 2020, about a lawsuit for non-payment of alimony, in which the judge discredited the Maria da Penha Law as well as the victim of domestic violence. The judge also suggested the victim should give up the protective measures and stated: “I don’t care about de Maia da Penha Law. One thing I learned in the life of a judge [is that] no one attacks anyone for free” (Alessi, 2020, para. 9). Female lawyers were not offered the chance to speak on behalf of their clients during these sessions. The news portal G1 also published the same content on December 18, 2020, but it did not generate national attention. Both news organizations (El Pais and G1) obtained relevant information from the feminist blog Papo de Mae, which is sponsored by the UOL media company (Kotscho, 2020). After being publicly accused of misogynism, sexism, racism, disrespect, and intimidation, Judge Rodrigo de Azevedo Costa was simply transferred to another jurisdiction (Kotscho, 2021). According to the NGO Themis, a feminist organization that helps women navigate the justice system, the characteristics of the Judiciary branch—including “fundamentally male, white, heteronormative, with

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people from the country’s wealthiest strata”—have boosted gendered violence and social inequality (Pereira, 2020, para. 8). El País also quoted Cristina Bento, sub-secretary of Women Policies of Rio de Janeiro, regarding the issue of structural machismo: There is no short-term solution to the problem. No country can put a police officer at the door of every victim … It is necessary to break with this sexist culture that sees women as an object, and this is also done with education. (Alessi, 2020, para. 13)

News stories about the death of Judge Viviane Vieira do Amaral and other cases involving the work of civil courts who tackle VAW revealed the ambiguities embedded in the Brazilian legal system and society. The institutional “cultural blindness” (Meyers, 1994) that allowed Paulo José Arronenzi to stab his wife to death in front of their children is the same that allowed Judge Rodrigo de Azevedo Costa to mistreat victims of domestic violence in court.  emicide is Unacceptable F In the ensuing days, a second frame relating to Viviane Vieira do Amaral (“femicide is unacceptable”) emerged in the news media, which was corroborated by legal institutions and special female lawyers (see Table 4.1). The coverage took a new path, given that legal professional organizations classified the crime as a “cowardly attack” and promised that femicide would be punished. “Femicide has the vehement repudiation of Brazilian society. Brazil needs to move forward. What happened this Thursday in Barra da Tijuca is absolutely unacceptable,” said President Felipe Gonçalves of the Association of Judges of Rio de Janeiro. As the first woman to lead the Association of Brazilian Judges in 70 years, Renata Gil also said, “The new case of femicide shows how vulnerable we all are in a society with a patriarchal mindset … We need to end this feeling of impunity, that it might be worth attacking a woman” (Leitão et al., 2020, paras 11–12). Another judge named Regina Lucia Passos classified femicide as a true pandemic (Kafruni & Fernandes, 2020). The case of Viviane Vieira do Amaral generated strong responses from other powerful national figures. Regretting the murder of the judge, the president of Brazil’s Supreme Court, Luiz Fux, lamented the horrible act and questioned the effectiveness of laws that are intended to combat VAW (Veja, 2020). A day later, former president Dilma Rousseff tweeted that

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women are at constant risk, and she called for an end to impunity (Fragão, 2020). However, few news stories included sources from Brazilian feminist groups. One exception was the newspaper O Estado de Minas, which interviewed Mirian Chrystus, coordinator of the Minas Gerais state feminist movement, who stated: The fight against femicide involves different sectors of society … go through education, educating boys to respect girls; and through Justice, which must better prepare its agents—lawyers, delegates, judges—in dealing with the issue of violence against women. (Ricci & Pereira, 2020, para. 10)

At times, VAW victims die a “second death” because their reputations are damaged in the media after their murders. This did not occur to Viviane Vieira do Amaral. In general, coverage was respectful and the same discrete picture of her was published by the news media in all news stories analyzed here. The mainstream media edited videos of her death to eliminate the most shocking scenes, although some sensationalist media outlets exhibited the uncut versions that circulated on social media.  he Crime Was Planned T The third frame to emerge from this chapter’s analysis suggested that the crime was planned. Paulo José Arronenzi ambushed Viviane Vieira do Amaral, his former wife, on a quiet street near a park, and he likely knew that she had dismissed the police bodyguard a month earlier. Caught at the scene, her former husband threw away the murder weapon, but police found three other black-handled knives in his backpack (Heringer, 2020,). Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, the perpetrator sat quietly on the curb as he was watched by two municipal guards, as videos and photographs that became public were revealed (Grinberg & Araújo, 2020). Vieira do Amaral’s body was a few meters away. When guards asked him why he did it, Arronenzi shrugged his shoulders and mentioned that he had taken some medications (Band, 2020). However, hours before the crime, Arronenzi played tennis at Ipanema Beach (Jornal Grande Bahia, 2020). News stories reported that Arronenzi had been an unemployed engineer for six years and that he had been accused of domestic violence in a previous relationship (Heringer, 2020). Coverage about the perpetrator focused on information obtained from official sources and crime witnesses. Although no overt sympathy was directed toward him, reports did not investigate the reasons underlying his violent act. Most news media

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organizations throughout Brazil reproduced the same narrative that originated from Rio de Janeiro’s police sources. Police told the news media that the motive for the crime was Arronenzi’s disagreement regarding his marriage ending, especially the subsequent financial consequences (Heringer, 2020). Three days after the crime, the court blocked Arronenzi’s access to R$640,000 (approximately US$142,000 at the time) in his bank accounts, to prevent him from sending the money abroad through third parties. Power and Money A fourth frame then emerged in the study, in relation to power and money. The  perpetrator  (Arronenzi) was sent to Bangu 8, a prison in Rio de Janeiro that retained many corrupt politicians, including a former governor of Rio de Janeiro; leaders of organized crime groups tended to serve their sentences and await trial at Bangu 8 as well (Heringer, 2020). The prosecutor considered the case emblematic, and another female prosecutor stated: We need to give visibility to femicide in order to … fight it. All victims have the same value, all victims deserve the same attention, but when a man thinks he is going to kill a judge, in a public place, where everyone is watching, it is because he is sure of impunity or there is still no punishment enough for him. (Araújo, 2021)

News Frames of Case 2 (Black Social Media Influencer, Bruna Quirino)  he Color of Femicide Is Black T Femicides of Black women rarely make the news in Brazil, even though they constitute 62% of the victims (Brazilian Forum of Public Security, 2021). These femicides appear in statistics published by national news media, but few receive individual media attention. Google News Brazil yielded 30 news stories about Bruna Quirino’s death, making this an exception to the norm. The news originated in the small town of Valinhos, 45 miles away from São Paulo’s capital. The main media organizations of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro generated news reports about the case, which were subsequently reproduced by many television channels (e.g., Globoplay, 2021; Jornal de Valinhos, 2021; Rede TV Familia, 2021).

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However, the news stories repeated the same information based on police sources and a couple of Bruna’s friends. The news stories did not mention that Bruna was a Black woman, though they reproduced pictures of her social media accounts, where she emphasized her pride in being Black. For example, the news portal UOL stated, “In an essay published in August of 2020, she wrote: ‘We dream of a world that does not judge by color, but by the way we color’” (Souza, 2021, para. 9). The news website Alma Preta (“black soul”) was the only outlet to mention race, with the headline, “Black influencer is murdered by her husband” (Alma Preta, 2021). Alma Preta was also the only news website that directly mentioned the frame (“the color of femicide is black”), and it offered statistics to demonstrate that Black women constitute the highest number of femicide and domestic violence victims in Brazil, where two out of three victims of gender-based violence are Black women. Other news media published similar statistics but only referred to Bruna as a social media influencer, content producer, or Zumba teacher. I ndependent Black Woman Awakens a Man’s Blind Rage A second frame in the Bruna Quirino case is the “independent Black woman awakens a man’s blind rage,” which identifies the victim’s cause of death. Although this frame was understated in other Brazilian news stories, it was directly mentioned in an article in Harper’s Bazaar Brazil. Feminist Janaina Silva (2021) wrote, “The death of a Black woman not only saddens us as it is part of a social disease. When we lose a woman like Bruna, we lose the power of good and beauty” (para. 10). This columnist mentioned Brazilian Black feminist Sueli Carneiro. Referring to the perpetrator, she asked, “Would this man be part of the group of beings that entangle their identity in an illusory but violent structure of dominion?” (Silva, 2021, para. 8). The answer is maybe. Twenty-­ four hours before her death, Bruna posted a video on Instagram titled “What it is like being my husband’s boss.” In the video, she lip-syncs to Brazilian hip-hop singer Jojo Todynho’s song, complaining “I’m stressed out; I’m tired. I have no patience and won’t argue. If this is the game, I’m out” (Quirino, 2021). Bruna sounded serious and did not display her usual upbeat and comedic style on Instagram. She was telling her thousands of followers that she was unhappy with her private life. Hours before her death, she published another video on Instagram celebrating her hair brand: “My husband and I were unemployed and we had to reinvent ourselves during the pandemic” (Souza, 2021, para. 8).

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 Crime Without Clear Motive A Police offered no motive for the crime, but registered it as a case of domestic violence and as a homicide/suicide. However, the news media in Brazil referred to the crime as femicide. A set of news stories were also aired by a sensationalist television program that was owned by an evangelical network; these conveyed a sense of loss among friends who knew the couple well and mentioned that Bruna and her husband never argued, though neighbors heard the couple fighting on the night of the crime. Nevertheless, there was a perception that the husband “was probably lost, confused,” which could be the reason for his crime. Additionally, friends told the news media that the perpetrator was battling thyroid cancer (Souza, 2021; Rede TV Familia, 2021b; Record TV, 2021b). Power and Money Bruna Quirino was a vivacious Black woman who aspired to live a fulfilling life. Her death received substantial space in the Brazilian news media, in contrast to the deaths of hundreds of Black women who are generally buried silently. However, her story was limited to basic information that the police, friends, and social media posts provided, and no government, legal entity, or Black feminist organizations were included in the news coverage about Bruna’s case. This is in contrast to the other case of Viviane Vieira do Amaral, the White judge. G1, a news website that is part of Globo, the largest media conglomerate in Brazil, published a piece that included a photograph of Bruna and a couple of sentences about her case. However, the story focused mostly on statistics of feminicide and included two high-quality videos that were five and six minutes long, in which experts explained the cycle of an abusive relationship and how to ask for help. These stories also debunked certain myths and stereotypes pertaining to abused women. The statistics generally mentioned femicide and did not refer to violence against Black women (Farias, 2022). On September 7, 2021, Bruna and her husband were buried together in a silent ceremony.

Discussion Impact of News Frames About Violence Against Women Journalists use news frames to select and organize information that shapes social reality at a given time. On the one hand, frames represent the routinized and hierarchical decision-making processes that journalists,

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content producers, and news organizations undertake to access and understand a phenomenon (Waisbord, 2013, p. 164). Conversely, frames express the dominant ideology and its competing forces in society, even if this is done unintentionally. Understanding how the Global South Brazilian news media framed the feminicides of a 45-year-old White female judge (Viviane Vieira do Amaral) and a 38-year-old Black female influencer (Bruna Quirino) during the pandemic, when rates of VAW had escalated, necessitates an examination of the country’s socioeconomic and historical contexts. The first part of this chapter discusses this topic. Pandemic Spaces (Public Versus Private) The second part of the study in this chapter examined the nature of the news media coverage focusing on two highly published cases of femicide during the pandemic. Vieira do Amaral’s murder occurred on Christmas Eve in 2020, caused a national clamor, and generated responses from national-level political and judicial figures. The femicide of a Black influencer at a private space in a small town in São Paulo received substantial media coverage compared to hundreds of other Black women who were killed and overlooked by society; however, it should be noted that this news coverage tended to be superficial and repetitive. Race and Gender It can be speculated that the coverage would have been distinct if the judge were Black or if the social media influencer were White. Aside from gender inequality, Black women in Brazil suffer race and class discrimination, which places them in a triple bind and results in them being consistent targets of VAW. In this sense, their invisibility in the Brazilian media reflects their invisibility in society. Privilege Versus Influence The death of Judge Viviane Vieira do Amaral shocked members of the Brazilian elite and generated news frames highlighting how no one is safe from VAW, not even a judge with money and prestige. The crime was planned, calculated, and financially motivated, according to the police. On the other hand, the death of social media influencer Bruna Quirino puzzled her followers on Instagram, who registered their frustration

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online (e.g., after her death, her profile reached 38,000 followers). Bruna became a symbol of the suffering and discrimination that Black women experience as the primary victims of gender violence. The frame came from Alma Preta, a Black-owned news website with almost 100,000 followers that covered the case. Bruna’s professional success and spontaneous behavior “awakened a man’s blind rage” in the interpretation of Black feminists, though the news media who reported on the case barely mentioned race. Misogyny and Inconsistent News Narratives The news media coverage left major aspects of the story unexplored, including misogyny and systemic oppression in Brazil. Previous feminist research has indicated that failing to frame VAW as a systemic social or public health issue “shifts the responsibility for solving the problem from society to the individual victim and the perpetrator” (Meyers, 1994, p. 59). The two selected cases of femicide in this study were not presented as isolated cases because the news stories frequently included data about the state of VAW in Brazil. However, the crimes and data pertaining to VAW seemed disconnected, which casts a shadow on women’s victimization, especially in the case of violence against a Black woman. In some ways, the narratives presented by the news media were inconsistent. Portrayals of the perpetrators suggest that they were stressed, mentally or physically ill, and somehow provoked (e.g., the judge left her unstable husband, the influencer published on social media that she was her husband’s boss). Despite that one perpetrator stabbed his wife in front of their three young girls, and the other tried to stab his 20-year-old daughter when she surprised him while he killed his wife, the news stories did not include sources to explain how the femicides affected children. The analysis also revealed that the news media could not present femicide  cases as part of a broader social context and major social problem. The sources quoted in the stories offered limited perspectives regarding why VAW is a major social crisis and what should be done to change the status quo. Discussions about gender inequality and gender-based discrimination usually occur outside the mainstream media in academic journals and websites of feminist organizations such as the Agencia Patricia Galvao, #MeToo Brazil, Themis, and Think Olga—as well as in Black feminist and anti-racist websites such as Geledés, Crioula, and Alma Preta.

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Domination of News Sources Dominated by official sources, most of the news media (with the exception of one report) did not quote independent or feminist sources, whether from White or Black sources with expertise in violence against women. Considering the most recent profile of Brazilian journalists—which indicates that they are young (under 40 years old), female (58%), and more diverse than in the past (30% are Black or brown professionals) (Mick et  al., 2022)—one expects that they would include diverse sources and present more progressives views. However, Brazilian journalists have a history of limited autonomy (Herscovitz, 2020) and continue to work under precarious conditions, especially after migrating from print-based work to online work. In the coverage of the judge’s feminicide, her prominence seemed to prompt other lawyers and judges, including the Supreme Court, to demonstrate their reactions of horror to the case via public statements. Still, no authority figures publicly lamented the social media influencer’s feminicide. In the two cases presented in this study, the news media respected the victims’ private lives; however, there was an attempt to rationalize and excuse the perpetrators’ actions. No mention was made regarding the abuse of power and privilege exhibited by these Brazilian men who murdered two women and traumatized their own children.

Conclusion The chapter examined news media frames in stories that focused on two homicide cases in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021): one was the feminicide of a White female judge, Viviane Vieira do Amaral, and the other was a 38-year-old Black female social media influencer, Bruna Quirino. Both crimes occurred on the eve of national holidays (Christmas and Brazil’s Independence Day), in which one occurred in a public space and the other at the victim’s home. The femicide of a White judge in a public space in Rio de Janeiro generated 45 news stories, while the femicide of a Black social media influencer in a private residential condominium of São Paulo generated 30 news stories. The chapter’s analysis tried to determine the social meanings of what was said and unsaid in the news coverage (Reese, 2003). Gender, class, and race intersected in the news media coverage of both crimes, while geographic location played a significant role in defining the extension of the media coverage. Key

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findings revealed that the femicide of prominent White women received more media attention than the femicide  of Black, middle-class women; this generated a higher level of indignation from numerous prominent societal figures. Despite committing violent crimes in front of their children and attempting to kill one of them, both perpetrators received a soft treatment by the news media, as they were considered to be mentally confused or physically ill to justify the femicides. The news media failed to produce thorough investigations into the two cases, and it did not include the views of VAW experts in their reports that cited mostly official sources. The news stories focused on the dramatic line of events without relating them to the causes and consequences of femicide in Brazil.

Limitations of This Research The study in the chapter was limited by the number of VAW cases that were identified using Google News. Nevertheless, this chapter’s qualitative interpretive framing analysis allowed for greater depth and exploration of meaning to understand the intersections of race, gender, and class in an important country in Latin America and the Global South. Further research that compares news coverage of VAW Black and White women in Brazil would enhance a critical area of scholarship.

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was battling cancer] [Video]. Record TV. https://recordtv.r7.com/balanco-­ geral/videos/marido-­que-­matou-­influenciadora-­a-­facadas-­lutava-­contra-­um-­ cancer-­07092021 Rede TV Familia. (2021, September 6). Novas informações sobre a morte de Bruna Quirino, esfaqueada pelo marido [New information about the death of Bruna Quirino, stabbed by her husband] [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ N0oHKORbUKk Rede TV Familia. (2021b, September 8). Marido de influencer morta em Valinhos tinha cancer [Influencer’s husband killed in Valinhos had cancer] [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/BDglPjzovx0 Reese, S. D. (2003). Framing public life: A bridging model for media research. In S. D. Reese, O. H. Gandy, & A. E. Grant (Eds.), Framing public life (pp. 7–31). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410605689 Reis, A., Leite, N., & Matos, D. (2019). Feminicídio e Mídia: O racismo patriarcal e a morte das mulheres negras [Femicide and the media: Patriarchal racism and the death of Black women]. Paper presentation, Intercom Conference, Belém, Brazil. https://portalintercom.org.br/anais/nacional2019/resumos/ R14-­1823-­1.pdf Ricci, L., & Pereira, M. I. (2020, December 27). Nem condição social freia violência contra a mulher no Brasil [Not even social conditions stop violence against women in Brazil]. Estado de Minas Nacional. https://www.em.com. br/app/noticia/nacional/2020/12/27/interna_nacional,1224015/nem-­ condicao-­social-­freia-­violencia-­contra-­a-­mulher-­no-­brasil.shtml Rodrigues, C., & Gonçalves Freitas, V. (2021). Ativismo Feminista Negro no Brasil: Do movimento de mulheres negras ao feminismo interseccional. Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Politicas, 34. https://doi. org/10.1590/0103-­3352.2021.34.238917 Sanematsu, M. (2019). Imprensa e direito das mulheres: Papel social e desafios da cobertura sobre feminicídio e violência sexual [The press and women’s rights: Social role and challenges to coverage of feminicide and sexual violence]. Agência Patricia Galvão. https:// assets-­i nstitucional-­i pg.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/2019/12/IPG_ RelatorioMonitoramentoCoberturaFeminicidioViolenciaSexual2019.pdf Santana, B. (2014, September 5). Black women and feminism in Brazil. Paper presentation, Fett Conference, Oslo, Norway. https://www.academia.edu/ 8632269/Black_women_and_feminism_in_Brazil. Santiago, R.  S., & Coelho, M.  T. (2011, September 4–6). A violencia contra a mulher numa perspectiva histórica e cultural [Violence against women in a historic and cultural perspective]. Paper presentation, International Conference on Intertwining Sexualities—Law, Ethnic-Racial Relations, Education, Work, Reproduction, Sexual Diversity, Communication and Culture. Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil. https://repositorio.ufba.br/handle/ri/5234.

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Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1991). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass media content. Longman. Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https:// www.taylor francis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203930434/ mediating-­message-­21st-­century-­pamela-­shoemaker-­stephen-­reese Silva, J. (2021, September 7). The Bruna Quirino case. Harper’s Bazaar. https:// harpersbazaar-­uol-­com-­br.translate.goog/estilo-­de-­vida/janaina-­silva-­o-­caso-­ bruna-­quirino/?_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc Souza, F. (2021, September 8). Marido de influenciadora assassinada em SP teria câncer, segundo amigos [Husband of influencer murdered in SP would have cancer, according to friends]. UOL. https://tvefamosos.uol.com.br/noticias/ redacao/2021/09/08/marido-­de-­influenciadora-­assassinada-­em-­sp-­teria-­ cancer-­segundo-­amigos.htm?cmpid=copiaecola The Brazilian Report. (2020, May 13). Slavery in Brazil. Think Brazil. https:// www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-­post/slavery-­brazil Travae, M. (2011, November 20). Racial classification and terminology in Brazil. Black Brazil Today. https://blackbraziltoday.com/racial-­ classification-­and-­terminology-­in-­brazil/ Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. The Free Press. UOL. (2021b, September 9). Influenciadora Bruna Quirino é morta a facadas em São Paulo [Influencer is stabbed to death by her husband in São Paulo]. UOL. https://interior.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2021/09/06/ influenciadora-­b runa-­q uirino-­e -­m orta-­a -­f acadas-­e m-­s ao-­p aulo-­2 16065/ index.html Veja. (2020, December, 25). Fux lamenta o feminicídio de juíza no RJ: “ataque covarde” [Fux regrets the femicide of a judge in RJ: “Cowardly attack”). Veja. https://veja.abril.com.br/brasil/fux-­l amenta-­o -­f eminicidio-­d e-­j uiza-­n o-­ rj-­ataque-­covarde/ Waisbord, S. (2013). Reinventing professionalism, journalism and news in global perspective. Polity Press. https://www.wiley.com/en-­us/Reinventing+Professio nalism%3A+Journalism+and+News+in+Global+Perspective-­p-­9780745665085

CHAPTER 5

Moving Beyond the Protest Paradigm?: News Coverage of International Women’s Day Marches in Mexico Grisel Salazar Rebolledo and Celeste González de Bustamante

Introduction On International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8, 2019, thousands of women throughout Mexico protested on the streets in a public call to end violence perpetrated against women. As in previous years, many news outlets in Mexico focused on “chaos” in the streets and “fires, broken glass and assaults” (El Diario de Yucatán, 2019, para.1 ). Concurrently, some local news media began to focus on the reasons for the protests, such as on how “women of Veracruz demand legal and safe abortion. They argue

G. Salazar Rebolledo Universidad Iberoamericana, México City, México e-mail: [email protected] C. González de Bustamante (*) School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_5

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that violence is growing and that most violent acts committed against women go unpunished.” (El Diario de Xalapa, 2019, para. 1). Other news media began highlighting protesters’ demands and questioning whether news coverage about feminist movements and the dire situation regarding violence against women (VAW) in Mexico was beginning to shift. According to the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security (Molina, 2020), 2019 was a “nightmarish” year in which 1006 femicides were reported between January and September. In Mexico, partly because of increasing VAW rates, feminist movements have grown in number and strength, and the IWD demonstrations that denounced the deplorable situation occurred annually on March 8. Between 2007 and 2017, at least 124 feminist mobilizations occurred in Mexico City (Comunicación e Información de la Mujer, n.d.), which includes digital protests that denounced sexual harassment. This chapter explores how the news coverage of feminist protests has recently changed in mainstream Mexican media since the #MeToo movement was revitalized in 2017. The chapter applies the protest paradigm and conducts a content analysis of 25 Mexican news media and agencies, and assesses how they reported on the annual IWD marches on March 8 between 2018 and 2020.

Mexico in the Context of the Global South Violence against women in this Global South country has a long history that connects to the nation’s patriarchal and colonial past. However, the problem has worsened over the past decade, thereby prompting members of the international community to become involved, including the Inter-­ American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In 2022, the IACHR called on the Mexican Government to “step up its efforts to investigate, prosecute, punish, and provide reparation for gender-based violence” (Organization of American States, 2022, para. 1). This call for action came after an international report asserted that 24,600 women have been reported missing, and that “2,287 rapes (more than six cases every 24 hours)” had occurred that same year (para. 2). The same report noted more than 50,000 cases of family or intimate partner violence (para. 2). In 2022, Mexico ranked as the 15th largest economy in the world; because of this, the country does not fit squarely into the Global South, by some standards (World Population Review, 2022). However, by other standards, Mexico possesses certain characteristics that have prompted groups such as the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing

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World, a UNESCO branch, to include the country as a member (Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World, n.d.). Mexico also has one of the highest disparities of wealth in the world, with nearly 50% of the nation’s wealth being controlled by the top 1% (Mexico News Daily, 2021). Further, according to the International Monetary Fund, the poverty rate in Mexico (42% of the total population) remained “stubbornly high” in 2018, the first year of this chapter’s study (Hannan, 2022). Moreover, violence and femicide figures for the country remain especially high. For these reasons, this chapter argues that Mexico should be considered a part of the Global South.

A Rationale for Examining Mexican News Coverage of Violence Against Women Because Mexico is considered an economic leader in the Global South, other nations observe Mexico to see how it responds to issues beyond the economy and development, including how it manages VAW. Therefore, examining VAW news coverage in Mexico strongly contributes to the growing media studies literature focusing on the Global South. As the problem of violence worsens in Mexico, specifically that of VAW, the media have brought this topic to the forefront of news coverage. Violence occupies more space on the media agenda than poverty and inequality, two other pressing issues in the public discourse. This chapter presents findings from a study that examined news coverage of feminist marches in Mexico from 2018–2020; a specific focus was placed on IWD marches, which took a violent turn in some cases. During this period, the #MeToo movement, which initially began in the United States, unfolded in Mexico—perhaps to an even greater extent in Mexico than in other Latin American countries. In this qualitative case study, we employed the protest paradigm as a theoretical framework and used framing as a methodology to understand if and how VAW news coverage shifts away from the paradigm.

Mexico in the Context of Violence Against Women Latin America has one of the highest rates of violence in the world, including VAW. Together, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Perú, El Salvador, and Bolivia, account for more than 81% of all femicides in Latin America (de Souza Santos et  al., 2022). VAW in Latin America is a

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systemic and perennial problem, and all forms of attacks against women intersect with other social, political, and economic phenomena—such as migration, patriarchy, organized crime, environmental and health conditions, and political or economic power or lack thereof. For example, according to Wilson Center (2021), evidence suggests that “gender-based violence intersects in significant ways with the violence produced by gangs and organized criminal groups” (p. 4). The problem of VAW in Mexico then worsened in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic (Londoño et al., 2021; Murray, 2021), as the social and economic impact of strict lockdowns to curb the virus severely stressed intimate and domestic relationships. This prompted people to perceive VAW as a “shadow pandemic” (Buenos Aires Times, 2021, para. 4). According to some reports, ten women were murdered a day in 2020 (García, 2021). However, in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador attempted to downplay the issue by claiming that 90% of women’s complaints about violent attacks were false (Animal Político, 2020). According to the World Bank (2022), calls to “domestic violence helplines” in Mexico increased by 36% from the previous year.

Waves of Feminist Protests The perennial and persistent problem of VAW in Mexico has prompted widespread protests at the annual IWD marches and elsewhere. These protests have amplified the public discourse throughout the country, including across all platforms in the news media. The surge in media coverage on this topic at the national and local levels, beginning in 2018, marks a shift in past journalistic practices, which in turn demonstrates a pronounced change regarding how news media reported on these movements. Therefore, how these feminist and anti-VAW marches are covered in news media has implications for public support, opposition, or apathy regarding feminist issues and demands. For example, in a study on news coverage of Venezuelan migrants to Mexico, Ramírez-Plascencia (2020) demonstrated how the media can influence public opinions about certain migrants, and how news coverage could help perpetuate negative stereotypes. Further, although legacy media has become increasingly fragmented and social media have gained importance in terms of public agenda and concerns, the general “mainstream” media continue to play an important role in creating legitimacy for protesters’ demands or delegitimizing them (Trivundža & Brlek, 2017, p. 133).

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The past several years in Mexico have witnessed increasingly more feminist protests that have been primarily led by young, middle-class women from Mexico City, Guadalajara, Mérida, Chihuahua City, and other urban centers. Protesters’ demands have centered on addressing rising VAW rates, and protesters have called on authorities to stop the pervasive impunity that provides fertile ground for crimes and abuses. Although femicide has been a serious problem in Mexico City for more than four decades, the problem now affects the entire country, with Mexico state, Jalisco, Veracruz, Mexico City, and Nuevo León having the highest number of femicides.1 Between 2015 and 2022, 5,759 femicides were registered with the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security. This was a dramatic increase from 20 years prior in 2002, when 229 femicides were registered. Additionally, rates for crimes such as sexual harassment, kidnapping, human trafficking, discrimination, and diverse types of abuse against women were also rising in Mexico. According to a national survey, more than 66% of Mexican women have suffered some type of gender violence (INEGI, 2019). The inefficiencies of judicial institutions fostered a climate of impunity, in which almost all perpetrators remain unpunished. This dark scenario has driven broad protests and demonstrations in several parts of the country. In some cases, the protests themselves turned violent, with some male journalists being attacked and injured. This prompted some news outlets to shift their routines by having more women cover women’s marches to promote a more balanced reporting. Concurrently, some women journalists have reported being attacked and harassed by police when they covered protests (Hootsen, 2020).

#MeToo Inspiration to Address Violence Against Women Between 2017 and 2019, the femicide of two students who attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), combined with the increased number of sexual harassment and assault cases within the UNAM, provoked strikes in different schools of the university. The incidents also prompted student groups and feminist collectives to organize national demonstrations and form connections and collaborations with 1  Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security, 2022). Available at: https://drive.google.com/ file/d/1wTFCGwemy37XQCMbOzDMP0xjcBjqnKla/view

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grassroots groups or collectives from other Latin American countries. According to Lucia Álvarez Enríquez (2020), the feminist collectives that emerged within the UNAM in Mexico City have been a key stakeholder, and they helped broaden feminist demonstrations throughout the country. Concurrently, in 2019, the global #MeToo movement generated increased energy and visibility for feminist activism inside and outside the UNAM, which led to numerous widespread and unprecedented demonstrations. The most recent feminist protests were led by younger women; in this sense, higher levels of education have ensured that social media became another critical force in organizing digital and on-the-ground demonstrations in Mexico. The use of hashtags, memes, and other digital resources helped expand the visibility of certain issues and demands. In addition to #MeToo, multiple social media users started using other hashtags, such as #NoMeCuidanMeViolan (“#TheyDon’tDefendMeTheyRapeMe”) to denounce police aggressions against women in Mexico and #NiUnaMás (“#NotOneLessTakenFromUs”) and #VivasNosQueremos (“#WeWantUsAlive”) to demand an end to impunity. Additionally, it was through social media that distinctive characteristics of the Mexican feminist movement were diffused, such as glitter being used during the demonstrations, or songs such as “Un violador en tu camino” (“A rapist in your way”). Additional characteristics included specific feminist-leaning phrases and green and purple handkerchiefs that were worn to show sympathy and support for the movement, which were similar to actions observed in Argentina.

A Day Without Women’s Protests Beyond the influence of the #MeToo movement in Mexico, which several celebrities and public figures joined, two pivotal cases in February 2020 fostered the feminist protests in the country. The first case involved a seven-year-old girl who was brutally killed in Mexico City, while the second involved a young woman named Ingrid Escamilla who was stabbed to death by her ex-partner less than a week after the first case. Images of Ingrid’s body were leaked to the media, and then they were circulated on digital platforms. These two femicides in Mexico City sparked additional outrage and certain reactions on digital platforms, such as the mass posting of beautiful images quoting women’s names to honor their memories

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and lives, and an intentional attempt to neutralize the diffusion of photos depicting Ingrid’s corpse  on search engines. The following month, on March 8, 2020, the largest women’s protest to date unfolded. In the protests, women denounced the increased rate of gender violence and cases of sexual harassment as evidenced by the #MeToo movement on digital platforms like Twitter. Users created specific Twitter accounts for people to lodge anonymous complaints against harassment that occurred in places such as university campuses, media outlets, and artistic circles. More than half a million people attended the protest, which was accompanied by artistic performances, music, and other demonstrations. Beyond this, the protest Un Día Sin Nosotras (“A Day Without Women”) was organized on March 9, 2020. Tens of thousands of women from diverse ideological and socioeconomic backgrounds joined what could be considered a national strike. “A Day Without Women” resulted in an economic loss of 300 million dollars, due to women not participating in the economy that day. Several media outlets referred to this demonstration as an “event of historical importance without precedent” (Beauregard, 2020, para.1). Therefore, the mobilizations that have unfolded since 2018 constitute a watershed moment for the Mexican feminist movement. Although the country has witnessed feminist demonstrations demanding equal opportunities and reproductive rights since the 1970s, it is only in the past few years that denouncing gender violence has been included in the feminists’ demands. It should be noted that several types of feminism converged in these demonstrations, such as radical feminists, liberal feminists, eco-feminists, and separatist feminists. Feminist movements are far from homogeneous, and they possess different degrees of radicalization and approaches to social justice and change. However, the demonstrations in 2018 gradually prompted large-scale and widespread support for the notion that disruption and violence are appropriate methods for addressing and directing attention to the problem of VAW. Feminists in Mexico commonly perceived graffiti and blockades on streets, monuments, and landmarks as a legitimate means for redefining and reappropriating public space. They asserted that rage necessitates confrontation, and that it is considered a statement of zero tolerance for hegemonic patterns of domination. This perception indicates that a radical change is necessary, and that problems will not be rectified through moderate and institutionally based actions.

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Studies Focusing on the News Coverage of Feminist Movements in Mexico Communication and journalism studies scholars have recently indicated a growing interest in understanding how the news media covers social protests in Mexico. For example, Eva Salgado Andrade (2019) and Summer Harlow et al. (2017) examined protests that condemned the Ayotzinapa crimes, in which 43 students were killed in Mexico. Other scholars have investigated digital activism at the time of Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidential inauguration (Rodríguez, 2015). Scholars have also examined demonstrations that were organized by members of the teachers’ unions in Mexico (Rovira-Sancho, 2013). However, minimal research has been conducted thus far on how news coverage of feminist mobilizations varies over time and by media in distinct regions in Mexico, one of the world’s most violent countries for women and journalists. García-González and Bailey Guedes (2020) analyzed a corpus of 757 memes that were recovered from Facebook videos that referred to the feminist performance #ARapistInYourWay, which occurred during the protests in Mexico City on March 8, 2020. These scholars classified memes into 11 categories: mockery of the protest, machista (male chauvinistic) attitudes, anti-rights, pro-feminism, anti-feminist, violence, violence with sexual content, delegitimizing of the feminist movement, criminalization of feminists, pro-human rights, and homophobia. García-González and Bailey Guedes found that the memes published in the context of global feminist protests were primarily characterized as reflections of machista and misogynist values that pervaded Mexican society. Expanding on this research, this chapter’s study addresses the research gap by systematically analyzing media coverage and trends of recent feminist and women-­ dominated IWD protests between 2018 and 2020. Studies such as this advance understanding about shifts in public debates as well as potential shifts in journalism practice regarding feminist issues such as VAW.

Theorizing News Coverage of Protests Although there has been long standing interest in media coverage of social movements, by the 1990s, scholars had identified a different phenomenon as well as a theoretical framework called the “protest paradigm,” as termed by James Hertog and Douglas McLeod (1999, p.  305). In their work, Hertog and McLeod demonstrated how news coverage of protests often contributes to maintaining the status quo. Through the framework, it is

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asserted that media narratives tend to emphasize the drama, inconvenience, and disruption of protests rather than the demands, grievances, and agendas of protesters. These narratives trivialize protests and ultimately diminish the potential for social movements receiving public support. McLeod (2007) illustrated the tensions that exist between media producers and social activists, as well as how the protest paradigm can exacerbate social conflict. This paradigm is relevant for understanding feminist marches in Mexico City and other parts of the country, where protests have sometimes included dramatic elements and protesters have become violent and have defaced public property. Advancing the protest paradigm framework, Danielle Kilgo and Summer Harlow (2019) found that media coverage of protests focusing on racial issues (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter) tended to follow a delegitimizing pattern more than stories about protests related to immigrants’ rights, health, and environment; this demonstrates how some protest movements have more trouble than others in gaining legitimacy. Kilgo and Harlow’s work reaffirmed what previous scholars like Boyle et  al. (2004), Gitlin (1980), and McLeod and Hertog (1992) have found: that the more radical the activist agenda is, the more likely journalists are to adhere to the protest paradigm. In contrast, when demonstrations tended to align with the status quo, journalists were less likely to produce news that reaffirmed the protest paradigm theory. Further, Harlow et al. (2017) demonstrated that there are differences between mainstream and alternative online news coverage, in which mainstream media is more prone to delegitimizing social protests. Geographical influences should also be considered in terms of the protest paradigm and news coverage analyses. In their same 2019 study, Kilgo and Harlow examined the relationship between geography and news coverage, finding that although an event’s proximity to readers influences the amount of news coverage about protests, proximity does not seem to influence the qualitative aspects of reporting. For example, when reporting on anti-Black racism stories, news  items most frequently quoted officials. In contrast, when reporting on health, environment, and immigration protest stories, the news media focused more on quoting protesters, which allowed citizens to speak for themselves and “contribute to a more objective narrative” (Kilgo & Harlow, 2019, p. 522). Historical analyses yield some explanatory power when it comes to understanding the evolution of media coverage of protests in Mexico. In 1968, following the massacre of more than 300 people in the Plaza de Tlatelolco during a protest in Mexico City, television news producers, who

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were surveilled by the government during a period of semi-­authoritarianism, severely downplayed the violence and number of people killed in the melee (Hughes, 2006). By 2008, on the 40th commemoration of the Plaza de Tlatelolco massacre, television news coverage focused on the government’s connections to the tragedy and stated “October 2, never forget” (González de Bustamante, 2016, p.). In the four decades after Tlatelolco, Mexico and the news media landscape had changed, and the nature of news coverage had shifted in turn.

Framing and Qualitative Content Analysis as a Methodology To operationalize framing as a methodology, we adopted Robert Entman’s widely accepted definition: To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating context, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. (Entman, 1993, p. 52).

Studies focusing on protest coverage have also considered the types of news sources that are included in reporting. Specifically, the study in this chapter focused on official versus non-official voices, given the tendency to privilege official sources in news coverage in Latin America and Mexico—where presidents have historically been at the center of the political and public spheres (González de Bustamante, 2012; Guerrero  & Campo, 2012; Hughes, 2006; Lawson, 2002). Mark Bray (2012) argues that even in positive coverage of protest, the media rarely uses protesters’ voices as sources of expertise. Regarding feminist topics, having alternative voices becomes more important because women’s voices have historically been overshadowed by the voices of male public officials, which has led to a stereotyped coverage of these matters (Coates & de Maio, 2019; Radford & Russell, 1992).

Methods for Analyzing News Coverage of Feminist Movements in Mexico Based on the literature documented in this chapter, this study examines variations in media coverage of the IWD women’s marches that occurred in Mexico between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2020. This time

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frame was selected for three reasons. First, it was the peak time of femicides; second, the number of protests increased in Mexico to address VAW during this period; and third, the revitalization of the #MeToo movement beginning in 2017 had seemingly influenced feminist collective actions in Mexico. Specifically, this chapter aims to answer the following research questions: RQ1—How does the news media coverage of feminist protests in Mexico vary across time and media platforms? RQ2—How do media frames for feminist protests in Mexico vary in relation to the geographical region in which they are reported? To better understand how the news media might be adapting their reporting of these events, we relied on an original database of 1007 news articles focusing on feminist protests in Mexico, which were published between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2020. We performed a qualitative content analysis that aimed to identify specific frames of news articles. This allowed us to determine whether changes in news coverage of feminist issues had occurred from 2018–2020, given that feminist movements and organizations have gained increased power and public attention during the #MeToo era. This analysis also focused on determining possible changes or distinctions in news coverage, depending on the geography of news media workers and media outlets. In this case, we compared news coverage that was published by national and local news outlets. In a complex country like Mexico, the 13th largest nation in geographical terms that has more than 120 million inhabitants, great variations have been observed in the media landscape. The dynamics of local media are significantly different from those of the national media in terms of levels of professionalization, education and training  among journalists, journalistic practices and norms, and economic models. Therefore, we considered the subnational realm in our study of news coverage of feminist movements. To answer our research questions, we performed a qualitative content analysis of news articles from a database that was constructed using the InfoLatina Digital Archive of Newspapers. We searched for the following terms between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2020: (\“8M\” OR \“marcha de mujeres\” OR “marcha feminista\” OR \“protesta feminista\” OR \“protesta de mujeres\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“marcha de mujeres\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“marcha feminista\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“protesta feminista\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“protesta de mujeres\”) NOT (\“Colombia\” OR \“Argentina\” OR \“España\” OR \“Chile\” OR

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\“Perú\”).2 We excluded articles that referred to protests occurring in other Latin American countries. This search allowed us to gather an initial sample of 1097 entries. Duplicates and non-relevant articles were removed, which resulted in a final sample of 1007 news articles. The database included 25 newspapers and two national news agencies. Among the news outlets were 12 local outlets and 10 national-level outlets (see Table 5.1). The analysis was divided into two phases. First, we used the original database to conduct a first-level analysis of the news articles’ distribution across time and media platforms. in addition, we determined word frequency for the selected terms across time from 2018 to 2020. The second phase involved creating a subsample by selecting a random sample of 100 news articles from the original database of 1007. We used this subsample to conduct a second-level qualitative content analysis of news frames, and to assess significant differences in news articles across time and geographies in Mexico. Table 5.1  Types and names of news outlets included in the analysis (N = 25) Local newspapers

National print media

National news agencies

Diario de Yucatán Diario de Chihuahua Diario de Tampico El Diario Delicias El Mexicano (Baja California) El Norte (Chihuahua) El Occidental (Jalisco) El Sol (San Luis Potosí) El Sudcaliforniano (Baja California Sur) Mural (Jalisco) Diario de Xalapa (Veracruz) A.M. (Guanajuato)

El Economista El Financiero El Universal Excélsior Milenio Heraldo Reforma Expansión (digital) Este País (magazine) Etcétera (magazine) Proceso (magazine)

EFE Notimex

2  The English search terms were: \“8M\” OR \“women’s march\” OR \“feminist march\” OR \“feminist protest\” OR \“women’s protest\” OR (\“8M\” AND \“women’s march\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“feminist march\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“feminist protest\”) OR (\“8M\” AND \“women’s protest\”) NOT (\“Colombia\” OR \“Argentina\” OR \“Spain\” OR \“Chile\” OR \“Peru\”). In these terms, “8M” is used in reference to March 8, International Women’s Day.

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Exploratory Analysis: News Coverage of Women’s Marches, 2018–2020 The first-level analysis of 1007 news articles revealed that news media coverage of feminist protests had increased from 2018 to 2020. We found 53 articles for 2018 (0.05% of the total sample), 445 for 2019 (44%), and 509 for 2020 (50%). For the period under study, this was an almost 1000% increase in news articles referring to women’s demonstrations (see Graph 5.1). Local media were the most active in terms of covering the subject, with 420 articles (41.7% of total articles), followed by national media with 406 articles (40.3%), agencies with 162 articles (16%), and magazines with 19 articles (1.9%). The analysis addressing the number of news reports by year and media platform revealed that the highest increase in published articles occurred

Graph 5.1  News articles about feminist protests by media type in Mexico (2018–2020)

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in the local news. In 2018, only 15 articles were published in local media; by 2019, these outlets published 182, and then 223 in 2020. This represents an increase of more than 1400%. Only magazines as a news platform indicated a decrease in the number of published articles in 2020.

Evolution of Topics in the News Narrative To obtain a general idea of how the topics discussed in news articles evolved, we analyzed word frequencies. This also allowed us to assess how the content had changed in the period under study. In 2018, the most frequent word when covering these issues was “women,” with 171 mentions, followed by “president,” with 134 mentions (see Table  5.8 in Appendices). We also found that in the 2018 news articles, terms associated with the government dominated the terms used in news coverage. Terms such as “government,” “presidency,” “congress,” and the name and/or surname of Mexico’s president at the time (“Andrés Manuel López Obrador”) were also frequent terms. Additionally, the word “violent” appeared frequently; however, in this phase of the analysis, it was difficult to distinguish whether the word referred to violent acts against women or to violent acts related to the protests. To a lesser extent, the terms “rights” and “feminism” also appeared. When examining articles that were published in 2019, some differences and patterns were detected. The most frequent term used was “women,” with 1361 mentions, followed by “Mexico” with 845 mentions, “march” with 732 mentions, and “violence” with 692 mentions (see Table 5.9 and Table 5.10 in Appendices). Regarding the frequent use of “violence,” it should be noted that Juan Manuel Jiménez—a male reporter who was covering the demonstrations and who worked for MVS, a national outlet based in Mexico City—was violently attacked in the 2019 protests. This aggression attracted much media attention, and even though the perpetrator was male, news articles focused on the riotous element of the IWD march, attributing the attacks against Jiménez to a disruptive environment. Female demonstrators had previously demanded that the march be covered only by female reporters. Of the articles found in 2019, 10.3% referred to the incident, overshadowing the discussion of women’s demands in the process. Another noticeable change included the declining frequency of the word “president,” which only appeared as the 28th most used term for 2019; however, the president’s surname, “López,” and “Obrador” were still distinguishable among the most common words.

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In 2020, the most frequent word used in news articles focusing on the women’s IWD march was “women” with 2640 mentions, followed by “violence” with 971 mentions, “México” with 820 mentions, “demonstration” with 779 mentions, and “march” with 500 mentions. Notably, public officials decreased in relevance when compared to their mentions in 2018 and 2019. Additionally, terms such as “feminism,” “feminists,” “femicide,” and “justice” became more frequently used. Further, the word “strike” (paro) was noted, which referred to the initiative “A Day Without Women,” as well as the term “movement,” which alludes to a more organized and less improvised demonstration. In 2020, the frequency for the term “president” fell to the 53rd place.

Tone, Sources, and Framing of the Protests The second-level analysis involved examining three dimensions of news coverage that focused on women’s demonstrations: tone of the media coverage, source selection, and frames. Following McLeod and Hertog (1999) and Kilgo and Harlow (2019), we chose these three elements to identify implicit or explicit media biases towards women’s IWD demonstrations in Mexico that might influence public support for, or opposition to, feminist movements in the country. We considered three potential tones for the reporting on these demonstrations: negative, positive, and neutral. Further, the sources selected influence a news narrative’s perspective and can strengthen or weaken biases towards women’s protests and feminist movements. Identifying frames is also fundamental for understanding how protests are portrayed in Mexican media, which elements are highlighted, and to what extent the public might support or reject women’s rights to protest. The subsections below discuss each dimension of analysis. As stated, this level of analysis was based on a subsample of 100 news articles that were extracted from the main sample of articles. Tone of the News Media Toward Demonstrations News articles were classified as negative in tone if they dismissed or denied protests or protesters at the annual IWD marches in Mexico between 2018 and 2020. Negative portrayals could refer to conflicts between protesters and security forces, disruptive behavior, damages to buildings and property, and unintended consequences of protests, such as heavy traffic in urban areas. Conversely, articles were considered positive in tone if they

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focused on protesters’ demands and grievances, provided some context to better explain the underlying motivations or justifications for protests (e.g., participant stories), or legitimized the marches. Articles were classified as neutral in tone if they provided data relating to the demonstrations without including any judgment (e.g., the size of the march, which collectives or activist organizations attended the protests), or if they focused on public policies. As outlined in Table  5.2, after analyzing the tone that news reports exhibited toward the IWD demonstrations by year, our findings revealed that over the course of the selected three-year period, more negative news articles were published in 2019. As was previously mentioned, the media mainly focused on violence and disruption in 2019, which was motivated by events such as the attack against male reporter Juan Manuel Jiménez from MVS. Therefore, 55% of the articles that were published in 2019 included some negative portrayal of protests. In contrast, in 2020, the number of negative articles dropped to 25% of the total, and positive news articles represented 63% of the total. The following sentence from an article published in El Diario de Xalapa (2019) offers a representative example of a positive news article in 2019: Women of Veracruz demand legal and safe abortion. They argue that violence is growing and that most violent acts committed against women go unpunished. (para.1).

Conversely, A.M. Newspaper published an article in 2019 that included the following sentence, which was categorized as negative: Juan Manuel Jiménez (news reporter) was successfully operated on after being beaten by an alleged infiltrator during the women’s march. Jiménez was at the demonstration when a hit in the face caused him a quadruple nasal septum fracture, according to the medical report. (A.M., 2019, para.1). Table 5.2  Tone of news articles by year in Mexican Media (2018–2020)

2018 2019 2020 Total

Positive

Negative

Neutral

3 13 34 50

0 24 14 38

0 6 6 12

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Table 5.3  Tone of news articles by type of media in Mexico (2018–2020)

Agency Local Newspaper Magazine National Newspaper Total

Positive

Negative

Neutral

6 25 3 16 50

5 14 0 19 38

1 7 0 4 12

Regarding the different types of media included in the subsample (see Table  5.3), national newspapers in Mexico included the most negative coverage, accounting for 44% of the total of negative news articles in the sample. Articles published by local media news outlets represented the majority of positive news articles (50% of the total). As previously mentioned, the local media’s interest in protest matters shifted abruptly from 2018 to 2020; this is especially true for 2019, in which not only did local media cover local demonstrations, but their news coverage also focused on events that occurred in other major cities. Source Selection and Predominant Voices When covering protests, the news media often depend on the testimonies of certain sources. Even though diverse perspectives are desirable for more balanced published reports, research that uses the protest paradigm (McLeod 2007) demonstrated that the media outlets tend to prioritize official sources when covering social protests. In Mexico’s media landscape, in which political and official voices are especially prominent in news coverage (Hughes, 2006; Lawson, 2002), we considered five types of sources: public officials, citizens unrelated to the protests, women protesters, neutral items (e.g., articles referring to figures and data without adding opinions), and other societal voices (e.g., religious authorities, academics, public figures). After analyzing sources by year, we found that even though women’s voices gained relevance over time, government officials were still the most frequently cited sources in news coverage of protests, accounting for 34% of the news articles. This was followed by articles that did not explicitly cite any source, which accounted for 33% of the news articles. Protesters were cited in 22% of the news items (just over one in five). This trend confirms the tendency of Mexican media outlets to

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Table 5.4  Local and national news sources by year

2018 2019 2020 Total

Government

Neutral

Women

Citizens

Others

1 17 16 33

0 11 21 32

1 9 12 22

1 4 4 7

0 3 1 4

privilege the government’s narratives over others in news coverage focusing on public affairs. However, it should be noted that contrary to what McLeod’s (2007, p.  187) protest paradigm framework contends, the Mexican media did not appear to use public opinion or civic voices to highlight deep differences between protesters and mainstream society when they covered women’s demonstrations (Table 5.4). Surprisingly, local newspapers included more quotations from women (including women protesters’ testimonies) than any other type of media, accounting for 68% of total articles. Official statements were cited most frequently in national newspapers. Below, we noted two representative examples: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador supported the decision of the head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, not to use the public force in the violent acts that took place in the feminist march last Friday. (Notimex, 2019, para.1) SEGOB (Ministry of Internal Affairs) calls to avoid vandalism in feminist demonstration. Olga Sánchez Cordero (Minister of Internal Affairs) said that the demonstration is not condemned, but made a call to avoid falling into violence. (Excélsior, 2019, para. 1).

Concurrently, we noted that the two examples above of women in news articles also include women in political or governmental office, which further demonstrates how journalists rely heavily on official sources (Table 5.5). Frames Finally, our study sought to identify the most common frames used when reporting on feminist protests. McLeod and Hertog (1999) proposed several categories for analyzing the news articles in relation to the protest

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Table 5.5  News media sources based on media type in Mexico (2018–2020)

Agency Local newspaper Magazine National newspaper Total

Government

Neutral

Women

Citizens

Others

7 7 1 18 33

3 19 0 10 32

1 15 2 4 22

1 3 0 5 7

0 2 0 2 4

paradigm, including reliance on officials, the invocation of public opinion, and “delegitimization” and “demonization.” The following key frames formed the basis of the four categories used by Kilgo and Harlow’s (2019) work, which followed McLeod and Hertog (1999): confrontation, riot, spectacle, and debate. Following the first-level analysis of our larger sample, we added an additional frame to our study—“politicization”—because of the frequent presence of politicians as sources or as protagonists in the sample articles. Additionally, we adapted the definition of the spectacle frame to include news articles that referred to public figures. The five frames identified in this study can be described as follows: 1. Confrontation. News articles were classified with this frame if they described protests as combative, focused on arrests or protesters, or “clashed” with police or opposition from other citizens or groups. 2. Politicization. News articles were classified with this frame if they emphasized governmental actions directed at the demonstrations, or if they highlighted the statements and opinions of public officials in relation to an issue. 3. Debate. News articles were classified with this frame if they focused on protester demands, agendas, and goals, provided space to explore protester grievances and/or context to better understand the motivations underlying the protests, or offered legitimizing characteristics. 4. Riot. News articles were classified with this frame if they stressed turbulent behavior and damages to private property or street buildings and infrastructure. 5. Spectacle. News articles were classified with this frame if they dramatically and or sensationally referred to public figures who attended demonstrations or presented their thoughts on feminist matters (e.g., actors, singers, influencers, news presenters).

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After analyzing the news frames that the study’s selected Mexican media used for their news coverage by year, we identified a sharp increase in the use of legitimizing narratives (debate frame). The number rose from two articles in 2018 to 22 in 2020. Concurrently, coverage that focused on riots (riot frame) were the most frequent, accounting for 42% of the total articles analyzed, in which 2019 had more articles referring to disruptions and/or damages. The following quotation represents the articles that employed a riot frame: Fires, broken glass and assaults; This was the chaos caused by hooded groups, mostly made up mostly of women in Mexico City. What pointed to a peaceful day in defense of women's rights ended with vandalized monuments, a strong police mobilization and even injured reporters. (El Heraldo, 2019, para. 1). When articles cited politicians as a main source in the Mexican news reports that included the riot frame, they frequently adopted a patronizing stance and highlighted the tolerance of public officers. Two examples are provided below: As a consequence of the acts of vandalism perpetrated by women members of various organizations at the Insurgentes Metrobús station, Roberto Capuano, director of Metrobus, reported that after the serious damage to the station, it will remain closed until further notice to avoid any accident. (El Universal, 2019, para. 1). The Secretary of Public Security of Nuevo León, Aldo Fasci Zuazua, ruled out that the government will not apply sanctions against the women who made graffiti during the feminist march on the occasion of March 8. Fasci highlighted the tolerance that society and the governments of the Mexican state have had in the face of the climate of gender violence that has occurred in recent times. (Notimex, 2020, para. 1).

As noted in Table 5.6, comparing news frames by media type revealed that the local newspapers in Mexico showed a distinction from national-­ level publications, with 41% of news articles emphasizing riot. However, the same number of items presented a narrative regarding the debates and substantive topics. Almost half of all news articles in national newspapers that were analyzed included a riot frame (47%), as depicted in Table 5.7. The riot frame emerged as the predominant narrative among national-­ level media—which was especially the case in 2019, when 88% of the total items that were published included riot frames.

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Table 5.6  News frames used by all 25 Mexican media outlets by year (2018–2020)

2018 2019 2020 Total

Riot

Debate

Politicization

Confrontation

Spectacle

0 27 15 42

2 10 22 34

1 3 11 15

0 2 4 6

0 1 2 3

Table 5.7  Type of news frame by type of media and year (2018–2020)

2018

2019

2020

Agencies Local Magazines National Agencies Local Magazines National Agencies Local Magazines National TOTAL

Riot

Debate

Polarization

Confrontation

Spectacle

0 0 0 0 3 9 0 15 1 10 0 4 42

0 1 0 1 0 8 0 2 3 10 1 8 34

0 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 3 1 1 6 15

0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 3 0 1 6

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 3

A Paradigm Shift, or Too Early to Tell? Our findings suggest that between 2018 and 2020, the news media in Mexico both locally and nationally appeared to have changed—that is, they experienced a learning process that led to more nuanced and sensitive but less confrontational coverage of the women’s demonstrations. We offer explanations for some of the changes observed in news coverage and answer whether these changes signify a notable shift away from the protest paradigm. We noted that the trend of relying on public officials as sources decreased from 2018 to 2020. Additionally, terms such as “feminism,” “feminists,” “femicide,” and “justice” became more frequently used (see Graph 5.4). These alterations signal that the news media in Mexico is

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moving in the appropriate direction in terms of news coverage of women’s IWD marches. Although our study did not specifically examine the connections between the #MeToo movement and the news coverage of feminist movements in Mexico, it noted that the #MeToo movement gained traction in Mexico during the period under study (2018–2020)—to an even larger extent than in other parts of Latin America. This study thus noted that the #MeToo movement was part of the context in which feminist protests unfolded. However, further research should be conducted to determine whether the shift noted above has occurred in other aspects of VAW news coverage, such as sexual assault and femicide. The changes observed in this case study are valuable because news narratives can strengthen or weaken biases towards women’s protests and the overall feminist movement. One highly surprising result in our study was obtained from our analyses of local versus national news coverage. The local media was more sympathetic than the national news media toward feminists’ demands, even though the national media has historically been more prone to understanding and communicating women’s demands (see Tables 5.5 and 5.6). Although Kilgo and Harlow (2019) found that an event’s proximity to readers influenced news coverage in terms of the quantity but not quality of news reports produced, our research suggests that both quantity and quality were influenced by geography—though perhaps not in the way scholars would expect (see Table 5.5). The quality of local news focusing on women’s IWD marches from 2018 to 2020 was much more nuanced over time compared to national news, which improved slightly but still adhered more closely to traditional reporting practices. For example, national news relied more heavily on government sources than local news. One explanation for this could be that most high-ranking public officials are in the nation’s capital, where nationallevel media are also based. From a theoretical perspective, the study in this chapter found that in specific circumstances, journalists in the 25 Mexican media outlets that were analyzed could deviate from the protest paradigm. According to McLeod (2007), this usually occurs when “covering a group that has goals and tactics that are more consistent with mainstream public opinion and more acceptable to political elites” (p. 191). However, our study found that this is not always the case.

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Regarding the changes in news coverage related to women’s IWD marches between 2018 and 2020, we offer two specific explanations. The first explanation relates to Mexican society at large. Over the past decades, feminist demands have expanded in Mexico and throughout Latin America. In the case of Mexico, feminist movements must be considered from regional perspectives. Further, the last several years have revealed that women’s demands have gained importance in states outside the capital of Mexico City. Social and digital media, including all forms of online hashtag activism, have helped foster feminist movements in the so-called provinces. Concurrently, national movements such as #NiUnaMenos (“#NotOneLess”), #NoMeCuidanMeViolan (“#TheyDon’tDefendMeT heyRapeMe”), #NiUnaMás (“#NotOneMore”), and #VivasNosQueremos (“#WeWantUsAlive”) and international-level movements such as #MeToo has raised awareness about women’s demands in various parts of the country. Public opinion has concomitantly and gradually become more sensitive to journalists who cover these issues in this study’s 25 selected media outlets. Journalists in Mexico appear to be reacting positively toward more nuanced news coverage that condemns the stigmatization of VAW. We propose that in response to changing public attitudes, these media outlets are adjusting journalistic practices to coincide with prevailing opinions. Further, we suggest that a similar phenomenon that occurred in the news coverage of the Tlatelolco massacre could also be unfolding in the context of Mexican journalists who reported on the March 8 women’s IWD marches (González de Bustamante, 2016). In brief, shifts in Mexican news coverage could be less linked to a paradigm shift in journalism practice and routines and more connected to societal transformations and activists’ movements aiming to address decade-long VAW. The second explanation for why the media coverage of women’s IWD marches in Mexico has improved relates to the journalism community and growing number of journalist-led collectives and networks that have emerged over the past decade in the country. Many of these organizations in almost every state were founded by and are led by women (González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021). Some of these women-led networks (redes) include Pie de Página, Periodistas de a Pié, Red de Periodistas de Juárez, Red de Periodistas de Sonora, Red de Mujeres Periodistas de Tamaulipas, and Voz Alterna. The presence of women in newsrooms in Global South Mexico is mostly limited to low and middle-level positions; however, the

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women-led networks—which emerged as a counter-reaction to the violence directed at Mexican journalists—are known to have influenced journalists throughout the nation. The second explanation also relates to changes in news media routines that influenced news coverage. As Brown and Harlow (2020) demonstrated, journalistic norms and values influence how protests are covered, and there is some persuasive evidence that these values are changing at least partially in some Mexican news outlets. There is a growing presence of young female reporters in newsrooms who are more aware of feminist demands, and who have advocated for improving practices when covering these issues. They might have been influenced by #MeToo and other large-scale women-led movements, such as #NiUnaMenos in Argentina. Additionally, from 2018 to 2020, several of the 25 Mexican media outlets opted for providing training in gender-sensitive journalism, avoiding biased coverage of women’s demands, and increasing the quantity of female reporters who are assigned to report on feminist protests.

Conclusion The research presented in the chapter has demonstrated that McLeod’s (2007) protest paradigm is a useful conceptual framework for studies focusing on news coverage of feminist movements in Mexico. This study has revealed that adherence to the protest paradigm from 2018 to 2020 among the 25 Mexican media outlets greatly varied across regions and types. Other key findings highlighted a shift away from the protest paradigm, especially and most surprisingly at local news outlets. Additionally, our study’s findings indicate a relationship between geography and tone, news sources, and frames—which notably differs from the findings of other scholars (Kilgo & Harlow, 2019). This study found that 2020 was a key year for the feminist movement. This year not only observed the largest women’s protest to date but also the feminist movement in Mexico demonstrating an impressive capacity for collective action, including the organization of activities that transcended the limits of the protest itself (e.g., 9M women’s strike). Finally, we suggest that context and historical contingencies influence the patterns of coverage regarding Mexico’s IWD marches and other issues related to femicide and VAW discourse.

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Suggestions for Future Research This research has only considered the context of news coverage from 2018 to 2020. The focus on this period is justified, considering that it observed the largest protests to date and that the feminist movements in Mexico experienced significant growth; however, further assessing how the post-­ COVID-­19 pandemic years have influenced the movement and how this is reflected in news coverage is critical. We thus suggest that further research be conducted to fully understand the recent changes in news coverage that focuses on women’s demands and feminist movements in other Latin American countries and parts of the Global South. Although it is generally believed that the pandemic-related lockdowns affected the initial power of 2020 feminist movement activities, more research is needed to evaluate the relationship between COVID-19 and media coverage of feminist protests and movements in Latin America during the #MeToo era. Further analysis should also be performed to discern whether women-led news outlets in Mexico have more rapidly shifted towards providing more assertive and nuanced coverage of women’s grievances and demands for the purpose of addressing the persistent problems of femicide and VAW. Further research could also assess whether having a larger proportion of female reporters in Mexican news outlets who cover women’s protests from a gendered perspective would result in more diverse sources and the use of debate frames instead of riot frames. This chapter illuminated the media landscape in Mexico, in which journalistic practices are in flux, and demonstrated the prevailing differences between media types and those between national and local news outlets. Other methodologies such as in-depth interviews and ethnographic work could be used to help discover how and why news coverage of women’s demonstrations in Mexico has changed and how journalists perceive their work influencing public opinion. Although we acknowledge some positive changes, we also recognize that there is ample room for improving the news coverage of feminist demonstrations and VAW in general in this part of the Global South. By describing key trends and patterns of news coverage, we hope that our work might inspire continued scholarship in this area, as well as provide valuable insights for those who continue to cover VAW and related issues in Mexico and beyond.

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Appendices Table 5.8  Ten most frequent words in 2018

Table 5.9  Ten most frequent words in 2019

Weight

Word

171 134 104 95 95 94 91 79 74

mujeres presidente ayer contra gobierno país años mil han

Weight

Word

1361 845 732 692 652 515 427 388 387

mujeres México marcha violencia contra Ciudad este durante gobierno

Note. The “president” appeared in 28th place.

Table 5.10  Ten most frequent words in 2020

Weight

Word

2640 971 820 779 717 563 500 436 385

mujeres violencia México marcha contra este marzo género día

Note. The “president” appeared in 53rd place; terms like “femicide” and “feminist” appear in top places (23rd and 24th places, respectively).

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lapa.com.mx/local/red-­de-­mujeres-­feministas-­de-­veracruz-­demandan-­aborto-­ legal-­y-­seguro-­4050383.html El Diario de Yucatán (2019, November 26). Seguirán en las calles. Caos y vandalismo durante la marcha de las feministas [They will continue on the streets. Chaos and vandalism during the march of feminists], El Diario de Yucatán, https://www.yucatan.com.mx/mexico/2019/11/26/seguiran-­e n-­l as-­ calles-­152395.html El Heraldo (2019, August 16). Protesta de mujeres sale de control por disturbios [Women's protest gets out of control due to riots], El Heraldo. El Universal (2019, August 16). Cierran Metrobús Insurgentes hasta nuevo aviso tras marcha feminista [Insurgent’s Metrobus closed until further notice after feminist march], El Universal, https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/metropoli/ cdmx/cierran-­metrobus-­insurgentes-­hasta-­nuevo-­aviso-­tras-­marcha-­feminista Entman, R. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-­ 2466.1993.tb01304.x Excélsior (2019, November 26), Segob llama a evitar vandalismo en manifestación feminista [Segob calls to avoid vandalism in feminist demonstration], Excélsior, https://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/segob-­llama-­a-­evitar-­vandalismo-­ en-­manifestacion-­feminista/1349811 García, A.  K. (2021, February 13). Sólo en los primeros seis meses del 2020 fueron asesinadas 1,844 mujeres en México: Inegi [Only in the first six months of 2020, 1,844 women were murdered in Mexico: Inegi]. El Economista. https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/politica/Solo-­e n-­l os-­p rimeros-­s eis-­ meses-­d el-­2 020-­f ueron-­a sesinadas-­1 844-­m ujeres-­e n-­M exico-­I negi-­ 20210213-­0002.html García-González, L. A., & Bailey Guedes, O. (2020). La Protesta Feminista #8M 2020 en México a Través de La Participación de Comentarios en YouTube. Conexión, 14, 103–128. https://doi.org/10.18800/conexion.202002.005 Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left. University of California Press. https://www.ucpress. edu/book/9780520239326/the-­whole-­world-­is-­watching González de Bustamante, C. (2012). “Muy buenas noches,” Mexico, Television and the Cold War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska-­paperback/9780803240100/ González de Bustamante, C. (2016). “Memorias del ’68: Media, Massacre, and the Construction of Collective Memories.” In J.  Dart and S.  Wagg (Eds.), Sport, Protest and Globalisation. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer. com/book/10.1057/978-­1-­137-­46492-­7 González de Bustamante, C., & Relly, J. (2021). Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-First Century. University of Texas Press.

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de Souza Santos, D., Bittencourt, E.  A., de Moraes Malinverni, A.  C., Barreto Kisberi, J., de França Vilaça, S., & Miazato Iwamura, E. S. (2022). Domestic violence against women during the Covid-19 pandemic: A scoping review. Forensic Science International: Reports, 5, 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. fsir.2022.100276 Trivundža, I., & Brlek, S. (2017). Looking for Mr Hyde: The Protest Paradigm, Violence and (de)Legitimation of Mass Political Protests. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 13(1), 131–148. https://doi.org/10.1386/ macp.13.1-­2.131_1 World Bank. (2022, March 31). Addressing the impact of COVID-19 on GBV: An ongoing challenge for 2022. https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2022/ 03/30/the-­i ncidence-­o f-­g ender-­b ased-­v iolence-­i n-­l atin-­a merica-­a nd-­ the-­caribbean World Population Review. (2022). Global South countries 2022. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-­rankings/global-­south-­countries

PART III

Sub-Saharan Africa

CHAPTER 6

Reporting on Rape Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa During the #MeToo Era Dinfin Mulupi

and Lindsey Blumell

Introduction The 2017 viral #MeToo hashtag uniquely exposed the magnitude of sexual misconduct and sex crime within society, inspiring public discourse, legal interventions, political action, and mass media coverage, especially in the Global North (Loney-Howes et  al., 2021). In Africa, activists have challenged rape culture and sexual violence through digital movements, such as #MenareTrash and #EndRapeCulture in South Africa, #MyDressMyChoice and #JusticeForLiz in Kenya, and #ArewaMetoo in Nigeria. In this context, in which survivors talked back, naming and shaming perpetrators, it is worth examining whether news coverage patterns

D. Mulupi (*) Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Blumell City, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_6

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have shifted to align with the intensified level of anti-rape activism. This chapter analyzes news content that has been published by nine newspapers in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, with the content focusing on sexual misconduct that involved three prominent men. We focus on sexual misconduct that rose to awareness after 2017, when the #MeToo movement was revitalized. It involved Kenyan politician Mithika Linturi who was a senator affiliated with the then ruling Jubilee Party, Nigerian celebrity pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo, and South African politician Pule Mabe, who was then national spokesman for the African National Congress (ANC) party. The three men occupy powerful positions in African society and have been accused of several sex crimes, including attempted rape (Linturi), rape (Fatoyinbo), and sexual harassment (Mabe). Kenyan former  senator Linturi was on trial until October 2022 when the case was withdrawn after he reached an out of court settlement with the complainant shortly after he was nominated to a Cabinet position, while an Abuja court dismissed a civil suit against Nigerian pastor Fatoyinbo in November 2019 because the statute of limitations had expired. South African politician Mabe has not faced criminal charges regarding the sexual harassment complaints made by his former personal assistant. However, South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, conducted an internal trial and dismissed the charges made against Mabe because of lack of evidence. In March 2019, Mabe filed fraud charges against his accuser at a Johannesburg police station, claiming that the victim had fabricated her academic qualifications.

Context of This Study Although the scourge of VAW is common worldwide, incident rates are higher in the Global South compared to the Global North (Bull et  al., 2020) because of several economic, cultural, and political factors that are unique to the Global South region. Like many Global South contexts, Kenyan, Nigerian, and South African societies are characterized by male supremacy and traditional gender roles (Shoola, 2014). Kenya and Nigeria rank especially poorly on gender parity, though poor gender parity is a common factor among Global South countries (World Economic Forum, 2021). Sexual violence is also prevalent in these three countries (Ezechi et al., 2016; Kimuna & Djamba, 2008; Sibanda-Moyo et al., 2017), and it is exacerbated by the unique realities of life in sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty, property ownership, and access to financial services are highly gendered experiences in the region, and these factors are often associated

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with characteristics of the Global South (Aterido et al., 2013; Whitehead & Lockwood, 1999). Further, cultural norms such as female genital mutilation, arranged marriages, and lobola (“bride price”) legitimate violence and trap women in abusive relationships. These cultural and material power imbalances ensure that women are frequently unable to negotiate sexual practices (Njiru, 2014). Since sexual and gender violence are normalized in the Global South, the news media underprioritize reporting on this topic (Ekweonu, 2020). In the unique times when women do report sexual violence, the news media typically focuses on acts of extreme brutality that are sensationalized and framed as exceptional (Moorti, 2018; Tambe, 2021). The prevalence of sexual violence in the Global South is also exacerbated by war and conflict, authoritarian regimes, and state involvement in the abuse of women and LGBTQ+ communities (Al Ali, 2020). For example, periods of post-election violence and ethnic or religious clashes in Kenya and Nigeria have been marked with widespread sexual violence (Krause, 2020), while the rape of Black women was minimized and normalized in apartheid South Africa (Armstrong, 1994). Further, security agencies offer little reprieve to the suffering of women, given that police and military officers in the three countries also have a history of sexually abusing women (Human Rights Watch, 2021; Odoemene, 2011; Stern, 2020). State involvement in the abuse of women is often underreported in the media, and it is typically revealed only when exposed by humanitarian agencies (Human Rights Watch, 2021). The historical legacies of apartheid and colonization continue to shape how sexual violence is inflicted, understood, and resisted in the Global South. Gender relations in African societies were permanently altered by colonialism from the Global North (Oyěwùmí, 1997). In South Africa, the pervasiveness of rape is similar to the racial stratification of the apartheid era, which legitimized the abuse of Black women’s bodies (Armstrong, 1994) and the use of rape “to inscribe subordinate status” on women (Moffett, 2006, p. 129). Further, efforts to counter rape culture sometimes draw on racist notions that demonize Black men (Moffett, 2006) and ignore the abuse of minority women and other marginalized groups. This exemplifies the enduring influence of race, caste, and class in contemporary approaches to fighting sexual violence in the Global South (Iqani & Resende, 2018). The status of free speech and a free press also influence the fight against sexual violence in the Global South. Regarding free speech, defamation

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laws silence victims and hamper news reporting (Nagaraj, 2021). Countries in the Global South typically rank poorly on press freedom, but Africa was described in 2021 as “the most violent continent for journalists” (Reporters without Borders, n.d., para. 12). Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa also have a history of state and political interference in media operations. Additionally, gender hierarchies that favor men are dominant within Nigerian and Kenyan newsrooms (Blumell & Mulupi, 2021, 2022). The next subsection will outline this chapter’s theoretical framework.

Rape Culture The term “rape culture” was coined in the 1970s during the second wave of feminism to describe the pervasiveness and normalization of sexual violence. Emilie Buchwald et al. (1993) further define rape culture as a set of beliefs, values, and attitudes that encourage male sexual aggression and condone physical and emotional violence against women as typical. Although all genders experience sexual violence, women account for the majority of those affected (Johnson, & Johnson, 2017). As Martha Burt (1980) described, rape culture is a pervasive societal ideology “that effectively supports or excuses sexual assault” through false myths and stereotypes (p. 218).

Rape Myths Rape myths are a part of rape culture. They constitute false beliefs, stereotypes, and prejudices regarding rape, victims, and perpetrators (Burt, 1980). Payne et  al. (1999) identified seven rape myths overall, which included “she asked for it,” “he didn’t mean to,” and “rape is a trivial event” (p. 60). Rape myths permeate most sections of society and are so powerful that victims of sexual violence often minimize the attack, excuse the perpetrator’s behavior, and draw “on social vocabularies that suggest male sexual aggression is natural, normal … or the victim’s fault” (Weiss, 2009, p. 810). Disturbingly, some professionals who serve sexual violence victims, such as medical personnel and the police, endorse rape myths and withhold care from the victims they deem to be ingenuine (Ferdowsian et al., 2016; Meyer, 2010). This exemplifies the overwhelming normalization of rape culture within society that frames victims as either liars or somehow responsible for their abuse. Ultimately, in this context of victim

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disbelieving, shaming, and ostracizing, many cases of sexual violence go unreported. Media Coverage of the Rape Culture A considerable amount of research has interrogated the presence of rape culture in the news, especially from a Global North perspective (Blumell & Mulupi, 2022; Bonnes, 2013; Franiuk et al., 2008). Overall, the news media engages in reporting tactics that perpetuate rape culture by presenting myths and stereotypes that encourage male supremacy and acts of violence against women. These patterns have been observed in African news coverage. For example, Bonnes (2013) investigated the South African newspaper Grocott’s Mail and observed that the use of passive tone in reporting de-emphasized the perpetrator and engaged in victim blaming. Ndhlovu (2020) inquired into Zimbabwean news coverage of cases of sexual violence committed by religious leaders and illustrated that the press reframed some rape complaints as consensual sex orchestrated by sexually starved women, in which they also blamed victims for “consulting dubious self-styled prophets” (p.  810). Similarly, Kenyan newspapers advance misogynistic tropes that frame victims as “promiscuous gold diggers” (King’ori & Nyanoti 2021, p.  232), while Nigerian newspapers sometimes absolve rapists by shifting blame to other factors, such as alcohol (Oludayo & Udechukwu, 2018).

Anti-rape Culture, Digital Activism, and Media Coverage Blumell and Mulupi (2022) described anti-rape culture as “the rejection of all forms of sexual abuse and the denouncement of rape myths and patriarchal power structures” (p.  502). Previous scholarship that mentioned the term “anti-rape culture” typically highlights anti-rape activism led by victims (Garcia & Vemuri, 2017; Mendes et al., 2019). Within an anti-rape framework, sexual violence is perceived as an act of power rather than sex, and the pervasiveness of rape culture within society is acknowledged and challenged. Anti-rape activists perceive sexual violence not as the action of a few pathological individuals but as a societal problem. They seek to change societies on the system level, which includes working to dismantle patriarchy and normative understandings of sex and gender identities (Garcia & Vemuri, 2017; Kelland, 2016).

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Digital platforms have become critical tools for anti-rape and sexual violence activism in the past two decades throughout the Global North and Global South. They have enabled grassroots mobilization and collaborative resistance to occur beyond cultural, linguistic, and geographical barriers. Early initiatives such as HollaBack!, which started in the United States (US) in 2005, and Slutwalk, which emerged in Canada in 2011, resonated worldwide and helped champion online and offline resistance against street harassment and slut-shaming. Other notable digital feminist initiatives include #Nirbhaya, #Cuéntalo, #BringBackOurGirls, #YesAllWomen, #BeenRapedNeverReported, and #Everyday Sexism. These initiatives have used innovative methods of documenting the extent of sexual violence in society, in which they turned individual women’s experiences into a collective concern and political movement (Loney-­ Howes et al., 2021). News coverage that features anti-rape culture must counter rape myths and contextualize sexual violence as a societal problem that is bolstered by cultural norms and gendered systems of inequality. An anti-rape culture index developed by the authors of this chapter to research news coverage in Global North and Global South contexts encompasses four variables: (a) support for victims/complainants, (b) mention of rape culture and acknowledgment of (c) the systemic problem of rape and (d) male power dominance in society (Blumell & Mulupi, 2022, p. 497). Comparisons of news coverage of sexual violence before and after the revitalization of #MeToo in 2017 reveals mixed patterns, especially from the Global North. For example, some mainstream US newspapers have eliminated victim blaming in their news reporting, but they still emphasize single-incident reports and perpetrator-focused blame attribution (Noetzel et al., 2022).

Current Study The chapter contributes to the literature by focusing on news coverage in three African countries after the #MeToo movement revitalized in 2017. As already noted, we use three case studies of high-profile men in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa who have been accused of sexual misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to rape. In the Kenyan case, Linturi, who was then a senator and is now Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Development, was charged with entering an unidentified woman’s hotel room in January 2021 and attempting to rape her. Pastor Fatoyinbo faced a civil suit, in which Nigerian photographer Busola

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Dakolo attested that he raped her twice when she was a 16-year-old teenager. As for the South African case, African politician Pule Mabe was accused by his former personal assistant, Kgoerano Kekana, of making demands for sex and slashing her salary when she refused to meet his demands. This chapter was guided by the following the research question: how are rape culture and anti-rape culture enacted in news content?

Research Methodology The study in the chapter includes a qualitative analysis of 102 newspaper articles that were published by nine national newspapers based in Kenya (Daily Nation, The Standard, and The Star), Nigeria (The Nation and Vanguard), and South Africa (The Sowetan, Mail & Guardian, The Star, and Daily Dispatch). We used the purposeful sampling method, which is commonly used in qualitative research to identify and select information-­ rich relevant cases (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). We analyzed all the relevant data that was collected for the majority of the newspapers. However, The Nation in Nigeria had an unusually large sample of 100, from which we selected the first 25 articles. Table  6.1 presents a breakdown of the sampled articles from the newspapers. Data was collected via the LexisNexis database whenever possible and from the individual websites of news organizations. The key search terms were the names of the accused perpetrator (“Pastor Fatoyinbo,” “Mabe,” or “Senator Linturi”) and the term “rape” or “sexual harassment.” The time frames differed for each case study, with emphasis placed on covering the period during which a complaint was made up to the conclusion of court or disciplinary proceedings whenever possible. Consequently, the time frame for Fatoyinbo’s case was June 28, Table 6.1 Newspapers analyzed in this study (n = 9)

Newspaper The Sowetan Mail & Guardian The Star Daily Dispatch The Nation The Vanguard The Daily Nation The Star The Standard

Sample Size Country 15 6 8 5 25 15 8 14 6

South Africa South Africa South Africa South Africa Nigeria Nigeria Kenya Kenya Kenya

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2019, to December 31, 2019, and December 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019, for Mabe’s case. Since Linturi’s case was still pending at the time of research, data were collected from August 16, 2022, when the case first became public, to May 31, 2022.

Findings Rape Culture Narratives  abricated Lies for Political and Religious Persecution F The most dominant rape culture discourse among the sampled articles was the rape myth, “she lied” (Payne et al., 1999), which alleged perpetrators and their surrogates employed to not only dismiss the sex crimes complaints but also to position the three accused perpetrators (Fatoyinbo, Mabe, and Linturi) as victims of malicious lies that political and religious enemies orchestrated. For example, Linturi presented himself as the victim of an “extortion plot taken too far” and was quoted in Kenya’s Daily Nation accusing police and prosecutors of having “hatched a scheme, in conspiracy with the complainant and other prosecution witnesses, to make me the assailant and the extorters the victims” (Wangui, 2022, para. 25). The article ran with the headline “I’m the victim, Linturi tells court in rape case” (Wangui, 2022, headline). Another Daily Nation article quoted Linturi as presenting himself as a political martyr, in which he claimed that the police were trying to “cripple and intimidate” him ahead of elections (Wangui, 2021a, para. 21). These defense mechanisms used by Linturi and published in 14 of the 28 sampled Kenyan articles thus reframed the complaints of attempted rape as lies and advanced a narrative in which the accused perpetrator was now the victim. Similar narratives appeared in South African newspaper coverage, especially through the sourcing of ANC politicians who were quoted as claiming that the complaints  made against Mabe—which were promptly followed by rape claims against Zizi Kodwa, who had replaced Mabe as acting national party spokesman—were politically instigated. For example, The Star quoted a party leader who stated that the ANC central committee had “warned against the apparent use of allegations of gender-based violence in factional leadership battles” (Maqhina & Ndaba, 2019, para. 5). Similarly, a Mail & Guardian story focusing on Kodwa and Mabe’s resignation quoted Kodwa as stating that the complaints  against him were

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“dirty tricks by cowards … using women to fight or neutralize me” (Kekana, 2019, para. 16). Political sources thus dismissed women’s complaints of sexual violence as malicious falsehoods and ploys to fight political battles. Conversely, Nigerian coverage advanced the narrative of “organized blackmail” and religious persecution. Fatoyinbo was quoted in the Vanguard defending himself by stating that he was being used “as a scapegoat” to launch attacks against his church (Jannamike, 2019, para. 7). Several articles presented this claim—that jealous pastors and other religious enemies were behind Busola Dakolo’s rape complaints against Fatoyinbo. Meanwhile, the Vanguard quoted sources who straightforwardly accused Dakolo of lying, referring to her as “a woman that just obviously needs fame” (Agbana, 2019a, para. 4) and who had “fabricated the entire story to garner sympathy” (Vanguard, 2019, para. 8).  on’t Rape “Another Man’s Wife” D The emergence of rape culture was influenced by how victim and survivors’ relationships with men were presented in media coverage, suggesting that some forms of rape are excusable. This was especially evident in the Kenyan and Nigerian cases, in which victims were represented in ways implying that their complaints mattered only because of their status as wives. In the Kenyan case study, the complainant was repeatedly referred to as “another man’s wife” and a “married woman” (Wangui, 2021a, para. 1; Wangui, 2022, para. 2). For example, The Standard reported about “a rape complaint lodged by a married woman” and cited that prosecutors demanded Linturi to “tell the court whether he slipped into a married woman’s bed or not” (Muthoni, 2021, para. 9). In African communities, in which marriage is a status signifier, this emphasis on the marital status of an unnamed victim or survivor might imply that the act was offensive only because of their marital status; however, it also suggests that the abuse of an unwed woman would have been less offensive. Further, Kenyan and Nigerian newspapers advanced patriarchal attitudes that frame married women as the property of their husbands. For example, Kenya’s Daily Nation appeared to implicitly endorse marital rape. The newspaper reported in one article that Linturi was facing possible arrest for “sexually assaulting another man’s wife” (Wangui, 2021a, para. 1), while another article stated that the senator had been accused of “sexually assaulting another man’s wife at a hotel” (Wangui, 2021b, para. 1). This referencing of “another man’s wife” subliminally implies that

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raping one’s own wife would be acceptable (Wangui, 2021a, para. 1; Wangui, 2022, para. 2). This implication aligns with Kenyan law, which does not recognize marital rape as a criminal offence. Previous attempts to criminalize spousal rape have failed, with some Kenyan legislators claiming that after a man pays dowry for a wife, “you are given 100 per cent authority to engage in that act [sex] without any question” (Shiundu, 2014, para. 15). Victims Although alleged perpetrators and their surrogates were given space to challenge sex crime complaints, victims were rarely afforded the same opportunity, even when their complaints were dismissed as extortion and political or religious witch hunts. Among the 40 sampled Nigerian articles, only two articles from The Nation and one from Vanguard directly quoted Pastor Fatonyibo’s accuser, Busola Dakolo. Three articles from The Nation and one from Vanguard quoted either Dakolo’s lawyers or husband. In the Kenyan case, the victim was unnamed, known only as a “married woman” or “thirty-six-year-old woman,” and never directly quoted as a source in sampled coverage (Muthoni, 2021, para. 9; Wambulwa, 2022, para. 10). However, the Kenyan case is unique because even journalists reporting on the story likely did not know the victim’s identity. Meanwhile, among South African media outlets, The Star and The Sowetan directly quoted the victim or survivor in seven of the 34 analyzed articles that were published by The Sowetan, Mail & Guardian, The Star, and Daily Dispatch. These seven articles offered personal accounts of the victim, Kgoerano Kekana, and her feelings regarding the ANC after her case was dismissed due to lack of evidence. This perspective will be discussed later in the section on anti-rape culture. ‘Rape Is Bad … But Think about the Church’ Another major rape culture narrative presented in coverage was the myth that “rape is a trivial event,” especially when weighed against the more important business of the Church (Payne et  al., 1999). Nigerian media coverage used sources who ascribed a false equivalency on the actions and responsibilities of Dakolo and Fatoyinbo. For example, The Nation quoted representatives of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), in which they argued that since Fatoyinbo and Dakolo are Christians, both parties should “stop the media war in the interest of the Church and for the greater glory of God” (The Nation, 2019a, para. 7). Meanwhile, the

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Vanguard published several stories that dismissed the severity of the rape charges leveled against Fatoyinbo. One Vanguard article quoted a source who suggested that the “matter be settled out of court” because it was hurting the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) Church (Agbana, 2019b, para. 5). Another Vanguard story used a source who urged Dakolo and Fatoyinbo to “forgive each other and reconcile,” implying that both the alleged perpetrator and the complainant committed wrongdoing (Jannamike, 2019, para. 1). Religious sources also dismissed the severity of rape by urging support for Fatoyinbo. For example, The Nation (2019b) quoted a pastor who urged COZA congregants to “stand by your Pastor” (para. 16). Although CAN was cited in Nigerian media as denouncing rape and calling for investigations, representatives of the religious body were also featured attempting to walk the middle line by attesting that they resisted “the temptation to jump into any conclusion” (The Nation, 2019a, para. 10) and that they dismissed online reports about Dakolo’s complaints as “not reliable and credible evidence” to form an opinion (The Nation, 2019c, para. 37). Overall, Dakolo’s act of speaking publicly was dismissed and framed as damaging to the Church, even among sources who believed that her claims should be investigated. By focusing on how the complaints affected the Church, religious sources managed to shift blame. The fault was not on a pastor raping his underage congregant but on a victim who speaks out about being raped by their pastor. Anti-rape Culture We used the index developed by Blumell and Mulupi (2022, p. 497) to code for anti-rape culture, in which we examined the presence of narratives that believed victims’ complaints and supported their pursuit for justice. This index acknowledges the systemic nature of sexual violence in society and the dynamics that support it, such as patriarchy. It also recognizes sexual violence/harassment as acts of power rather than sex. These narratives were mostly absent in the Kenyan media sample. We attribute this to the fact that most Kenyan newspaper coverage involved court reporting that relied on documents filed by the prosecution and Linturi’s lawyers, which advanced rape myths in defense of Linturi. However, some Nigerian (40%) and South African (59%) media coverage provided space for discourses that challenged rape culture. In fact, in the sampled South

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African media coverage, anti-rape culture (59%) was present in more articles than rape culture (24%).  elieving and Supporting Victims B Nigerian and South African newspapers advanced anti-rape culture more than the Kenyan media through coverage that supported women’s complaints, empathized with victims and survivors, and demanded justice. For example, the Nigerian press reported about the social media outrage expressed against Fatoyinbo, as well as the protests outside COZA churches, where activists held placards that read “Thou shall not rape.” Some coverage supported the Dakolo complaints. One article by The Nation reported that Fatoyinbo had been “trailed by murmurs of sexual impropriety and abuses of power in his conduct with his members for years” (The Nation, 2019d, para. 10). Other stories acknowledged the sincerity of Dakolo’s complaints. For example, Vanguard quoted a pastor who had watched Dakolo’s YouTube interview and arrived at the conclusion that “it is impossible not to be heartbroken and sympathize with her” (Eyoboka & Jannamike, 2019, para. 30). Similarly, South Africa’s The Star reported that a chapter of the ANC Youth League “saluted the courage of the 26-year-old woman’s decision to speak out on her experience and encouraged all women and men to speak out against any forms of abuse” (Sidimba, 2018, para. 11). Anti-rape culture was also advanced in coverage that featured demands for justice. The significance of sourcing was evident here. In South African news coverage, calls for justice often appeared through representatives of the ANC Youth League and ANC Women’s League. For example, the Mail & Guardian quoted the secretary general of the ANC Women’s League as observing that “women deserve better … We expect leaders of the [ANC] to lead by example and discipline whoever violates women’s rights within our organization” (Ritchie, 2018, paras 11–12). Commentaries and editorials in the South African press also overwhelmingly advocated for justice. An editorial by the Daily Dispatch (2019) admitted that “we get it wrong too often by siding with an alleged perpetrator” (p. 7). This acknowledges the history of public opinion swinging in support of powerful men who are accused of sexual misconduct (Franiuk et al., 2008).

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#ChurchToo Religious Discourse The Nigerian media coverage presented religious discourse more than South African and Kenyan newspapers, which cast the spotlight onto systemic sexual abuse in the Church and gave voice to activists who demanded accountability and staged protests outside the COZA facilities and on social media. For example, The Nation reported on protests led by the #ChurchToo movement, the Christian offshoot of the #MeToo, whose leader stated that their mission was to advocate and speak against “all forms of human rights violations, especially sexual abuse, that have become prevalent in the church today” (The Nation 2019e, para. 6).The #ChurchToo movement demanded that religious leaders be held to a higher level of accountability, defined rape as a sin and crime, and urged the Church to act because sweeping allegations under the carpet “sends a message that the church … is shielding perpetrators of sexual violence” (The Nation, 2019e, para. 9). Religious leaders were also represented in the Nigerian press as highlighting how rape is counter to Christian doctrine on sexual morality, asserting their stance against rape, demanding thorough investigation, and urging scrutiny of church leaders. One pastor cited in the Vanguard stated that “any man of God who cannot control his libido should have nothing to do near a pulpit” (Eyoboka & Jannamike, 2019, para. 6). Further, religious news sources addressed the history of sexual abuse in the Church. The Nation quoted a reverend who was identified as the “spiritual mother” of Fatoyinbo as stating that: The house of God should remain a safe space for all … My deepest sympathy is with everyone who has experienced broken trust from the church. Busola [Dakolo]; every girl. Every boy; every child, man or woman” (The Nation, 2019f, paras. 11–12). Political Discourse In contrast to the Nigerian and Kenyan newspapers, South African media coverage advanced anti-rape culture through a political discourse that challenged the ANC’s record on managing sexual impropriety among party leaders. For example, an article by The Star reporting on Mabe’s case referenced other incidences of sexual harassment that involved ANC party leaders (Feketha, 2018, para. 6). Newspapers also marveled at the “patriarchy, male domination and toxic masculinity” within the ANC party and government (Mail & Guardian, 2019, para. 2), despite the ANC’s history as a champion for freedom and equality. An editorial in the Mail &

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Guardian addressed this irony by observing that “for an organization that fought for a nonracist, non-sexist South Africa, and that is now in power and thus able to make policy to build a transformed nation, the ANC is woefully lacking in policy on sexual harassment” (Mail & Guardian, 2019, para. 1). Similarly, an op-ed in The Star written by a spokesperson of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s opposition party, lambasted the ANC for having failed “in its 107-year history to put together a policy on sexual harassment” (Mbombo, 2019, para. 9). The op-ed stated that the “ANC is caught in a recurring sex scandal nightmare” that predictably comes “with the usual victim-shaming, rape myths and political sabotage conspiracies” (Mbombo, 2019, para. 1). Acknowledging Power Although all three case studies included powerful men who were accused of sex crimes, only South African and Nigerian press coverage acknowledged the significance of the material and the institutional power that emanates from politics and religion. Mabe was represented as a powerful figure in the ANC, given his position as “the face of the organization as national spokesperson,” while his victim was represented as a “young and unemployed woman” (The Sowetan, 2018, para. 5). After the ANC cleared Mabe of wrongdoing due to a lack of evidence, South Africa’s The Star published a story that quoted the complainant, Kgoerano Kekana, as reflecting on the enormity of being at odds with both Mabe and the ANC. Kekana was quoted as stating that “challenging a powerful man, and now the ANC, pains me” (Koko, 2019, para. 1). Kekana was also quoted as reflecting on the implications of the ANC’s ruling, in which she observed that exonerating Mabe “gives further courage to abusive men to bully female subordinates” (Koko, 2019, para. 4). Reporting by The Sowetan also highlighted how power differentials between a victim and perpetrator can hinder support for victims by citing sources who observed that some people within the ANC were “probably intimidated” by supporting the victim because of Mabe’s immense “influence and the power” within the party (Goba, 2018, para. 5). Nigerian newspapers also acknowledged the power that religious leaders hold in society and the subsequent implications in roadblocking justice for victims. For example, the Vanguard reported that “pastors are often revered in Nigerian society” and that they “wield significant political power” (Vanguard, 2019, paras 13–14). Additionally, some coverages cast doubt regarding the likely outcomes of COZA church’s investigations

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into its lead pastor, given his status as the organization’s CEO.  South African newspapers further reiterated the influence of men’s power, especially men’s material dominance in society, and its effect on workplace gender relations. For example, Mail & Guardian published an editorial titled “root out sexual abuse at work” (Mail & Guardian, 2018, headline), which articulated the problem and its effects on women in the South African workplace. Meanwhile, The Star published an op-ed stating that the sexual harassment complaints against Mabe were a wake-up call for “we men in positions of authority;” the op-ed added that most “abusive men have cultural, traditional, economic and social power and authority, and they use this to abuse and manipulate women” (Engelbrecht, 2018, para. 5). Overall, the power of Mabe in South Africa and Fatoyinbo in Nigeria—due to their status as leaders in religious and political institutions and the general dominance of men in society—was discussed in relation to how it affects women’s lives and victims’ pursuit of justice.

Discussion In this study, we sought to establish how the African press covered cases of sexual violence in the aftermath of the viral 2017 #MeToo movement. As aligned with recent studies focusing on the Global North, our findings revealed mixed patterns (Blumell & Mulupi, 2022; Noetzel et al., 2022). Rape culture (n = 42) was present in more articles in the Kenyan, Nigerian, and South African media than anti-rape culture (n = 36). Newspapers in the three countries reported on rape culture narratives that aligned with previous literature from both the Global North and Global South, especially in terms of blaming, dismissing, and ostracizing victims (Franiuk et  al., 2008; King’ori & Nyanoti, 2021; Ndhlovu, 2020). Conversely, South African and Nigerian media coverage advanced anti-rape culture through reporting that challenged patriarchy and toxic masculinity. This reporting confronted institutional complicity in the systemic abuse of women, as well as contextualized the widespread abuse of women within society. Our study demonstrates the importance of investigating media coverage of sexual violence in the Global South. Although rape culture is widespread worldwide, how it is enacted differs according to existing cultural, economic, and political realities. Our findings demonstrated reporting patterns that reflect Global South realities, especially narratives focusing on the victim’s status as married women. This reporting narrative has

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advanced cultural notions that are widespread in the Global South in relation to women’s status as their husband’s property and perceptions regarding the validity of marital rape. The trivialization of rape among Nigerian newspapers in the interest of protecting the Church also reflects how religion, primarily introduced by the Global North in colonial times, remains a central organizing force in the lived experiences of people in the Global South (Ross & Anderson, 2014). The rape myth that “rape is trivial” was reported in a way that reflected the importance of protecting the Church as an institution within Nigerian society. Similarly, anti-rape narratives that demanded justice for the victim and actions against the alleged perpetrator were anchored to the idea of protecting the Church’s standing as a haven. We thus observed that institutional religion is discursively enacted to both endorse and fight rape culture. This finding illuminates the importance of interrogating press coverage in the Global South to explore patterns and narratives that might not be the norm in existing literature from the Global North. Our analysis also demonstrates the importance of news sources in African media reporting. The sourcing approaches that journalists employed at the newspapers selected for this study not only allowed rape myths to infiltrate but also marginalized the voices and perspectives of anti-rape activists who could have offered alternative perspectives. For example, Kenyan newspaper reporting relied entirely on court documents and proceedings, which meant that rape myths advanced by the alleged perpetrator and his lawyers dominated the coverage and that differing viewpoints were absent. Newspapers in this chapter’s three case study countries might have been limited in terms of regurgitating certain rape myths, such as claims of malice and political martyrdom made by alleged perpetrators. However, diversifying sources to include the perspectives of victims and anti-rape activists not only benefits the challenging of the stereotypes noted above, but it also introduces anti-rape culture narratives in news content, such as the issues of power differentials and patriarchy. It also demonstrates fairness and accuracy in reporting to present many perspectives. To demonstrate accuracy, ethics, and fairness in reporting, as well as support the fight against rape culture, the news media must elevate the voices of often marginalized news sources and provide space to alternative narratives focusing on gender and sexual violence. Among the three countries selected in this study, Kenyan newspapers fared the worst because they failed to contextualize the pervasiveness of sex crimes among the political elite or the wider Kenyan society. Kenyan

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newspapers did not use sources who would have introduced anti-rape culture into the coverage, and they did not reference the issues of power and patriarchy. Although South African and Nigerian newspaper coverages appear promising in terms of privileging anti-rape culture narratives, much work is needed to change historical reporting patterns, even in the #MeToo era. For example, contradictions were observed regarding how religious sources advanced both rape culture and anti-rape culture narratives. On one hand, religious sources opposed rape and demanded justice; conversely, they also cast doubt in relation to the veracity of the victim’s complaints and trivialized the seriousness of rape by emphasizing the damage caused to the Church (Nanlong & Enogholase, 2019, para. 1). These sources might have wanted to synchronize with activists’ demands for justice while also preserving the position of religious leaders as irreproachable and the culture of disbelieving victims. This trend exemplifies both the progress made in the #MeToo era and the enduring tolerance for male sexual violence.

Limitations and Future Research The chapter is based on Kenyan, Nigerian, and South African case studies, which are typically not generalizable to all Global South countries. We also used purposive sampling, which targeted relevant articles. Nevertheless, our research critically contributed through its use of a cross-country African context and narrative comparison of how newspapers report sex crimes that involve powerful men in the Global South. Future studies related to this topic in sub-Saharan Africa could take a historical approach to the topic and observe how specific newspapers covered rape before and after the #MeToo movement to assess any temporal changes.

Conclusion This chapter examined how nine African newspapers in Kenya (Daily Nation, The Standard, and The Star), Nigeria (The Nation and Vanguard), and South Africa (The Sowetan, Mail & Guardian, The Star, and Daily Dispatch) covered cases of sexual violence in the aftermath of the viral 2017 #MeToo movement. The findings were mixed, revealing that overall rape culture (n = 42) was present in more articles than anti-rape culture (n = 36). However, South Africa’s The Star, Mail & Guardian, and The Sowetan published more articles that featured anti-rape culture than

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articles that advanced rape culture. Further, rape culture was often introduced through sources who advanced rape myths that dismissed sex crime complaints as false. However, some positive trends were also observed in South African and Nigerian media coverage; sex crime complaints were framed as being part of the systemic abuse of women, which is bolstered by the patriarchy and failures within political and religious institutions to hold powerful men to account. This study’s findings also illuminated how factors such as unique cultural understandings of gender relations, the centrality of the Church as an institution, and the legacy of the anti-­ apartheid movement seeped into mediated discursive narratives of sexual violence in both the sub-Saharan Africa region and the Global South.

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PART IV

North Africa and the Middle East

CHAPTER 7

Egypt’s #MeToo Moment: Using Social Media to Help Address Violence Against Women in Egypt Rasha El-Ibiary

Introduction In July 2020, the blog Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana #‫دفتر_حكايات_المدونة‬ (Notebook Stories Blog) started posting testimonies of anonymous survivors of rape and sexual violence in Egypt. Then, in August 2020, the #Fairmont_crime hashtag went viral on social media in response to the case of four men who were accused of raping an 18-year-old woman in 2014 after giving her drugs. The rape case, in which the perpetrators were sons of famous political and business figures, was then covered by conventional media when public awareness about the case increased. The men suspected of the gang rape were arrested to manage an angry public reaction. In the meantime, the Twitter account @AssaultPolice exposed the details of another violence against women (VAW) serial rape case that was

R. El-Ibiary (*) Department of Political Mass Media, Future University, New Cairo, Egypt e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_7

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tied to Ahmed Bassam Zaki. Women shared their stories about Zaki using hashtags such as #Rapist_Ahmed_Bassam_Zaki. Zaki was later arrested and sent to prison. The case spurred the introduction of legislation in Egypt that intended to protect the confidentiality of sources and encourage women to report VAW crimes to local authorities. As in other Global South countries, VAW is normalized in Egypt in many forms, including domestic violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Yet, given the lack of official VAW statistics reported by the Egyptian media and use of social media instead, non-government organizations (NGOs) play a crucial role in documenting and conducting awareness campaigns and exercising pressure to combat and curb VAW crimes in the country. According to the Edrak Foundation for Development and Equality, the latest VAW figures in Egypt indicate that 813 VAW cases were reported in Egypt in 2021 (Daarb, 2021). However, this statistic might also be influenced by the worldwide spread of VAW incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years. Given that most women do not report VAW crimes in Egypt because of several societal, cultural, and legal factors, the actual figures might be higher than indicated. Almost every woman in Egypt has been subjected to sexual harassment at least once in her life. According to UN Women, 99.3% of Egyptian women state that they have been subjected to sexual harassment at least once in their lives, and 49.2% of them indicate that it occurs daily (Schultz, 2014). Egyptian women were at the forefront of the Arab Spring revolution in January 2011. However, as protesters in the early days, when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ruled, they were arrested and tortured. This period also witnessed reports of rape by mobs in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In this case, 48% of victims stated that incidents of violence occurred more since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising (EuroMed Right, 2016). Since January 2011, 500 cases of mob sexual attacks in Tahrir Square in Cairo have also been reported. Mainstream media coverage of VAW in Egypt has always tended to be biased against women, holding them directly and indirectly responsible for this violence. For example, reporting the case of a woman who was stripped of her clothes in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution, Egyptian commentators on talk shows and newspaper editorials often posed the question, “Why did she go there?” Posing such a question reproduced existing patriarchal gender norms that delegitimize women’s participation in political protests and blames the survivor for the assault, which generally delegitimizes VAW cases as well (El-Ibiary, 2017).

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Under successive Egyptian regimes, sexual attacks were continuously reported during the Tahrir protests. In 2014, after the gang rapes that occurred in Tahrir Square during the inauguration of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, a new anti-harassment law was issued and a VAW unit became part of the Ministry of Interior. The Egyptian Criminal Code has divided VAW crimes into two categories: misdemeanors and felonies. Misdemeanors include sexual harassment, while felonies comprise female genital mutilation (FGM), rape, the kidnapping of a female, and sexual assault. Adjusting the focus to the time and research of the present, this chapter analyzes two case studies that occurred before and after the revitalization of the global #MeToo movement in 2017. The selected cases investigate how women have used social media platforms to combat VAW. The first case is Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana #‫دفتر_حكايات_المدونة‬, a blog that was created to expose sexual harassment and rape crimes—such as the #Fairmont_crime, which involved the gang rape of a young woman in 2014. The blog acted as a safe space for female survivors to tell their stories without exposing their identities. The second case focuses on Bassam Ahmed Zaki, who was exposed through social media in 2020 and later charged and incarcerated for serial rape.

Theoretical Framework: Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory Building on Albert Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory, the study in this chapter analyzes the social diffusion of new behavior patterns in terms of three constituent processes and the psychological factors that govern them. These include the “acquisition of knowledge about innovative behaviors; the adoption of these behaviors in practice, and the social networks through which they spread and are supported” (Bandura, 2001, p. 287). This theory applies to the present study because it demonstrates how Egyptian women have used social media to spread knowledge about VAW.  This approach is considered innovative, and it has been adopted into practice through social networks that proliferated and supported it. To apply the theory, the chapter argues that the diffusion of what Bandura (2001) calls “new behavioral patterns” (p. 287) among women survivors is supported by three factors: increasing awareness of VAW, as influenced by the global #MeToo movement; social media campaigns; and VAW knowledge on social networks.

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Banyard et al. (2004, p. 61) posited that social media can increase the “mobilization of prosocial behavior” through effective social marketing. Other research has demonstrated that engagement on social media and the proliferation of those platforms significantly influences public perception about VAW being a powerful tool in terms of spreading information. Social media can also be an awareness driver for mobilizing campaigns on different issues (Jain et al., 2020). Social media platforms such as blogs and Twitter have been effective approaches for changing public opinion and attitudes toward critical social issues such as VAW, which has been documented to be of concern in some Global South countries. Despite the digital divide, which continues to proliferate in the Global South, this chapter argues that social media is considered a potential tool for changing VAW norms in Egypt, in which it can be used to disseminate and diffuse ideas, attitudes, and information/knowledge to many users and audiences. Social media is also a milieu for victims and survivors of VAW to speak up and be heard. It provides safe spaces for sharing stories and engaging in conversations about norms, values, and behaviors against violence, even if users are using pseudonyms to stay safe. Social media enhances the possibilities for those affected by VAW to speak out safely and to extend access to underrepresented people in conventional media. This ensures a global, interconnected space that fosters conversations aimed to change norms and attitudes for the purpose of reforming behaviors and preventing VAW occurrences (Shukla et al., 2020).

Research Methodology Embedded in a Global South Context The overarching research aim in this chapter focuses on understanding how social media as a form of innovation helps address VAW in Egypt through the dissemination of information. This chapter also studies how social media can support the adoption of new behavior patterns and social networks to combat VAW in Egypt, as noted by Bandura (2001). This chapter is contextualized within the Global South framework. Rather than using the term “developing countries,” it describes factors that countries face in terms of economic issues, political instability, and political constraints (Dados & Connell, 2012, p. 1). The Global South “marks a shift from a central focus on development or cultural difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical relations of power” (Dados & Connell, 2012,

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p. 1). The characteristics associated with the Global South context influence issues related to freedom, women’s rights, human rights, governance, and democracy.

Research Methods and Case Studies The two qualitative research methods used in this study include case studies that triangulate content analyses from testimonials, and content from the text derived from in-depth interviews. A case study approach can be used to analyze and describe a person, group of people, individual institution, problem, process, or phenomenon. Case studies also highlight a developmental factor, in which the cases are generated and evolve over time, often as a series of specific and interrelated events that occur and constitute the case (Starman, 2013) A case study approach is the most effective method for analyzing the two VAW cases in this chapter, which relate to using the blog site, Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana and to the #Fairmont_crime. As previously noted, the #Fairmont_crime was a high-profile gang rape case, in which a woman came forward and claimed that several men drugged her at a party at the Fairmont Nile City Hotel in Cairo in April 2014 and took turns raping her (Human Rights Watch, 2020). According to a report by Human Rights Watch (2020, para. 5), the perpetrators shared videos of the attack with their friends and wrote their initials on the woman’s back after the attacks. In July 2020, more than six years later, the awareness of the attack was raised on social media by women’s rights activists in a campaign that lasted for weeks, which ended with the Office of the Prosecutor General ordering the arrest of several suspects (Human Rights Watch, 2020, para. 5). The second case in this study relates to Ahmed Bassam Zaki who was linked with serial rapeå. This chapter analyzes how the blog Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana (Notebook of Stories) was developed and the subsequent social and official reactions to its blog posts. The blog was launched in July 2020 by a group of independent Egyptian feminists. It was established to provide women a safe space in the public sphere to communicate “without being subjected to threats, sexual violence, or discrimination” (Daftar Hekayat, 2020, para. 2). This study analyzed Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana by applying Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory, with the aim of evaluating the extent to which this blog represents a new behavioral pattern, given the advancement of anonymous survivors and founders’ voices and the use of online virtual and social spaces to share stories.

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The second research method employed by this study is in-depth interviews with eight participants who were survivors, journalists, and activists. In-depth interviews are considered one of the most effective forms of qualitative research for this type of study because they engage participants in a conversation aimed at discovering their personal experience with a phenomenon (Ryan et al., 2009). Interviews are thus considered the most suitable research method for deeply investigating VAW cases, as noted by three VAW survivors, five women’s activists and/or journalists, and a women’s rights researcher at UN Women. Interviews for the study lasted approximately one hour and were conducted via social media messenger and over the phone from 2021 to 2022. Although some victims asked to remain anonymous, those who agreed to be named include Basma Mostafa (journalist and activist), Hala Mostafa (activist at Shoft Taharush movement), Shahira Amin (independent journalist/activist), and Mona Badran (university professor and researcher at UN Women). The anonymous victims of VAW include two journalists and a woman who works in the area of cultural development. The study in this chapter also analyzed 41 testimonies that were published on the Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana blog (Table 7.1).

Table 7.1  List of interviewees (N = 8) # Name

Occupation

1 Shahira Amin

Veteran journalist and activist

2 Mona Badran 3 Basma Mostafa 4 Hala Mostafa 5 Eman Ouf 6 Anonymous Survivor 1 7 Anonymous Survivor 2 8 Anonymous Survivor 3

Method of interview

Date of interview

Telephone interview March 14, 2022 University professor and Telephone interview April 12, researcher with UN Women 2022 Journalist and women’s rights Social media— May 3, 2022 activist Facebook Messenger Women’s rights activist for the Social media— March 12, Shoft Taharush movement Facebook Messenger 2022 Journalist and activist Social media— May 8, 2022 Facebook Messenger Journalist Social Media— November 3, Facebook Messenger 2021 Journalist Instagram December 9, Messenger 2021 Woman working in cultural Twitter DM March 6, development 2022

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Role of Social Media and the Diffusion of Innovations in Curbing Violence Against Women in Egypt It should be noted that although Egypt had one of the highest internet penetration rates in the region in 2022 (75.66% of the population were users; Statista, 2022); the gender gap of 29.4% placed women at a disadvantage in terms of using the internet (Saleh, 2022). This gender divide at the digital level in Egypt is sociocultural to an extent, with about one fifth of Egyptian women believing for cultural reasons that using the internet is not appropriate (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018). Further, social media contexts have clearly been a site of harassment, censorship, and VAW.  This chapter’s findings were interpreted while accounting for this global phenomenon. Mobile technology and social media often is used to raise awareness about rights-­ based issues in many Global South countries, where public service announcements are generally absent, especially concerning issues related to women’s rights. Social media helps disseminate knowledge regarding VAW in Egypt, the adoption of strategies to combat VAW, and the implementation and maintenance of those strategies. As an innovation, social media has been quickly adopted for its high-level advantage in compatibility, trialability, observability, and low complexity (Shukla et  al., 2020). Social media platforms have also played a significant role in informing different publics about sexual assaults and harassment in Egypt; this occurred despite the digital divide, given that the overall rate of internet penetration has risen since the January 2011 revolution (Statista, 2019). Establishing a Violence Against Women Unit As previously noted, statistics and incidents of mob sexual assaults, as well as the ensuing social pressure especially through social media, has led the government to establish a VAW unit in 2013. The spread of outrage in Egypt in response to renowned incidents of VAW has raised public awareness (El-Deeb, 2013). Egypt began taking serious action against VAW after videos went viral on social media—videos depicting nine women who were violently and sexually assaulted by mobs in Cairo’s Tahrir Square while celebrating new president’s El Sisi’s inauguration in 2014. For the first time, a high-level response occurred, and an investigation and trial

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followed. Some of the perpetrators were prosecuted and imprisoned, and the Egyptian Ministry of Interior announced that the VAW unit would be expanded to the national level (Ayad, 2013). These examples reflect how the government adopted certain strategies to combat VAW. Feminist and NGOs Initiatives Since the Arab Spring of 2011, grassroot initiatives such as civil society and women’s rights organizations have worked to address VAW in public spaces. Several volunteer groups were created to protect women at public events, such as on official holidays or at political protests. In addition to presence on the ground, these groups also used social media to coordinate, contact, and help VAW survivors. Cooperation between the government-­led VAW unit and NGOs, resulting in the Imprint Movement and Shoft Taharosh (“I have seen harassment”), marked significant success in preventing, reporting, and illuminating cases of sexual harassment on the street. These collaborations also have raised awareness about sexual harassment in society by using social media and offering information sessions in public and private organizations (H. Mostafa, personal communication, March 12, 2022). The national expansion of the VAW unit in Egypt to each security directorate is a positive sign from the side of the government. Nevertheless, dealing with VAW on the streets of Egypt is the responsibility of police rather than the NGOs, and there is still a need to improve the overall police response (Begum, 2014).

Social Media Campaigns Many social media campaigns conducted by various anti–sexual harassment movements in Egypt use hashtags to encourage people to report, expose, and volunteer to track harassment cases via social media. The movements combating sexual harassment have trained and sent teams of volunteers to intervene in mob assaults and protect women from harassers in public places. According to Mosleh et  al. (2015), these campaigns encourage people to use social media to expose harassers, under the banner of hashtags—such as #AntiHarassment and #ExposeHarasser. The goal is to speak against the daily occurrence of sexual harassment, influence VAW discourse, and break the silence surrounding these crimes.

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Smartphone Applications NGOs in Egypt have also used mobile technology to spread awareness of women’s rights and improve the perceptions of women. One significant example is the smartphone application, HarassMap. Launched in 2010, HarassMap is an “interactive online mapping interface for reporting incidents of sexual harassment anonymously and in real time” (Grove, 2015, p. 345). The application uses digital technology to spread awareness and collect data via crowdsourcing. Taking advantage of social media and the widespread use of smartphones in Egypt, the application encourages people to report incidents of sexual harassment as they are experienced or witnessed. The website “maps” reports online and in real time. According to Nicole Grove (2015, p.  346), HarassMap uses “spatial information technologies for crowd mapping sexual harassment.” Trained volunteers encourage people in public places to take a “zero tolerance” approach towards sexual harassment.

Other Initiatives to Address Violence Against Women After the January 25, 2011, Revolution In a brief period following the January 25 revolution, 2011, Hala Mostafa, an activist at Shoft Taharosh, stated that the press had more freedom than previously and that television talk shows covered topics that had earlier been off limits. Among the notable news coverages was the incident of raping American journalist, Lara Logan, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The rape occurred on February, 11, 2011—the day that the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, stepped down after leading an authoritarian regime for more than 30 years. After the January 25 revolution, many activists pressured groups and initiatives to support survivors and combat sexual harassment. Social media was also a crucial tool for contacting the people and informing them. This included NGOs launching social media campaigns using hashtags such as #stop_harrassment to explain what sexual harassment is and how to handle it. The campaigns also educated people regarding dangers in society, how to monitor and document the cases, and how to pressure the government to act. Using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube was key to spreading knowledge about the dangers of harassment—and even notifying people that there was

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something called “sexual harassment” (Anonymous Survivor 1, personal correspondence). This use of social media hashtags, grassroots volunteer training, and general raising of awareness reflects the stages of innovation diffusion (Shukla et al., 2020). Mob sexual harassment had been a tool used by Mubarak’s oppressive regime to limit women’s participation in protests. This tactic is also observed in some other Global South countries, where governments hire thugs to attack protesters, especially women, during political unrest. State aggression against the Kefaya (“enough”) movement, a political movement that appeared in 2005 against Mubarak’s regime, included sexual harassment and the rape of women in public places to intimidate them into not participating. Global news agencies reported these abuses and included photographs or videos of the security forces molesting women and tearing off their clothes in public as evidence (Oweidat et al., 2008; Somach & AbouZeid, 2009). The number of mob sexual assaults against women increased after 2011, following the January 25 revolution, which involved women protesters being sexually assaulted and raped on multiple occasions in Tahrir Square (Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, 2014). Research for the NGO, Nazra for Feminist Studies (2014), revealed that the period from 2011 to 2014 witnessed at least 500 survivors of VAW. Efforts to combat rape and sexual harassment are observed in the work of Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana #‫( دفتر_حكايات_المدونة‬Notebook Stories Blog). These efforts are sometimes offered by individual women, though they are predominantly exerted by women’s rights groups, who have always been threatened with harassment from others in often organized attacks. This online harassment is one form of what Silvio Waisbord (2020) described as mob censorship, which he defines as “bottom-up, citizen vigilantism aimed at disciplining and silencing” journalists/activists (p. 2). “Mob censorship threatens the safety and the speech rights” of journalists, activists, and anyone dedicating some effort to combating rape, sexual harassment, and all forms of discrimination (p. 2).

Legal Limitations in Addressing Violence Against Women in Egypt The need for responsible implementation and maintenance of criminal justice, as well as legal and legislative strategies for eliminating VAW in Egypt, is demonstrated in many cases (Marroushi, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c).

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The lack of investigation or prosecution of criminals related to these events highlights the inadequacy of the country’s criminal justice system in terms of responding to VAW.  Again, this is often observed in Global South countries, though it also exists in other regions. In these contexts, women’s rights activists often attempt to push for the acknowledgment of mob sexual assaults, and they often encounter denial and negligence from authorities. In Egypt, even when female witnesses and survivors reported cases of VAW, police officers did not intervene at the scene. Domestic violence survivors thus rarely report incidents to the police, because they often encounter a “reconcile survivors with their abusers” approach and thus only file reports when there are visible physical injuries (Zaki & Abd Alhamid, 2014, para. 12). Integral to the need to implement effective anti-VAW laws is avoiding the misuse of the term “sexual harassment” for taharush (“harassment”) in media discourse (Nazra for Feminist Studies, 2014). In Egypt, mob sexual assaults that involved women being stripped, cut with knives, and beaten are portrayed in the media as sexual harassment, when they should be portrayed as VAW, sexual assault, or other crimes. However, Egypt’s penal code does not include the term “sexual assault” and uses the term “indecent assault” instead. This helps downgrade assault to harassment, which is dangerous for women (Nazra for Feminist Studies, 2014). Women’s rights groups have repeatedly called for a clear definition of sexual assault to be included in the penal code. The general lack of the Egyptian government’s response to VAW provides impunity to perpetrators, to those in authority, and to those who are supposed to enforce the law (Marroushi & El Wardany, 2013). Survivors have revealed that among the reasons that few women in Egypt file legal complaints against attackers is fear of societal stigma and a lack of trust in the security forces, which are also other factors in some other Global South countries. This signifies that VAW cases will unlikely be reported. A study of sexual harassment reporting in Egypt in 2013 indicated that 93.4% of survivors did not request help from security forces for fear of reputation damage and harassment from the police (El-Deeb, 2013). Another study in 2015 from the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (2008, 2013) noted that police tended to mock women who filed reports, and that women did not believe the police would help them. Foreign women also identified police officers as harassers (Abdelmonem, 2016), claiming that police officers are no different from society members who do not always know or believe in the laws.

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As in many Global South countries, social norms and the state’s roles in perpetuating VAW by intimidating, silencing, and repressing women who oppose the status quo diminish women’s trust in the police and the law— and in any genuine state attempt to combat VAW. Sexual violence has been used against women protesters across the different regimes in Egypt, according to the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence (Nazra for Feminist Studies, 2014). The anti-sexual harassment law introduced in 2014 criminalized sexual harassment for the first time in Egypt, but anti-harassment activists criticized it for “not going far enough in its sanctions against harassment, and not being practicable” (International Federation of Human Rights, 2014, p. 23). In May 2015, a report released by the International Federation for Human Rights indicated that security forces were routinely using sexual harassment and abuse against political prisoners and detainees. The report depicts a grim situation for the widespread and systemic sexual violence perpetrated against prisoners (Amin, 2016). The state’s failure to address VAW in Egypt is reflected in the discriminatory discourse used in the mainstream, state-controlled media, and it also reflects other authoritarian or autocratic contexts in the Global South. State-controlled media coverage tends to blame female victims for being in public places, while religious clerics argue that women intentionally wear provocative clothes so they can be harassed (International Federation of Human Rights, 2014). The factors fueling VAW in Egypt include the lack of security, social norms that involve blaming, shaming, and stigmatizing survivors, the climate of impunity, and lack of accurate data and statistics.

Social Media as a Method for Confronting Violence Against Women Women’s rights groups, survivors, and activists in Egypt have quickly adopted social media, especially given the rise in internet penetration since the January 2011 revolution (Statista, 2019). However, Shahira Amin (2016) contends that change is happening, albeit slowly, which is to be expected since changing social norms and culture is slow. In their struggle against VAW, Egyptian women quickly adopted social media for its high advantage. According to independent veteran journalist and VAW survivor, Amin, women no longer tolerate crimes like VAW and are speaking out about it. The youth is raising public awareness through its engagement in dozens of grassroots initiatives, such as Shoft Tarharush (“I have

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seen harassment”) and Harrassmap. What remains is for the public to realize the extent of the damage and pain inflicted on women who are harassed and assaulted. First and foremost, Egyptian authorities must acknowledge the magnitude and gravity of the problem and admit that the cases are not isolated (Shahira Amin, personal interview, 2022). Social media compatibility, trialability, observability, and low complexity not only makes it a crucial tool for survivors to report their stories but also a government tool for punishing those who post videos or report VAW crimes. After approving and implementing the Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law and the Media Regulation Law in 2018, the Egyptian Government can now regulate and restrict online freedom of expression and jail online users who are considered a threat to the regime. Media control, especially in the age of social media, is a major factor in Global South countries like Egypt. With those regulations, the Supreme Council for Media Regulations has the power to place citizens with more than 5000 followers on social media, personal blogs, or websites under state supervision, block them, or suspend their accounts (Muslim, 2019). According to Amnesty International (2022), the authorities routinely fail to adequately prevent and investigate widespread VAW in Egypt, as well as threatened, arbitrarily detained, and prosecuted survivors, witnesses, and activists who reported or campaigned against sexual violence (Amnesty International, 2022). In January 2020, the Court of Cassation convicted Amal Fathy, a women’s rights defender, for criticizing the authorities’ failure to protect women from sexual harassment, for which she was sentenced to a year in prison. In May 2020, social media influencer Menna Abdelaziz appeared in a video with a bruised face, saying that she had been raped, beaten, and filmed without her consent. Within days, security forces arrested Abdelaziz, and she spent four months in arbitrary detention pending investigations into accusations of “inciting debauchery” and “violating family principles and values,” with prosecutors basing their case on statements made by people Menna Abdelaziz accused of the attack (Amnesty International, 2022, para. 4). Abdelaziz’s case also revealed the role that social media backlash plays. According to Amnesty International (2022), after her first video, Abdelaziz released a follow-up video, in which she seemingly denied that she was raped. Social media users quickly questioned whether she was forced to make the follow-up video and used the hashtag #Justice_for_Menna to call for justice for Abdelaziz. Newspapers across Egypt reported on this

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incidence. Within 24  hours, the alleged perpetrator was arrested and police confirmed that investigations revealed that Abdelaziz was raped. This demonstrates the power of social media in forcing authorities in Egypt to act. Events like this involving different women using social media to report VAW cases, despite the harmful outcome, reveals that social media can increase the “mobilization of prosocial behavior” through effective social marketing (Banyard et  al., 2004, p.  61). It also demonstrates that the existence of social media anonymity, which as an innovation, often encourages women who otherwise would have been intimidated to step forward. Finding solidarity through social media set a precedent for using social media to expose the sexual misconduct of men in positions of power. According to journalist and human rights activist, Basma Mostafa (personal interview, 2022): Social media has become a crucial tool now for girls and women to document what is happening to them. If you notice the past period, there has been a surge in the use of social media in documenting VAW crimes, both domestic and/or sexual violence. The global nature of social media makes solidarity with survivors an increasingly global phenomenon.

According to Mostafa: For women and girls now, the first reaction is to reveal and share/publish what is happening with them to ask for help. Social media has become a tool for advocacy among people from anywhere in the world, through which we learn about each other’s issues and stand in solidarity with each other.

Women journalists also are at risk of sexual harassment. “We use the internet and social media to contact our sources and interview them to be safe of sexual harassment,” stated journalist Eman Ouf in a personal interview. Ouf has been active in movements against VAW and has witnessed and reported many VAW events since Egypt’s 2011 revolution. Ouf also stated: After the intensification of incidents against women in Tahrir Square, a huge demonstration has taken place that included many women and men to protest VAW. This demonstration has played a very important role in warning and informing the public, and especially women with less access to social media, that they should not be silent about such crimes.

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She added that after this demonstration, initiatives and women’s rights groups such as Shoft Taharush and Tahrir Bodyguards were established with the purpose of combating VAW using both social media and real life. This digital divide or lack of internet access, along with the lack of awareness about VAW crimes against different segments of society are often factors in Global South countries.

Social Media Diffusion and Combating Violence Against Women in Egypt: Two Cases Case 1: Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana # ‫دفتر_حكايات_المدونة‬ The founders of Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana (Notebook of Stories Blog), established the blog in mid-2020 because they: believe in the right of sexual violence survivors to have their own version of the stories that they have been through and to choose to share their narrative with others in a way that suits them without fear of judgment, blame or stigmatization. (Daftar Hekayat, para. 4)

Being an online space for anonymous VAW testimonies, the blog is meant to advance justice and recovery for survivors. According to its front page, some of the bloggers are survivors of sexual violence, and some have fought societal and political battles to thwart their right to reveal, ratify, or demand accountability and punishment for perpetrators. Some survivors have recovered, and some are recovering with the belief that supporting one another is one key path to recovery. Living in a society that blames the survivor and encourages and justifies aggressors, the blog was creating a space for women’s testimonies. As previously noted, the social and psychological costs for women who address and tolerate societal blame, who refuse “questioning their narrative or underestimating their psychological suffering” are notable (Daftar Hekayat, para. 3). Therefore, developing safe online spaces for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories and expose aggressors is crucial for recovery (Saleh, 2017). As Shukla et  al. (2020) argued, the blog will likely enhance the possibilities for those affected by VAW to speak out safely and to extend to underrepresented people who are rarely represented in conventional media. This allows for a global, interconnected space that fosters conversations aimed at changing norms and attitudes to change behaviors and prevent VAW.

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The testimonies on Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana receive verbal support with a hashtag accompanying the links to the testimonies on social media, which read #We_Believe_the_Survivors, #‫نصدق_الناجيات‬, as the blog is not concerned with proving the validity or truth of testimonies. The primary goal of sharing testimonies is to provide a space for women to share their experiences as part of the recovery journey, to express their stories in their own way and language, and to document and archive cases of VAW. However, founders of Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana are aware of the heavy psychological and societal consequences of the narrations and encourage survivors to think carefully about the implications of participation before sharing their stories. According to one Anonymous Survivor 2 (personal interview): The blog helped me to re-envision myself … I was very afraid of him, and I was even afraid to see him, or [for] anyone to mention him in front of me, or from being obliged to deal with him. He made me absolutely scared and terrified.

Anonymous Survivor 2 added that “the blog helped me speak, relieved me of fear, gave me strength to speak and get rid of my fear, and get rid of the fear of judgments that I had been holding to myself all the time.” This resonates with Shukla et al.’s (2020) perspective about how social media is widely believed to enhance the possibilities for those affected by VAW to speak out safely and to extend access to underrepresented people, which is rarely represented in conventional media. According to Anonymous Survivor 3 (personal interview): This blog has a very strong influence, even if it is attacked by people all the time; but, its strength is that it reveals that women [who harshly attack this blog] are violating their own rights, abusing them, exploiting them, and shutting them up by force! It helped me convey my voice even if the blogger was attacked and insulted; but in the end, its role is strong and positive in revealing stories that would not have been revealed otherwise.

These comments illustrate how the blog is considered a tool for changing norms relating to sexual violence by disseminating and diffusing ideas, attitudes, and information/knowledge to many users and audiences. Social media is also a place for survivors to speak and be heard.

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After analyzing the 51 Arabic testimonies that were posted on Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana, this study found that survivors predominantly used first initials when referring to VAW perpetrators to avoid defamation claims, and they described the occupation of the perpetrators. The study found that the 24 perpetrators in this study were mostly in positions of power in Egypt, when compared to the survivors, and they were relatively trusted. The testimonies regarding four perpetrators ranged from two to seven—for example, there was a renowned investigative journalist (seven testimonies), a movie director (six testimonies), a human rights activist (five testimonies), and a social media influencer (two testimonies), as shown in Table 7.2. According to survivors who reported their cases on Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana, it is believed that the perpetrators predominantly lied about the places to where they were taking the survivors. They predominantly talked to survivors about the importance of freedom and civility as a value that they must prove they appreciate, and then tried to drag them into a sexual relationship under this pretext. Then, when the women resisted, there was violence, blackmailing, intimidation, and forcing/coercing women into sexual intercourse. Sharing all those stories and speaking frankly about the perpetrators’ descriptions, actions, and exercise of violence, as well as how the survivors felt regarding the incident, benefits the healing process. It also shows the feelings of confidence and trust during the process of sharing these stories on the blog, despite not having any guarantee of outcome or legal actions in the survivors’ favor. This reflects Banyard et  al.’s (2004) perspective that social media can increase the “mobilization of prosocial behavior” by effective social marketing (p. 68). Social marketing can be reflected in the social media trends, in which links to blog stories are shared and go viral in a few hours, consequently encouraging other survivors to come forward with their own testimonies. Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana has been attacked by many social media users and supported by many users on social media. Most remarkable is the case of arrested journalist and political activist Rasha Azab, who tweeted in support of women who published testimonies against film director, Islam Azzazi. Azab is on trial on charges of “insult,” “defamation,” and “deliberately disturbing [the plaintiff],” which refers to tweets she posted in which she supported VAW survivors who published anonymous testimonies accusing the film director of rape and sexual assaults and expressing her shock at the impunity he enjoys (Amnesty International, 2022).

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Table 7.2  41 testimonies from Daftar Hekayat El Mudawanaa #

Attributes of perpetrators

Attributes of survivors (if any)

No. of Date published testimonies per perpetrator

1

Researcher at an Egyptian NGO supporting freedom of thought and expression. (no.1) Renowned investigative journalist and trainer (no. 1–7)

–

1

July 31, 2020

Egyptian and Lebanese women journalists/trainees in Egypt and Lebanon –

7

August 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, & 28, 2020

1

August 27, 2021

–

1

August, 29, 2020

– Egyptian journalist M. R.

1 1 1

Trainee in the fourth batch of an NGO’s social theater Woman triggered by the Fairmont crime Women, young actresses, and a trainee Woman working in the cinema field –

1

August 31, 2020 September 4, 2020 September 10, 2020 September 15, 2020

Journalist

1

December 18, 2020

Trainee

1

–

1

December 19, 2020 Dec. 20, 2020

2

3 4

5 6 7

An Egyptian blogger M.G. (no. 8) High school teacher working in a secondary school for girls (no. 10) A nutritionist (no. 11) Journalist A. S. (no. 12) Muslim preacher (no. 13)

8

A theater art manager (no. 14)

9

An ex-husband (no. 15)

10 Movie director Islam Azzazy (no. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21) 11 Workers in cinema fields (no. 22) 12 Blogger and human rights activist W. A. (no. 23 [2], 24, 29, 30) 13 Senior manager at a famous Egyptian newspaper K. S. (no. 25) 14 An acting trainer A. K. (no. 26) 15 A cultural field worker A. D. (no. 27)

1 6

1 5

September 18, 2020 December 7, 8, 9 (2), 10, 11, 2020 December 13, 2020 December 14, 16, 17, 22, 23, 2020

(continued)

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Table 7.2  (continued) #

Attributes of perpetrators

16 A physician and poet M.A. (no. 28) 17 An Iraqi musician N. Sh. (no. 31) 18 A writer and author on freedoms (no. 32) 19 Renowned blogger (no. 33) 20 Cinema director A. R. (no. 34) 21 Social media influencer (no. 35) 22 A lawyer. R. A. (no. 36) 23 Workers at a company (no. 37) 24 A teaching assistant at a private university (no. 38) 25 An engineer and company owner (no. 39) 26 Film director T. A. (no. 40) 27 A poet and writer H. H. (no. 41)

Attributes of survivors (if any)

No. of Date published testimonies per perpetrator

–

1

Music trainee in his academy –

1 1

December 21, 2020 December 24, 2020 January 14, 2021

–

1

January 26, 2021

–

1

February 3, 2021

Follower on social media – –

2

February 8, 2021

1 1

February 14, 2021 February 26, 2021

Student at the same university –

1

March 12, 2021

1

April 21, 2021

–

1

April 29, 2021

–

1

May 22, 2021

The blog Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana all-­testimonials/ a

is

accessible

online:

https://elmodawana.com/

According to Amnesty International (2022), Azab could face up to two years in prison and/or a fine of up to EGP50,000 (US$2606). According to women’s rights activists, survivors prefer to post anonymously on the blog because they do not trust the judicial system. Consistent with impunity patterns regarding VAW, Egyptian authorities have not worked with women’s rights organizations and activists to encourage survivors who shared their testimonies to report the abuses to state bodies by guaranteeing their confidentiality and safety. According to Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa research and advocacy director, prosecuting women “for expressing

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solidarity with survivors of sexual violence sends a chilling message that women should suffer in silence and refrain from seeking justice and redress for rape and sexual violence” (Amnesty International, 2022, paras. 4–5). Luther added: It is absurd and disgraceful that the Egyptian authorities continue to prosecute survivors, witnesses and activists standing up against the scourge of sexual violence in Egypt instead of providing justice and adequate reparation to survivors. The authorities must put an immediate end to such reprisals and remove the threat of prosecution, including by decriminalizing ‘insult’ and ‘defamation,’ to signal to perpetrators that they can no longer intimidate women, girls and their supporters into silence and to break the chain of impunity for horrific sexual abuses. (Amnesty International, 2022, paras. 4–5).

Because of social media campaigns that were conducted by local and global rights organizations and individuals who supported the journalist and activist Azab, in April 2022, the Economic Court in Cairo dropped defamation, slander, and “financial damage” charges brought against the renowned journalist (Amnesty International, 2022; Frontline Defenders, 2022, para. 1). On August 27, 2022, the Economic Court’s verdict was to charge Azab EGP10,000 (US$500) for insulting Azzazi. A social media campaign commenced on the same day to collect the fine for Azab, since this was the price of defending VAW survivors (Elmashhad, 2022). However, the film director, Azzazi, was not charged with any crimes because the survivors did not have the courage to report the incident. Case 2: The Case of Ahmed Bassam Zaki On the morning of July 1, 2020, social media posts started accusing an Egyptian man in his 20s of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. By the evening, two hashtags were associated with the allegations. They were top trending hashtags on Twitter and Facebook in Egypt after more than 50 Egyptian and foreign women accused him of many sexual crimes. According to the website Egyptian Streets, a woman accused Ahmed Bassam Zaki of harassing her and her friends, which attracted thousands of comments. Afterward, dozens of women started coming forward with their stories, which were shared on two Instagram accounts, @skhodirr and @assaultpolice, using the hashtag #‫“( المغتصب_احمد_بسام_زكي‬#The rapist Ahmed Bassam Zaki”). The allegations made against Ahmed Bassam Zaki

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related to incidents of rape, sexual assault,1 and sexual harassment, which allegedly occurred during his studies at The American University in Cairo from 2016 to 2018, as well as during his further studies in Europe. The reporting alleges that Zaki had been accused of using various tactics to lure or force his victims to act against their will. One widely shared and graphic account was posted by @assaultpolice (an account dedicated to compiling evidence against Zaki), in which it described how the man lured his victim to meet him under the pretense that it was for a gathering with a larger friendship group. One survivor’s testimony on @assaultpolice stated that the serial rapist “contacted me again saying he had a video of the ‘makeout’ as he called it and that he wants to see me again.” The allegations of the man using blackmail included threatening to share nude photos with friends and family members. Screenshots of separate conversations between several women and the serial rapist allegedly demonstrate various threats and aggressive behavior. Accounts shared by women in Egypt and Spain ranged from rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment to instances of unwanted and uncomfortable advances and messages. Zaki was also accused of assaulting or harassing several women and girls in Egypt and abroad, ranging from those under 18 years old to women in their early and mid-20s. Subsequently, Egypt’s National Council for Women released a statement in Arabic stating that the organization is “monitoring closely and with great interest, the issue currently discussed on social media”; it also called on women to file official complaints against the serial rapist (Egypt Today, 2020). This demonstrates social media’s power in terms of promoting action in favor of VAW survivors. It also shows that social media engagement and the proliferation of social media platforms have significantly influenced public perception regarding reaching a state of zero tolerance for VAW (Jain et  al., 2020). Despite the alleged perpetrator’s harassment campaign, women were not silenced. Consequently, in April 2021, Zaki was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual violence crimes. However, women who report VAW on social media are subjects of attacks from both social media users and perpetrators. Sabah Khodir posted on her personal Instagram account stories about Zaki that were shared by thousands of social media users and received several hateful 1  Sexual assault, which includes cutting women with knives in sensitive places in mob sexual assaults, is not criminalized or defined in the criminal law. It is denoted as an “indecent assault.”

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messages and comments from users, such as “look at what you’re wearing, and you don’t want someone to come rape you?” As she expected these kinds of messages, once her post went viral, Khodir was unsurprised to receive comments and messages from men cursing her and calling her a “whore” for spreading awareness. She believes that men like these “think calling a girl a whore is the best way to scare her into doing what they want.” This type of organized online attacking of women survivors and their defenders was described by Waisbord (2020) as mob censorship that threatens the safety and right to free expression in society.

Conclusion After analyzing the two case studies of the Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana blog and the case of serial rapist Ahmed Bassam Zaki, the chapter demonstrated that social media—used by survivors, journalists, activists, and citizens—plays a crucial role in combating VAW in Egypt. The diffusion of new behavioral patterns (Bandura, 2001) among these groups, which is supported by VAW knowledge, the global #MeToo movement, social media campaigns, and social networks, helps address VAW. This study also revealed that when properly applied, internet technology and social media help combat and relieve some of the negative factors related to VAW in Global South countries. This study further analyzed the status of Egypt’s #MeToo movement and women’s attempts to address VAW in Egypt using social media. It also used Bandura’s social cognitive theory to analyze Egyptian women’s new behavioral patterns towards VAW and the role of social networks in providing a safe space. The study in this chapter examined three processes, including the acquisition of VAW knowledge and use of campaigns and social media hashtags to address increasingly worsening VAW in the years since the Mubarak political regime began in the early 1980s; the adoption of these behaviors into practice, in which women’s rights activists and journalists played a central role, especially given the mob sexual assaults that occurred between 2011 and 2014; and survivors’ use of social networks, hashtags, and the blog Daftar Hekayat El Mudawana to tell their stories during the #MeToo era. Social networks also helped project VAW stories into conventional media, and prompt the Egyptian Government to act by issuing new laws, pushing against the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators, encouraging women to report crimes officially, and then persecuting the criminals. Despite the costs of applying these processes and the risk and violence to which women are subjected,

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women journalists and activists and women’s human rights organizations and NGOs are gradually making this change a reality in Global South Egypt. Additionally, the chapter illustrated how the fight against VAW in Egypt has been like a wave passing through society. Even before the revitalized #MeToo movement in 2017, NGOs and journalists were raising awareness and forcing VAW stories into social and conventional media. This has pressured the Egyptian regime under the leadership of President El Sisi to act, which has included issuing an anti–sexual harassment law in 2014 and establishing a VAW unit in the ministry of interior. It also includes proposing a new law in Parliament that protects the confidentiality of sources, for the purpose of encouraging women to come forward and officially report VAW. These stages of diffusion to address VAW in Egypt reflect an innovative development that is exemplified by disseminating knowledge via social media and adoption. These stages of diffusion also illustrate the influence that Egypt’s #MeToo movement has had on VAW survivors and women in general, as they start to use social media on a larger scale to profile their concerns. However, the problems encountered in implementing new laws and regulations in Egypt historically indicate deficiency in the outcomes of implementation and maintenance. Online harassment and mob censorship campaigns are risks and limitations for social change processes to manifest. Nevertheless, the existence of new laws and other initiatives are positive signs of women’s fight against VAW in the Global South. In the diffusion of innovation, social media has been primarily adopted for its high-level advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and low complexity. Cursing and shaming women who survived or defend VAW survivors is part of what feminist journalist and activist, Mona El-Tahawy, calls “purity culture,” which leaves women burdened with the responsibility of their own safety from sexual violence (Egyptian Streets, 2020, para. 45). Many survivors could not speak because they were afraid of being exiled or shamed by the community. Purity culture also manifests in the common questions directed at survivors, such as “What were you wearing?” or “Why were you there in the first place?” (Egyptian Streets, 2020, para. 45). This approach promotes “rape culture,” a phenomenon of blaming the victims rather than holding perpetrators accountable (Egyptian Streets, 2020, para. 45). Therefore, what remains is most likely the adoption, implementation, and maintenance of an anti-VAW law that, when enforced, could be used to address this important issue.

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Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. (2014). At least 9 cases of mob-sexual assault and gang rapes with sharp objects and fingers this week. http://eipr.org/ en/pressrelease/2014/06/09/2144 Egyptian Streets. (2020, July 2). Egypt’s silent victims: Man Accused of rape, harassment by 50+ women exposes rape culture. Egyptian Streets. https:// egyptianstreets.com/2020/07/02/egypts-­silent-­victims-­man-­accused-­of-­rape­harassment-­by-­50-­women-­exposes-­rape-­culture/ El-Deeb, B. (2013). Study on ways and methods to eliminate sexual harassment in Egypt. Harrassmap. https://gisf.ngo/wp-­content/uploads/2020/02/2172-­ UN-­Women-­2 013-­S tudy-­o n-­Ways-­a nd-­M ethods-­t o-­E liminate-­S exual-­ Harassment-­in-­Egypt.pdf El-Ibiary, R. (2017). Media portrayal of street violence against Egyptian women: Women, socio-political violence, ineffective laws, and the limited role of NGOs. IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication & Film, 4(1), 49–64. https://doi. org/10.22492/ijmcf.4.1.04 ElMashhad. (2022, August 27). A renowned historian calls for collecting a fine for Rasha Azab for accusing the film director of harassment. https://www.elmashhad.online/Post/details/144036 EuroMed Right. (2016). Egypt: Report on violence against women. https:// euromedrights.org/publication/egypt-­report-­violence-­women/ Frontline Defenders. (2022). Rasha Azab acquitted of charge. https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/woman-­h uman-­r ights-­d efender-­r asha-­a zab-­ charged-­slander-­and-­defamation Grove, N. S. (2015). The cartographic ambiguities of HarassMap: Crowdmapping security and sexual violence in Egypt. Security Dialogue, 46(4), 345–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010615583039 Human Rights Watch. (2020, September 11). Egypt gang rape: Witnesses arrested, smeared.https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/11/egypt-­gang-­rape-­witnesses­arrested-­smeared International Federation of Human Rights, Nazra for Feminist Studies, New Women Foundation, Uprising of Women in the Arab World. (2014). Egypt keeping women out: Sexual violence against women in the public sphere. http:// www.wmf.org.eg/librar y/egypt-­k eeping-­w omen-­o ut-­s exual-­v iolence­against-­women-­in-­the-­public-­sphere/ Jain, V. K., Gupta, A., Tyagi, V., & Verma, H. (2020). Social media and green consumption behavior of millennials. Journal of Content, Community and Communication, 10(6), 221–230. Marroushi, N. (2014a, July 16). Tahrir sexual assault survivors recount their ordeals. Mada Masr. https://www.madamasr.com/sections/politics/tahrir-­ sexual-­assault-­survivors-­recount-­their-­ordeals

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Marroushi, N. (2014b, June 10). El Sisi orders crackdown on sexual harassment following Tahrir Square assaults. The National. https://www.thenational.ae/ world/middle-­e as/el-­s isi-­o rders-­c rackdown-­o n-­s exual-­h arrassment­following-­tahrir-­square-­assaults Marroushi, N. (2014c, July 16). Nine defendants given 20 years to life in prison for Tahrir mob sexual assaults. Mada Masr. https://www.madamasr.com/ news/nine-­defendants-­given-­20-­years-­life-­prison-­tahrir-­mob-­sexual-­assaults Marroushi, N., & El Wardany, S. (2013). Raped Egypt women wish death over life as crimes ignored. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ 2013-­03-­07/raped-­egypt-­women-­wish-­death-­over-­life-­as-­crimes-­ignored Mosleh, H.  R., Abdelhai, R., Roudi, F., & Ashford, L.  S. (2015). Advancing Egyptian society by ending violence against women. https://www.prb.org/wp-­ content/uploads/2021/02/06052015-­egypt-­violence-­against-­women-­1.pdf Muslim, C. (2019). Shifting dynamics of safe spaces for women in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Egypt: A reflection on the article “We are not women, we are Egyptians”. African Journal of Gender and Religion, 25(2), 152–170. https://doi.org/10.14426/ajgr.v25i2.21 Nazra for Feminist Studies. (2014). The mob-sexual assaults and gang rapes in Tahrir Square during the celebrations of the inauguration of the new Egyptian president is sufficient proof for the inefficiency of the recent legal amendments to combat these crimes. http://nazra.org/en/2014/06/mob-­sexual-­assaults­and-­gang-­rapes-­tahrir-­square-­during-­celebrations-­inauguration-­new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2018). Bridging the digital gender divide: Include, upskill, innovate. https://www.oecd.org/digital/bridging-­the-­digital-­gender-­divide.pdf Oweidat, N., Bernard, C., & Stahl, D. (2008). The Kefaya movement: A case study of a grassroots reform initiative. The Rand Corporation. https://www.rand. org/pubs/monographs/MG778.html Ryan, F., Coughlan, M., & Cronin, P. (2009). Interviewing in qualitative research: The one-to-one interview. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 16(6), 309–314. https://doi.org/10.12968/ijtr.2009.16.6.42433 Saleh, M. (2017). The role of online and social media in combating sexual harassment in Egypt [Unpublished master’s thesis]. The American University in Cairo. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/436/ Saleh, M. (2022). Gender gap in internet access in Africa 2021, by country. https:// www.statista.com/statistics/1308428/gender-­g ap-­i n-­i nternet-­a ccess-­ in-­africa-­by-­country/ Schultz, C. (2014). In Egypt, 99 percent of women have been sexually harassed. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-­news/ egypt-­9 9-­w omen-­h ave-­b een-­s exually-­h arassed180951726/#:~:text= According%20to%20a%202013%20United%20Nations%20study%2C%20 says,the%20women%20studied%20report%20having%20been%20sexually%20 harassed

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Shukla, S., Singh, P.  P., & Garima. (2020). #Me Too movement: Influence of social media engagement on intention to control sexual harassment against women. Journal of Content, Community & Communication Amity School of Communication, 12(6), 57–69. https://doi.org/10.31620/JCCC.12.20/07 Somach, S.  D., & AbouZeid, G. (2009). Egypt violence against women study: Literature review of violence against women. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/ PNADQ891.pdf Starman, A. B. (2013). The case study as a type of qualitative research. Journal of Contemporary Education Studies, 64(1), 28–43. https://www.sodobna-­ pedagogika.net/en/ar ticles/01-­2 013_the-­c ase-­s tudy-­a s-­a -­t ype-­o f-­ qualitative-­research/ Statista. (2019). Egypt: online penetration 2013–2019. https://www.statista.com/ statistics/484939/internet-­user-­reach-­egypt/ Statista. (2022). Number of internet users in select countries in Africa as of January 2022, by country. https://www.statista.com/statistics/505883/number-­of-­ internet-­users-­in-­african-­countries/ Waisbord, S. (2020). Mob censorship: Online harassment of US journalists in times of digital hate and populism. Digital Journalism, 8(8), 1030–1046. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2020.1818111 Zaki, A. H., & Abd Alhamid, D. (2014, July 9). Women as fair game in the public sphere: A critical introduction for understanding sexual violence and methods of resistance. Jadaliyya. www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18455/women-­as-­fair­game-­in-­the-­public-­sphere_a-­criticaln

CHAPTER 8

Online Activism in Contexts of War: Is There a #MeToo Echo in Libya, Syria, and Yemen? Saoussen Ben Cheikh

and Jeannine E. Relly

Introduction Women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were at the forefront of the Arab Spring of 2011, in which they demanded the overthrow of repressive regimes that had been in power for decades. Because women in the MENA region had been among the largest number of survivors of institutional oppression for decades, many women activists hoped the Arab Spring revolution would transform their countries, end discriminatory legislation, and advance women’s rights and gender equity. Despite massive pressure from the streets, change in power failed to materialize. Instead, civil wars engulfed some nations in the MENA region, with no end in sight. The wars in Libya (2011, 2014–2020), Syria

S. B. Cheikh MENA-can, Tunis, Tunisia J. E. Relly (*) University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_8

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(2011–present), and Yemen (2014–present) have elevated violations committed against women to higher and newer levels. Our study focused on social media responses to violence against women (VAW) in Libya, Syria, and Yemen because these three countries were devastated by war. In the absence of news reported on VAW on Google News about the countries in this study, we also used the platform to study other content there from governmental, nongovernmental, and intergovernmental organizations. In these extreme circumstances, media coverage about humanitarian relief has become a priority, and women’s voices and calls for equal rights have been sidelined. During wars, the most important act is to survive; human rights are not on the top of the male gender–dominated political agenda. News media in all three countries that this chapter sought to analyze are under tight control of government or political parties, and the safety and security of independent reporters and others are at great risk. Other scholars have similarly outlined news media challenges and constraints in MENA countries of the Global South (Mutsvairo & Bebawi, 2022; Richter & Kozman, 2021). Moreover, Libya, Syria, and Yemen have been categorized as “not free” for political rights and civil liberties (Freedom House, 2022). With these serious issues providing the study’s context, this chapter uses transnational feminism and domestic collective action for institutional and social change as a framework (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Risse & Sikkink, 1999)1 for studying how VAW in Libya, Syria, and Yemen have been resisted and responded to in these conditions. We used a qualitative research approach to understand the four years after the women’s #MeToo movement was sparked in the region in 2017 through a plea to use the Twitter hashtag “#MeToo” to speak out about sexual abuse.2 Using 226 online social media posts and additional sources from intergovernmental and nongovernmental reports from Google News in the absence of any news reports from October 15, 2017, to August 31, 2021, the study in this chapter sought to examine textual data from Google News and social media that address the violence in these three nations in conflict. We considered whether the #MeToo movement in this part of the Global South 1  The underlying studies included Khamis (2011), Relly and González de Bustamante (2017), Salih (2010), and Shaban (2022) 2  Me Too founder Tarana Burke originally coined the phrase to raise awareness about the abuse of women, and the language was later adapted to include a hashtag by actor Alyssa Milano (Gill & Rahman-Jones, 2020).

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is as transnational as it might seem, with women worldwide speaking out about gender-based violence and the extent it has reached countries experiencing profound gender inequities and violence in the context of conflict. Our overarching research question aimed to study whether #MeToo contributed to breaking the silence and if it ushered in any type of feminist online activity or news coverage in Libya, Syria, or Yemen that resisted gender-based violence. The following subsections examine existing literature that focuses on women’s rights movements and digital activity in the MENA region and specifically the countries of Libya, Syria, and Yemen. We then examined global trends related to VAW—more specifically in the MENA region and then in the three countries under study. Our methodology and findings demonstrated the limits of tracing open online activity in highly repressive environments. Finally, this chapter discusses best practices and ways forward.

Conditions for Women’s Movements and Collective Action Over Time From the beginning of the twentieth century, women in the MENA region have assumed activist roles in a struggle against politics and legal barriers, long-held patriarchal values, and the lack of opportunity for career progression in occupations (Al-Ali, 2003). Notable examples include Egypt’s struggles during the 1920s and 1930s, which were anti-­ colonial in nature and involved nationalist movements, and anti-Zionist initiatives in the 1930s and 1940s in Palestine. Later, the Algerian liberation struggle emerged in the 1950s and 1960s (Al-Ali, 2003, p.  217; Moghadam, 2003). Some of the early feminist organizations in the MENA began in the 1960s and 1970s with left-leaning, pro-Palestinian solidarity organizations; they later progressed in the first years of the 1980s, when women’s rights collectives emerged in Algeria, and then in Morocco and Tunisia (Moghadam, 2003, 2020, p. 476). One aspect that is clear about women in the region is that those involved with activism have been divided politically and ideologically; they align themselves with numerous organized politics, communist organizations, liberal organizations, social-­ democratic groups, or Islamist or other ideological orientations. Political movements do not necessarily support equity rights for women (Moghadam, 2003, p. 14). Moreover, women’s issues were often pushed

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to the background when nationalist struggles became more paramount (Charrad, 2011). Since the 1980s, in addition to the rise in rates of mass education, collective action, and full movements, the growth of women’s organizations has spread in this Global South region. According to Mounira M. Charrad (2011, p. 425), most activist groups have emphasized how they are different from Western feminists in the Global North, as they had more uphill battles to rally against or colonial legacies and hegemonic power to address. Completing research in this area not only involves colonial histories but also the post-colonial period that has led to challenges for Middle Eastern scholars accessing information, even from their own regions (Fenster & Hamdan-Saliba, 2013). By the 2000s, women’s empowerment and initiatives for gender equity in many MENA countries were led by governments; however, these same governments often rejected democracy and inclusion (Geha & Karam, 2021). However, over time, these initiatives did not reach poor women, marginalized women, women with disabilities, and vulnerable women (Geha & Karam, 2021, p. 26). Further, continual conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have left young girls and women at risk of forced marriage and sex work, partly because of gendered policymaking related to education and employment (Geha & Karam, 2021, pp. 27–28). However, a narrative persisted that the women’s movement related to equity and basic rights for women did not grow inside the MENA region but from “outside” (Ahmed, 1982, p.  153). Issues related to women’s reproductive rights or, more specific to this chapter, to VAW, have been taken on by fewer women’s organizations in the twentieth century in this region than other causes (Al-Ali, 2003). It should also be noted that the role of female protesters in the revolutions throughout the MENA region and their presence in Western media has been described as a “highly problematic” symbol of the revolution itself, which contrasts other colonial discourses, such as “helpless females who have been shackled by the conservative values of Oriental patriarchy” (Ibroscheva, 2013, pp. 871–872). Although political participation and labor-force participation in the MENA are low for women, the rates vary greatly by country. In many ways, this has been linked to the strength of women’s rights movements rather than the economic sector or social policy (Moghadam, 2020). The rise of collective action or movements for women’s rights is linked to educational attainment, professional opportunities, shifts in societal perspectives, and

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connections or involvement to civil society (Glas & Alexander, 2020; Moghadam, 2020, p. 469). The emergence of some women’s movements in the MENA region are also tied to nationalist struggles. However, the way governments have responded has also shaped how women’s organizations have emerged in the region. That said, some of the women’s movements in the region have similarities. Some share political factors, such as links to nationalist movements or secular and religious causes. They have also shared being the object of global stereotypes of women, in this case as “passive victims of patriarchal oppression”—which is often a common theme from outside the Global South, despite that women have organized for more than a century and constantly challenged ideologies related to gender (Al-Ali, 2003, p. 217). Without a doubt, diversity and fluidity exists in these contexts, in which women represent approximately half of the population in the MENA region. Moreover, these differences are prompted by socioeconomic situations, political orientations, geography, ethnicity, and affiliations that individuals or groups have with other countries from outside or inside the region (Al-Ali, 2003, p. 217).

Social Change in the MENA Region Research also has examined transnational public spheres, which have been a by-product of women’s activism and the diasporas who have migrated from the MENA region to Europe. Europe has been the largest destination for first-generation migrants for nearly half of all emigrants from the region (Salih, 2010). Transnational civil societies have developed because the number of cross-border networks has grown in the new millennium, consequently advancing global campaigns, directing focus to international organizations, raising funds, and pressing for social change and structural reforms (Salih, 2010, pp. 55–56). Among the campaigns were “Women Living under Muslim Laws, Women in Black and Women against Fundamentalism,” all of which were designed to advance women’s rights and gather women in Europe who advocated for women’s rights as human rights and against domestic violence in the MENA region and outside it (Geha & Karam, 2021; Salih, 2010, p. 56). “Transnational feminist networks” carried new language across country boundaries to women’s rights causes and successfully mobilized women to change everyday issues at the grassroots level (Salih, 2010, p. 68). Without a doubt, the Arab Spring of 2011  in the region encouraged women of all ages, religions, political

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ideologies, and economic backgrounds to emerge (Khamis, 2011), which was distinctly intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989). This trend eventually involved a complex tapestry of reforms, in general, and women’s rights, specifically. It was hoped that women’s resilience in the MENA region and their determination for advancing change would act as a force to counter initiatives. Sahar Khamis (2011) noted at the beginning of many of the Arab Spring uprisings in this region that the sheer volume of Arab women’s political activities offline and online led to a new period for the region, and that there was “no turning back for Arab feminists” (p. 694). Unlike some forms of protest in the Global South that often led to backlash from state authorities (e.g., Egypt), the internet emerged as a relatively safe alternative space for survivors to tell their stories, to name their abusers, and to find solidarity and support that might otherwise be missing from their immediate surroundings, despite the complexity regarding the digital divide (Relly & Pakanati, 2020). By using their own language and creating their own spaces online, women have reclaimed a feminist movement that was otherwise perceived to be a Western-centric, Global North trend; women in the MENA region have made it their own. There is hope that this will create the space for more women in the region to speak out about many issues, including VAW, and to create a cultural shift, if not legal reformation.

Global Violence Against Women and the Middle East and North Africa Region To contextualize the countries in this study, we note that women worldwide are facing gender-based violence to different extents. The UN reported that “globally, an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life” (United Nations Women, 2022, para. 2). This figure is likely to be underestimated because VAW is often banalized and left unreported and unaccounted for. Despite progressive outlooks and legislation protecting women’s rights, especially in Western countries of the Global North, women still face pervasive and subtle discrimination throughout all stages of their lives. Sexual harassment in the workplace is widespread, affecting women in every country and across all socioeconomic levels. For example, 60% of women in the Global North countries, such as the U.S., and 55%

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in the European Union, reported having been sexually harassed at least once at work, according to The World Bank (Arekapudi & Santagostino Recavarren, 2020). Gender-based violence is commonplace in the MENA region and, as reflected in the current edited collection, throughout the Global South. However, women in the Global South face an additional and unique set of challenges compared to the women-based Global North, including low political representation and participation rates in the workforce. We focus on the MENA region for this study, given that since 2011, the region had undergone a transformation prompted by the Arab Spring, which toppled decades-old dictatorships with demands for social justice, dignity, and freedom and rallied people across all socio-economic strata, ages, and backgrounds. However, the shift in power demanded by the wave of pro-democracy protests and uprisings across the region did not occur. The wars in certain countries in the MENA region have caused more unprecedented destruction, poverty, and chaos, which have all disproportionately influenced women. This study focuses on Syria, Libya, and Yemen in the MENA region because of certain similarities regarding the VAW discourse, conflict, and state or outsider governing body control. These three countries also have low rates of internet penetration, which is a limiting factor in speaking out against VAW outside the control of state or political party media. In Syria, in its more than 10th year of conflict, sexual violence has been used against women as a weapon of war. One analysis of how the #MeToo movement against rape and sexual assault manifested in Global South countries with strict authoritarian rule found that religious extremists, nongovernment organization (NGO) employees, local Syrian men, and the Syrian regime all participated in the violence (Socialist Worker, 2019). Since the Arab Spring uprising, Syrian government forces have used rape as a method to increase the attacked person’s submission and that of the individual’s family. NGO workers and locals have demanded sex for humanitarian aid (Socialist Worker, 2019, paras. 8–10). Libya, although a wealthy nation, historically had few educational opportunities and little political life under the more than 40 years of Muammar Gaddafi rule (1969–2011). According to a UN analysis, 150,000 women in the country face safety issues, including gender-based violence (Cordaid, 2020). Moreover, since 2014, the civil conflict in Libya, combined with the growth in arms and armed groups, has led to a context of impunity (Cordaid, 2020). Although VAW is common in Libya, reporting it,

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including from activists, is low because of threats of death or violence (Cordaid, 2020, para. 1). Yemen has the lowest per capita income among the three MENA nations in this study, and it has been continuously under authoritarian rule. By 2022, its president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, stepped down and a Presidential Leadership Council replaced him as a temporary governing body. Since the conflict escalated in Yemen during 2015, the number of VAW cases has risen by 63%; with warring factions’ activities, and because the number of displaced women and girls has risen precipitously, concomitant violence has risen with this nation (Human Rights Watch, 2020). The MENA countries in this study share crucial conditions for women. Among the worst performing countries in a 170-nation index for women, peace, and security (Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, 2021), Syria ranked second, Yemen ranked third, and Libya was twenty-first among nearly a dozen indicators, including for intimate partner violence, organized violence and deaths, and perception of community safety. In a list of the 10 most dangerous countries for women, Syria ranked third and Yemen eighth of the 193 UN member states (Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2018). Moreover, Libya has had a deteriorating situation regarding security after its dictator, Gadhafi, was deposed and killed, with delays in investigations of mass gender-based and sexual violence (Working Group on Women, Peace & Security, 2022).

Framework for the Study Minding the complexity of the MENA region, diversity among and in countries like Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and the variation in women’s use of the internet, this study used an adaptation of two frameworks for our analysis. First, we analyzed social media and news coverage for reporting on initiatives that fostered collective resistance to the status quo or anti-­ women’s rights policies, legislation, conditions, or neglect that uses the global #MeToo movement hashtag. Second, recognizing that observing a global approach to collective action could have vestiges of colonial comparisons, we still acknowledged diaspora women’s work and activity in the global community. Therefore, rather than assigning credit to the global community, our intent was to describe any collective action or movement in this area, or lack thereof. This is in addition to understanding domestic grassroots initiatives in Syria, Yemen, and Libya and the daily acts of resistance that are exhibited online or in news coverage.

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Our framework for analyzing social media posts and news coverage might include small acts of resistance in these MENA countries that use techniques to avoid being noticed and prevent being detected in insecure or unsafe spaces. It could also concentrate on forms of resistance at the other end of the spectrum, like the #MeToo movement, which aimed for spectacular statements and public events. Or it can include broad news coverage under the #MeToo or similar hashtags and social movements that depict elites and non-elites working together toward a resistance cause. In this case, we analyzed digital activity and a global news aggregator that focuses on VAW in Libya, Syria, and Yemen related to #MeToo campaigns that identify and amplify gender-based issues, solutions, or innovations to address the issue. We also noted resistance techniques in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere in the MENA region, and more broadly in the Global South, that allowed those at risk to be safe, which involved little coordination or little formal organizing. Therefore, in this study, such manifestations of literal or symbolic foot dragging, false compliance, pretending ignorance, or sabotage can also be described as examples of resistance (Scott, 1985, p. xvi, 2008, p. 35). These everyday forms of resistance in Libya, Syria, and Yemen tend to not have headlines or be recognized by the masses or authorities. We accounted for this when we analyzed our qualitative data relating to these three countries’ contexts. Individual forms of resistance have also included writing or not writing (self-censoring) as a form of resistance, training, and counter discourse (James, 1993, p. 90). This chapter expands our analytical framework from types of resistance that are demonstrated on social media to the more than two decades-old framework that includes collective actions ranging from grassroots to national and global levels (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Relly & González de Bustamante, 2017; Risse & Sikkink, 1999). The latter part of the framework considers types of domestic and transnational organizations that collaborate to advocate for changes in norm-violating environments in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, which includes key aims to amplify the issues or ways of addressing them in a global manner. This could occur through multiple methods. Therefore, we studied activist, transnational, and domestic organizational outreach and other activities on social media, or activities that received coverage in Google News. Among the actions that could be regarded as collective action in Libya, Syria, and Yemen were lobbying intergovernmental, donor, and governmental organizations for change and building organizational alliances to amplify the issues, which are often noted by news organizations who report it. The activities also could

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involve creating safe spaces for those in jeopardy, fundraising for their causes, and building grassroots capacities to address VAW and support resistance and social change (González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021; Relly & González de Bustamante, 2017; Risse & Sikkink, 1999).

Online Activity and Activism Unlike traditional forms of in-person protests in the MENA region, which have often led to backlash from state authorities or religious groups, the revitalized #MeToo movement of 2017 emerged online on social media platforms (e.g., Twitter) and linked to the theory of accessibility for everyone with no cost in one click. However, connecting to the internet and accessing information can be challenging, especially for women in countries of conflict such as Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Digital activism faces barriers and might be reserved to a few educated and well-resourced women. Overall, people living in the MENA region spend more than three and a half hours a day on social networks (Radcliffe, 2021). Moreover, a person in the MENA region is on 8.4 social media platforms each month on average. Instagram is an emerging platform in the region with a sizable number of users; older platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, also are popular (Gupta, 2021). Given that this research focuses on the #MeToo movement, and whether it has reached and been embraced within Libya, Syria, and Yemen, we also acknowledge that the internet penetration rates in these countries is low compared to other parts of the MENA region, which reached a 74% penetration rate in 2020 when high-income countries were excluded (The World Bank, 2022a). Libya’s internet penetration in the last year available (2014) was 18%, while Syria’s internet penetration rate was 34.25% in the same year, and Yemen’s rate was 27% for 2017 (The World Bank, 2022b). Our initial focus on social media and news draws on data related to the digital and global diffusion of #MeToo, though we acknowledge that this is a Western-hemisphere, Global North–originated because the original tweet was posted in the US.3

3   Actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet: https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/9196594 38700670976?s=20

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Research Methodology: Context, Study Rationale, and Procedure To study activities relating to social change in the shadow of conflict, VAW, and low levels of internet connectivity in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, this study implemented a qualitative research approach that incorporated a collective action framework to study the content from a census of Google News and social media content from four social media platforms (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). This study aimed to examine news coverage on Google News and social media activity in relation to resistance linked to the revitalized #MeToo movement, with special attention paid to collective action in these Global South countries. We began the search for data from the beginning of the online #MeToo movement on October 15, 2017,4 which was signified by the tweet with the Twitter hashtag “#MeToo” to raise awareness and break the silence against sexual abuses experienced in the Hollywood film industry. We ended our search for data at the end of the study on August 31, 2021. We searched for key resistance terms that were derivatives or outgrowths of the #MeToo global movement in Arabic and English in Google News and social media platforms that are still among the most used in the world: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube (Shahid, 2021; Wagner, 2021). We used terms associated with VAW and the responses to it from the literature with the country names in the project: #Metoo #‫( أناكمان‬Ena Kamen) and #YouAreNotAlone #‫( لست_وحدك‬Lassta Wahdek). Our search terms are in both English and Arabic. The English terms included: • #MeTooSyria and #MeToo AND Syria • #MeTooLibya and #MeToo AND Libya • #MeTooYemen and #MeToo AND Yemen • #YouAreNotAloneYemen and #YouAreNotAlone AND Yemen • #YouAreNotAloneSyria and #YouAreNotAlone AND Syria • #YouAreNotAloneLibya and #YouAreNotAlone AND Libya

4   Actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet: https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/9196594 38700670976?s=20

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The Arabic terms included: • ‫أنا كمان‬# / #‫أنا أيضا‬ = Translation of “me too” in Classical Arabic (Ena aydan) and Levant (Ena kamen) • #‫أنا كمان سوريا‬ = #MeTooSyria • #‫أنا كمان ليبيا‬ = #MeTooLibya • #‫أنا كمان يمن‬ = #MeTooYemen • .#‫ أنت لست وحدك ليبيا‬/ #YouAreNotAloneLibya#‫ أنت لست وحدك اليمن‬/ #YouAreNotAloneYemen#‫ أنت لست وحدك سوريا‬/ #YouAreNotAloneSyria

Social Media and #MeToo Accounts for Libya, Syria, and Yemen The spontaneous, worldwide, and online #MeToo campaign appears to not have broken the digital silence observed in the three countries that have been decimated by conflict. As Table  8.1 illustrates, we found 52 #MeToo tweets in English from 2017 to 2021. As Table  8.1 demonstrates, Syria dominated the localized #MeToo hashtags on Twitter (accounting for 44% of the total posts) and for other social media sites; however, this was minimal overall when compared with the campaigns that stemmed from countries in the Global North. No Google News pieces were found in Arabic or English that directly related to #MeTooLibya, #MeTooSyria, or #MeTooYemen. However, there were two Arabic articles and 11 news and non-news English articles related to activism or to VAW being addressed in the MENA region.

Table 8.1  #MeToo posts on social media in English (Syria, Libya and Yemen, 2017–2021) Social media Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Google News Total

#MeTooSyria 2 1 23 6 0 27

#MeTooLibya 0 0 11 0 0 11

#MeTooYemen 0 0 9 0 0 9

Total 2 1 43 6 0 52

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#MeToo and Twitter in Libya, Syria, and Yemen Syria Between 2017 and 2020, the study found no #MeToo or #YouAreNotAlone hashtags in Arabic for Syria on Twitter. However, 23 tweets in English were found that related to the country name and #MeToo. The Syrian Twitter feed leaned more toward the Global North because of its tendency to focus on Hollywood-inspired #MeToo hashtags and overt gender equity. For Syria, we found individual tweets, such as from @TjpAbdul on March 4, 2018: “More than 13,000 Syrian women face #torture and #rape in Assad regime prisons. Anyone talking about these women at the #Oscars? #Women’s Rights #Syria #MeToo #TimesUp #Oscars2018 #WomensHistoryMonth.” This tweet had one comment, four retweets, and nine likes. Another example is @QZakarya on March 23, 2018: I saw #Assad terrorists rape women in #Syria I saw the drugs and condoms inside their pockets during invasion attempts on my town. I hope you all enjoy this selfie by #Assad terrorists in #EasternGhouts preparing a rape party today. #WomensHistoryMonth #NeverAgain #MeToo.

A third example included a large photo of a woman beneath @miriwood’s October 2, 2018 tweet, which stated: “This is the final photo of Tharwat Fadel Abou Ammar, 25. It has been added to the report on #femicide & #rape against #Syrian women supported by the West. #MeToo looks the other way.” As a fourth example, @RonanLTynan tweeted the following on January 27, 2019, for which they received 11 likes and 10 retweets: Cannot say #MeToo movement achieved anything unless #Assad & fellow war criminals face justice for mass gang rape & sexual torture of women and girls on industrial scale putting down 2011 peaceful uprising in #Syria? #CrimeAgainstHumanity #Marian @Syria_lri @snhr @amnesty @hrw.

By 2020, a few more individuals and organizations in Syria occasionally used the #MeToo hashtag. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom tweeted on October 24, 2020: “#Sexualviolence by Force of Arms Against #Women in #Syria: A Tool of Political Repression, Social Dismantling and Impoverishment of Women and Communities. … #MeTooSyria.” Further, on October 28, 2020, @DawlatyOrg tweeted a

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poster with a Kalashnikov and a note about a policy paper on sexual violence by force of arms against women in Syria: “This severe inferiority in the status of women survivors of sexual violence directly and significantly affects their political position as primary actors in influencing current and future political prospects in Syria. #ENDSGBV … #MeTooSyria.” In a further example, @pauldbowen tweeted the following on July 10, 2021: “Honour Killing’… [angry face emoji] Girl is dragged to an abandoned house and shot by her tribe in ‘honour killing’ after running off with her lover and refusing to marry her cousin in Syria. #BackwardIdeology, where’s the #MeToo movement???” Libya The study found no #MeToo or #YouAreNotAlone hashtags in Arabic for Libya on Twitter. Between 2017 and 2021, our study found 11 tweets in English related to Libya and #MeToo, of which some appeared to be from individuals and a few organizations. One tweet by @Libya4life on October 16, 2017, with five likes and three retweets, noted: “Sexual harassment is just a fact of life for every woman in #Libya. Its [sic] not the exception, unfortunately its [sic] the rule. #MeToo.” However, four years after the revitalized #MeToo movement in 2017, most of the tweets emerged in 2020. For example, @sex_abuse_news posted a photo with a shadowed women and wall graffiti on January 25, 2020: “Rape, abuse and violence: Female migrants’ journey to Libya—Al Jazeera English.” Another tweet by @ggbrokensilence that same year, stated: “This is Libya. This is the world. This is #metoo.” Further, @xogogoxo posted: “Women need to speak out and support each other, it is about creating a real change in our country for us and for the coming generations. #Metoo #Libya.” Nearly six months later, on July 6, 2020, @xsmilyface28 posted with the same language: “Women need to speak up and support each other, it is about creating a real change in our country for us and for coming generations. #Metoo #libya.” The same tweet verbatim came from @abdobukra1 the next day on July 7, 2020, which displayed the same graphic of hands with #MeToo and “Me Too” on the palms of the hand and an auto-generated bar for tweeting #MeToo in English and Arabic beneath it. In another tweet on December 20, 2021, @dihya_aaa posted: “Such tragedy. Waiting for #MeToo to speak up for these refugees [sic]women in Libya #Libya.” This was a retweet of @RefugeesinLibya from a day earlier, which received 12,800 views: “‘I was raped by five armed men and now I

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am pregnant. I am a mother of six, after the Gargaresh attack my elder children disappeared.’ A victim of the Gargaresh shares her heartbreaking story @hrw @JFCrisp @BBCWorld @KitchaFitFit1.” Yemen This study found no #MeToo or #YouAreNotAlone hashtags in Arabic for Yemen, though it found nine English tweets related to #MeToo and Yemen. This suggests that #metooYemen is a small-scale Twitter affair with generally fewer than 10 retweets and fewer than 20 likes. This also represents less than half of tweets in relation to Syria. However, like Syria, most of these tweets for Yemen and Libya began in 2018. Among the tweets, Yemen was mentioned among #MeTooSyria, #MeTooLibya, #MeTooHaiti and other countries. For Yemen, @munaluqman tweeted the following on November 26, 2018, receiving one comment, several retweets, and 13 likes: Women have never been as terrified in #Yemen as they have been since #Huthis [sic] took over by armed force. All the norms, traditions and redlines have been crossed, increase in #GBV by this militant group must be recognized during the peace process @OSE_Yemen #OrangeTheWorld #Metoo.

In another example, @_thenode tweeted on April 12, 2020: “Really proud of this feminist Yemeni presence and great activism on Twitter.” Yemeni supporters of #MetooMENA said “#Yemen #MeToo #feminist,” which received nine retweets and 16 likes. Similar to a tweet for Libya, @ ggbrokensilence tweeted on April 17, 2021: “This is Yemen. This is the World. This is #metoo.” On April 12, 2020, @z_thenode tweeted, “Really proud of this feminist Yemeni presence and great activism on Twitter.” Yemeni support of #MetooMENA said #Yemen #MeToo #feminist, with a news story posted about a Yemeni woman who tweeted to expose a man who sexually harassed her friend online. This tweet received 15 likes and nine shares.

#MeToo on Facebook for Libya, Syria, and Yemen This study found no #MeToo or #YouAreNotAlone posts or hashtags in Arabic on Facebook for any of the selected countries in the four-year timeframe. In English, two posts were found on Facebook, but they were not

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directly related to #MeToo in the countries studied. For example, one Facebook post by France 24  in English stated: “#MeToo in Morocco, female farmers in Ivory Coast and women activists in Libya.” It received 651 views and was posted in 2021. The other was posted by Thuraya Hejazi on October 28, 2020, in a graphic with the words: “The authorities are above accountability, and the rapist is generally a military man with orders to perpetrate violence, so there is no prospect of accountability.” Also posted was “Sexual violence by force of arms against women in Syria.” The bottom of the graphic listed the following information: “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Zenobia, Women now for Development, Women Survivors #ENDSGBV #UNSCR1325 #Orangetheworld #Justice4Syria #MeTooSyria #WomenPeaceSecurity #WPSin2020.”

#MeToo-like Hashtags on Social Media in Arabic No country-specific #MeToo posts in Arabic were found using the hashtags that we studied. As outlined in Table 8.2, 174 #MeToo Arabic posts were found between 2017 and 2021 that used Classical Arabic and Levant Arabic to refer to #MeToo, of which most was found on Facebook. Ena Kamen in Levant Arabic has almost double the use than that of Ena Aydan in Classical Arabic, again mostly on Facebook. One #MeToo page created by two women’s rights organizations had more than 6,000 followers. This likely accounts for the higher Levant Arabic posts. However, 10 of 36 Facebook posts for Ena Aydan were from UN agencies (e.g., UNFPA, UN News). Like the English #MeToo movement originating in the U.S., social media in the MENA region aims to encourage women to speak up and convey their experiences of being sexually harassed, groped, molested, or raped in schools, workplaces, public transport, or public

Table 8.2  #MeToo Arabic posts on social media (2017–2021) Social media platform Twitter Facebook Instagram YouTube Total

Ena Aydan in Classical Arabic

Ena Kamen in Levant Arabic

3 36 4 25 68

1 94 10 1 106

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places in Syria. The author called on women to tell their stories in a Google form, titled “#MeToo.” A #MeToo Facebook page was created by women in the Levant and Yemen who collected anonymized stories through their Google form and shared the testimonials on their Facebook page.

Libya, Syria, and Yemen: #MeToo on YouTube, Instagram, and Google News This study found no #MeToo or #YouAreNotAlone posts or hashtags in Arabic on YouTube and Instagram. Among the three countries, only Syria had English posts on YouTube. Among those, six posts focused on #MeToo and Syria. Notably, on October 23, 2020, the Euro-Mediterranean Women’s Foundation posted an Arabic and English paper with “#MeTooSyria” listed at the end. The post examines: Structural (socio-cultural, economic, and political) dimensions, monitoring the effects of sexual violence on the political and social positionality and status of women, on the one hand, and linking it to the political economy of #war and sexual violence, and its effects on the perpetuation of women’s ‘inferior’ political status.

We found only one #MeToo-related Instagram post—#MeTooSyria, which had 45 posts from the account. Our research did not find any specific #MeToo hashtags connected with the countries in Google News, but country names and #MeToo included two #MeTwo articles in English and two in Arabic that were related to the region. Our study revealed that much of the advocacy work posted on social media and in Google News for this study’s three MENA countries was in the form of NGOs and intergovernmental organization reports, which were often UN-related rather than based on actual news. Although advocates for women indicated that VAW was exacerbated by war, one of the reasons for the increase in reported incidents could be related to a rising awareness of this critical societal issue. Many U.N. and transnational organization programs that were established to address VAW did not exist in the past (Niarchos, 2021), though whether the #MeToo movement had anything to do with this is not clear. One example of intergovernmental and governmental work in Yemen was among the findings in Google News. In 2021, the UN Development Program and the government of Japan launched a smart mobile

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application for victims and survivors of VAW across Yemen that maps geographical areas to provide locations from which to obtain aid and services available to survivors, such as education, legal support, food, healthcare, and psycho-social support (United Nations Development Program, 2021). However, it should be added that this smartphone application– based service would only be available to those with internet access. Given that internet access in Syria, Yemen, and Libya is relatively low, access to these smartphone applications would be difficult. However, word of mouth is a powerful force in most communities, and we believe that further research could follow the diffusion of information for support beyond online postings. Other Google News reporting discussed work by NGO human rights group Lawyers for Justice in Libya, who called for legislation that addressed online VAW and its widespread pattern throughout Libya (Osman, 2021, para. 3). Moreover, the United Nations Population Fund Libya (2022) established safe space for women and in-person remote services in the east, west, and southern regions of Libya to share knowledge about gender-based violence. The #MeToo movement in Syria received the most attention on social media compared with Libya and Yemen as it did on Google News, though only one of the reports focused on the hashtag movement. The Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists analyzed how the #MeToo movement against VAW manifested in countries in a region that had authoritarian states, conflicts, and patriarchy, such as Syria. Resistance activities related to VAW were also demonstrated in some towns through coordinated activities (Socialist Worker, 2019, paras. 9–10). The U.N. also issued their “Joint Statement on 16 days of activism against gender-based violence,” which called for more work to be done, even though the humanitarian community made “tangible efforts.” These included creating safe spaces for women and girls after the COVID-19 lockdowns, as well as providing outreach to women and girls through door-to-door campaigns and remote programming (UN Population Fund, Arab States Regional Office, 2021). Organizations such as Human Rights and Gender Justice and the Women’s International League collaborated to report on issues that Google News selected about the “egregious pattern of sexual violence” that Syrian women face. They also discussed the roles that civil society organizations inside and outside the country could take through volunteering, written work, or research (Human Rights and Gender Justice, 2016, para. 1; Washington College of Law, 2019). Further, coordinated campaigns and activities, awareness-raising work, and radio shows that

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demonstrated defiance all successfully raised awareness in certain areas of Syria (Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, 2019, paras. 9–11). However, the study found that external rather than internal activism appeared to be the most outwardly present and prevalent, though quite minimal, overall. In the end it was a small number of transnational NGOs, academics, and UN organizations focused on the VAW issues that surfaced using the #MeToo and related hashtags for Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Conclusion The chapter used a  framework of transnational and domestic feminism, collective action, everyday methods of resistance, and solutions approaches to examine coverage that focused on VAW via Google News and publicly facing  social media in the Global South countries of Libya, Syria, and Yemen. It explored the extent to which this coverage has shifted in response to grassroots initiatives and the transnational feminist #MeToo movement of 2017 that focused on VAW. The study yielded three major findings. The first was that the #MeToo hashtag side of the movement did not exhibit itself in the Google News coverage nor in what is considered activism in the MENA region regarding that specific messaging. Further, the hashtag was not exhibited prominently in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, despite small efforts made to address this on social media. Relatively few #MeToo social media hashtag articles or Google News reports were found that would be considered movement related from or about these three countries. We also found a few personal tweets, though this was difficult to confirm. We also noted that the #MeToo movement was called out numerous times for abandoning VAW in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Organizational tweets from NGOs or intergovernmental organizations such as the U.N. appeared dominant in terms of substantive statements and were usually accompanied by reports. This study’s second major finding was how much a scarcity of Google News coverage or social media activity matters in the environments of war-­ torn countries like Libya, Syria, and Yemen, where gender inequality and devastation of economies and social life were observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors are also critical for studying resistance in highly repressive environments for women and others in the MENA region and Global South, and they are important considerations for studying intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989). Given the lack of news coverage of #MeToo and VAW and the presence or absence of journalists

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in the social media space who discussed the phenomena studied, we used news media freedom indices and safety and security reports to inform our findings. According to Reporters without Borders (2022a), Libya has been described as “an informational black hole,” with most of its reporters and other media having fled the country (para. 2). The remaining reporters in Libya work for a warring party, and international journalists are forbidden from covering events in the country (Reporters without Borders, 2022a, para. 2). Similarly, for more than 10 years, Syria has had most of its media under the control of the Baath Party and Bashar al-­ Assad. Although a bifurcation of independent and pro-government media has been observed, there has been a paucity of funds for training and news media to work independently, and most Syrian journalists are under the government’s political control. Moreover, international media organizations and their journalists have been banned from entering the country (Reporters without Borders, 2022b). Because certain political parties control most of the news media in Yemen, reporting independently is dangerous; international reporters are few and are monitored closely (Reporters without Borders, 2022c, para. 3). Journalists have been arrested for social media posts about the government regime or for writing about #MeToo, and those who have left the profession have even been prosecuted for reporting from past careers (Reporters without Borders, 2022c, para. 3). Since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings in the MENA region, 154 journalists and media workers have been killed in Syria; 34 journalists and media workers have been killed in Yemen; and 14 journalists and media workers have been killed in Libya (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022). Moreover, in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, infrastructure has been targeted and partly destroyed by warring parties, and internet outages are frequent. In January 2022 alone, a raid by the Saudi-led coalition on telecom infrastructure in Yemen caused a four-day national internet outage (Reuters, 2022). To contextualize our findings, we revisited the concept of internet access in Yemen. Less than one in three Yemenis have access to the internet, and only 13% of Facebook users are women (Al-Sakkaf & Alexander, 2022). Therefore, limited internet connectivity is a major constraint for women in this study’s three countries. This digital divide offers some explanation regarding why no meaningful connection to the global #MeToo movement was found online. We noted that although social media campaigns, transnational and domestic work, and news coverages are necessary, they cannot sufficiently address VAW at the national or local levels in the MENA region and beyond (Scott, 2008).

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The final finding relates to the faint #MeToo-related echo in addressing VAW in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, either overtly or covertly. Of the three countries studied, one third of Syrian women had access to the internet but exhibited minimal signs of posting with the global #MeToo or local #MeTooSyria hashtag. However, more importantly, inhibition of speaking out is not surprising in state-controlled media environments that are embedded in shame cultures with self-censorship guiding honor systems that disadvantage women. The research in this chapter suggests that there are many more discreet and possibly more effective online and offline resistance strategies in Libya, Syria, and Yemen beyond the #MeToo movement. They are created and sustained in safer spaces, thus leaving women and others who are vulnerable at less risk. These everyday forms of covert resistance require less coordination and formal organizing, might be safer, and could subtly lead to empowerment and social change (Scott, 1985, p. xvi, 2008, p. 35). As the scholarship described in this chapter has highlighted, these everyday resistance forms among the most vulnerable women in Libya, Syria, and Yemen might not grab headlines. We argue that although hashtags are widely recognized, they remain invisible to people in power—and to some extent, this might be desirable. Ultimately, this chapter suggests that these factors should be kept in mind when analyzing data relating to VAW in the MENA region and in other parts of the Global South (James, 1993). However, we still question the lack of news coverage from global news media organizations regarding VAW in the vulnerable MENA region.

Limitations of the Research We also acknowledge the limitations of our research in the chapter. Capturing anything online, even with the most systematic of approaches, is limited by the techniques and constraints of language. One example of this is an article from Google News that stated, “Yemeni women reignite a history of #MeToo [sic] style online campaigns against sexual harassers.” However, our search methodology in Arabic and English did not surface these campaigns. It is possible that other terms were used for this campaign. However, as we did not know the context, our inclination was to consider the possibility that this was overstated or that campaigns in private accounts were not open to our searches. It was not possible from our findings to ascertain the extent to which women in Libya, Syria, and Yemen were aware of the meaning of #MeToo or even aware of the

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movement itself. Given that #MeToo originated in the Global North where cultural and news media norms are much different than in Libya, Syria and Yemen, we acknowledge the very premise of this analysis could be considered hegemonic in focus or viewed as a colonial approach to studying social change, (Ahmed, 1982; Charrad, 2011; Ibroscheva, 2013). That said, it is certainly a start.

Suggestions for Future Research Future research about reporting on VAW in the MENA region could examine how the digital divide or digital media inequity affects women’s internet access and activism. Research could also consider how safe it is for women to speak out to news organizations or online on social media about gender norms, VAW, and its perpetrators. Other lines of research could involve studying the activities of women’s organizations and NGOs and the informal arrangements in these countries to address VAW through media. Researchers could also investigate whether individuals or groups have felt a sense of commonality with women in the Global North to break the silence about VAW by speaking with journalists from news outlets or posting online. Moreover, it would be highly valuable to speak with individuals in the MENA region about whether there is capacity for digital activism in these extreme contexts that involve poor infrastructure, limited resources, critical insecurity, lack of safety, and deeply embedded gender norms. Further, researchers could investigate why global mainstream media outlets have not reported VAW in Yemen, Syria, and Libya, even if the reporting is from outside the country. Finally, we also note that just as digital activism has grown, so too has cyber hatred, trolling, and bullying, which have devastatingly affected women. Future research should also tackle this issue given the present work focusing on VAW.

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Mutsvairo, B., & Bebawi, S. (2022). Journalism and the Global South: Shaping journalistic practices and identity post “Arab Spring.” Digital Journalism, 10(7), 1141–1155. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2022.2107551 Niarchos, N. (2021, February 22). “He treated me as a slave:” Women face rising violence amid war in Yemen. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ global-­development/2021/feb/22/he-­treated-­me-­as-­a-­slave-­women-­facerising-­violence-­amid-­war-­in-­yemen Osman, N. (2021, March 10). Libya: Calls for urgent action to tackle online violence against women. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ libya-­women-­violence-­online-­urgent-­action-­call Radcliffe, D. (2021). Understanding how the Middle East uses social media. https://medium.com/damian-­r adcliffe/understanding-­h ow-­t he-­m iddleeast-­uses-­social-­media-­2021-­edition-­4fe9854507ef Relly, J., & Pakanati, R. (2020). Deepening democracy through a social movement: Networks, information rights, and online and offline activism. International Journal of Communication, 14, 4760–4780. https://ijoc.org/ index.php/ijoc/article/view/11575/3217 Relly, J. E., & González de Bustamante, C. (2017). Global and domestic networks advancing prospects for institutional and social change: The collective action response to violence against journalists. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 19(2), 84–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1522637917702618 Reporters without Borders. (2022a). Libya. https://rsf.org/en/country/libya Reporters without Borders. (2022b). Syria. https://rsf.org/en/country/syria Reporters without Borders. (2022c).Yemen. https://rsf.org/en/country/yemen Reuters. (2022, January 25). Yemen’s internet service returns after four-day outage following air strike. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-­ east/yemens-­i nternet-­s er vice-­r eturns-­a fter-­f our-day-­o utage-following-­ air-­strike-­2022-­01-­25/ Richter, C., & Kozman, C. (2021). Arab media systems. Open Book Publishers. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/47363 Risse, T., & Sikkink, K. (1999). The socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practices. In T.  Risse-Kappen, T.  Risse, S.  C. Ropp, & K. Sikkink (Eds.), The power of human rights: International norms and domestic change (pp. 1–38). Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/ core/books/power-­of-­human-­rights/3E62C6D43DE50B0F6179C2BD2B3 D3EBB Salih, R. (2010). Transnational public spheres from “above” and from “below:” Feminist networks across the Middle East and Europe. Anthropology of the Middle East, 5(1), 53–70. https://doi.org/10.3167/ame.2010.050105 Scott, J.  C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. Yale University Press. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300036411/ weapons-­of-­the-­weak/

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Scott, J. C. (2008). Domination and the arts of resistance. Yale University Press. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300056693/domination-­and-­thearts-­of-­resistance/ Shaban, S. (2022). Iranian feminism and transnational ethics in media discourse. Rowman & Littlefield. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793647269/ Iranian-­Feminism-­and-­Transnational-­Ethics-­in-­Media-­Discourse Shahid, M. (2021). 21 most popular social media platforms in 2021. Yahoo! News. https://yhoo.it/3pSVAgD Socialist Worker. (2019, February 22). #MeToo in the Middle East. Socialist Worker. https://socialistworker.org/2019/02/22/metoo-­in-­the-­middle-­east The World Bank. (2022a). Social media trends in the Middle East and North Africa. https://data.worldbank.org/country/XQ The World Bank. (2022b). Individuals using the internet (% of population)—Libya. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?locations=LY Thomson Reuters Foundation. (2018, June 26). Factbox: Which are the worlds’ 10 most dangerous countries for women? Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/ article/us-­women-­dangerous-­poll-­factbox/factbox-­which-­are-­the-­worlds-­10-­ most-dangerous-­countries-­for-­women-­idUSKBN1JM01Z United Nations Development Program. (2021). Improved access to GBV support services in Yemen. https://www.undp.org/arab-­states/press-­releases/improved-­ access-­gbv-­support-­services-­yemen United Nations Population Fund, Arab States Regional Office. (2021). Joint statement on 16 days of activism against gender-based violence by Imran Riza, UNRC and HC in Syria, Luay Shabaneh, UNFPA Arab states regional director, and, Muhannad Hadi, Regional HC for the Syria crisis. UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-­ arab-­r epublic/joint-­s tatement-­1 6-­d ays-­a ctivism-­a gainst-gender-­b asedviolence-­imran United Nations Population Fund Libya. (2022). Gender-based violence. https:// libya.unfpa.org/en/topics/gender-­based-­violence-­9 United Nations Women. (2022). Facts and figures: Ending violence against women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-­w e-­d o/ending-­v iolence-­a gainst-­ women/facts-­and-­figures Wagner, J. (2021). Social media organic reach 2021. Ignite Social Media. https:// www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-­media-­strategy/social-­media-­organic-­reach2021-­who-actually-­sees-­your-­content/ Washington College of Law, American University. (2019). Combatting sexual and gender-based violence in Syria: How can we play a role? https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-­programs/international/news/combatting-­sexual-­genderbased-­violence-­in-syria-­how-­can-­we-­play-­a-­role/ Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. (2022). Libya. https://www. womenpeacesecurity.org/region/africa/northern-­africa/libya/

CHAPTER 9

Shifting the News Narrative About Violence Against Women in the Global South Andrea Jean Baker , Celeste González de Bustamante , and Jeannine E. Relly

Introduction #MeToo is a global movement of victims and survivors and their supporters that is powered by the courage to speak out to legacy media online and social media platforms. This empowerment is also supported through

A. J. Baker (*) School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] C. González de Bustamante School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. E. Relly University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3_9

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other forms of covert rebellion that are associated (with) feminist organizations that can help to end violence against women (VAW). However, since Global North scholars have dominated feminist discussions and media coverage regarding the effects of #MeToo, questions remain regarding whether the revitalized hashtag movement has influenced VAW reportage in the more vulnerable regions of the Global South. A year after #MeToo revitalized in the US, Karla Adam and William Booth (2018) from The Washington Post pondered whether #MeToo has become a global movement. Four years later, Karina Ruiz (2021) from the iconic feminist Ms. Magazine stated that we need a #MeToo movement led by women in the Global South. Today, members of the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse aim to build a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future by supporting strong and inclusive democracies worldwide. However, members of that partnership mainly came from Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, the Republic of South Korea, Sweden, the UK, and North America. In late June 2022, Chile was the first of the Global South countries to join this international partnership (US Department of State, 2022). As the final chapter in this edited collection, it examines whether #MeToo has helped improve media coverage of VAW in the Global South. To answer this question, this chapter discusses the methodological and theoretical frameworks and empirical outcomes of Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, which explored the media coverage of VAW (or the lack of media coverage) in parts of South Asia, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The chapter concludes by offering a revision of existing media guidelines and linking those guidelines to solutions journalism that aims to improve the gap in reportage on VAW in the Global South.

Key Findings of the Collection Southeast Asia: Addressing Violence Against Women Through Alternative Media and Gender Activism Chapter 2 addresses Indonesian female journalists and gender activism in the #MeToo era, and discusses notable movements and agents—such as #MulaiBicara and #TalkAboutIt, Monika Winarnita, Nasya Bahfen, Gavin Height, Adriana R. Mintarsih, and Joanne Byrne, found that local female journalists addressed VAW through gender activism. The chapter illustrated how before the #MeToo movement, two female local journalists,

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Hera Diani and Luviana Ariyanti, used their online magazines M ­ agdalene. co and Konde.co as discussion platforms to call attention to and address VAW. Hashtags such as #MulaiBicara (“#TalkAboutIt”) and digital education campaigns (#WTFMedia) have encouraged Indonesian women to speak about VAW. The authors highlighted that Indonesia’s postcolonial nation building has struggled with similar issues that other Global South countries face, such as state-controlled media and gendered economic inequality. The two journalists asserted that gender bias and discrimination have been the main challenges for women who work in the Indonesian legacy media. Noting the blurred line between activism and journalism, they explained that Magdalene.co and Konde.co provided an alternative platform for gender digital activism, which offered solutions that aimed to decrease the rates of VAW in Indonesia. Latin America: Feminist Hashtag Movements Address Femicide and Feminicide Chapter 3 focused on #NiUnaMenos and its role in revolutionizing feminism changed how media cover violence against women in Argentina. In the chapter Mariana de Maio found that local feminist hashtag movements helped raise awareness about femicide in a country that possessed the highest femicide rates in the world. She used news framing to explore how the pioneering hashtag, #NiUnaMenos (“not one less”), influenced Argentine media reporting on VAW.  Preceding the revitalized #MeToo movement, the #NiUnaMenos movement initiated in 2015 and spread throughout Latin America and to parts of the Global North to help address femicide. De Maio highlighted that although Argentina has large gas and oil reserves, it also has significant socio-political problems. It is part of the Global South because one-third of its population lives in poverty (World Population Review, 2022). Despite Argentina being a cradle of movements that advocate for the rights of women, one woman is violently killed every day in 2022  in Argentina (Ahora Que Sí Nos Ven, 2022). By analyzing 419 news stories, de Maio examined how five Argentinean news outlets—Clarín, Infobae, La Nación, Página/12, and Perfil—reported on VAW (especially regarding femicide) from early 2015 to 2019, two years after the #MeToo movement began. She found that 75% of news stories reported on femicide as isolated incidents. Further, 38% of the stories were reported as being tragic spectacles or crimes of passion instead of a society-wide issue. De Maio asserted that the news

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media coverage in Argentina reproduced gender stereotypes and used victim-blaming language, which placed women in more fragile positions with their perpetrators. This was most prominently observed in Clarín, the largest newspaper in Argentina that is subsequently owned by Latin America’s largest and most powerful media conglomerate (de Maio & Wanta, 2022). However, de Maio also witnessed some positive shifts, as one quarter of the reportage included the victim’s family and friends as a primary source instead of the dominant discourse of police and legal authorities. She suggested that training regarding gender-based violence in journalism schools and Argentinean newsrooms could help address the perpetuation of RAW stereotypes and justifications. Chapter 4 implemented case studies of a white female judge and a black female, social media influencer to examine the issues of race, gender, and class in Brazilian news coverage of VAW. Heloiza Herscovitz found that despite feminist action, the rate of feminicide was rising. She focused on news framing in the largest Latin American country, which was heavily hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Brazil has the 12th largest economy in the world; however, more than 50% of the population are Afro-Brazilians, who live in relative poverty (The Brazilian Report, 2020). One feminicide occurs every seven hours, of which Black women are usually the main targets (Brazilian Public Security Forum, 2021). Herscovitz focused on two cases of femicide—one in Rio de Janeiro in late December 2020, involving a 45-year-old white female judge named Viviane Viera do Amaral, and the other in São Paulo in September 2021, involving a 38-year-old black female social media influencer named Bruna Quirino. Both women were horrifically killed by their husbands during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter examined 75 news reports about these cases that were published on Google News Brazil between 2020 and 2021. Herscovitz found 45 more stories about Viera do Amaral and 30 about Bruna Quirino. The Viera do Amaral case received more news coverage, with themes tied to the concepts of “no woman is safe,” despite social status and color, and that feminicide is an unacceptable, planned crime linked to power and money. The coverage focusing on Bruna Quirino reflected that feminicide is often associated with black women, who have a strong level of independence. Despite feminist groups pushing for law reform and gender inequity issues to be addressed for Afro-Brazilians, Herscovitz found that feminicide stories in the Brazilian media are linked to intersectional issues such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status.

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In Chap. 5, which focused on the protest paradigm and the news coverage of International Women’s Day (IWD) Marches in Mexico, Grisel Salazar Rebolledo and Celeste González de Bustamante found that journalist-­ led collectives and female-dominated networks helped raise awareness of femicide. They examined how the mainstream news coverage of feminist protests and the IWD demonstrations on March 8 changed between 2018 and 2020—that is, two years after #MeToo was revitalized. They noted that although Mexico is economically well developed for a Global South country, it is still a dangerous place for women. From January to September 2019, 1006 cases of femicides were reported, according to the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security (Molina, 2020). After applying a protest paradigm framework (McLeod & Hertog, 1999), in which media coverage disparages protesters and hinders their political role, Salazar Rebolledo and González de Bustamante performed a content analysis of news articles (N = 1007). The analysis of 25 Mexican news media outlets and news agencies (n = 12 local agencies; n = 23 national agencies) assessed how the media reported on the annual IWD over the two-year period under study. After analyzing the evolution of topics in the news narrative, such as the reporting tone used toward demonstrations, sources, and framing, the results indicated that the quality of local news about women’s IWD marches in Mexico had become more nuanced over time when compared to the national news. This might be because feminist movements in Mexico have merged from regional roots, when women’s demands gathered momentum outside the capital of Mexico City. Salazar Rebolledo and González de Bustamante found that in certain instances, the Mexican media deviated from the typical protest paradigm when covering IWD, in which it shifted toward a more assertive framing of women’s demands. This shift was linked to a transformational aim to end the persistent and decades-long problem of VAW in Mexico. Sub-Saharan Africa: Considering the Rape Culture Narrative in Mainstream Media Chapter 6 focused on reporting of African rape culture in the #MeToo era, in which Mulupi and Blumell found that the rape culture narrative dominated in the mainstream media—and that this issue needed to be addressed. They examined how nine sub-Saharan African newspapers in Kenya (Daily Nation, The Standard, and The Star), Nigeria (The Nation

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and Vanguard), and South Africa (The Sowetan, Mail & Guardian, The Star, and Daily Dispatch) covered the rape myth and cases of VAW in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement (Payne et al., 1999). Findings from the news stories (N = 102) that were analyzed revealed that rape culture was present in more articles (n = 42) than anti-rape culture (n = 36), and that some stories possessed both a rape and anti-rape culture theme (n = 24). The rape culture was introduced through sources that advanced rape myths and dismissed sex crimes complaints as false. South Africa’s The Star, Mail & Guardian, and The Sowetan published the most articles that featured anti-rape culture. The South African and Nigerian media coverage placed sex crime complaints as being part of the systemic abuse of women, which is linked to the engrained patriarchy and failures of political and religious institutions to hold powerful men to account. The authors’ analysis of the media coverage demonstrated how concepts such as cultural understandings of gender relations, the centrality of the Church as an institution, and the legacy of the anti-apartheid movement shaped how VAW is reported in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Their study illustrated that solutions journalism aiming to address VAW in these sub-­ Saharan countries was severely limited. The Middle East and North Africa Region: Social Media Gives a Voice to Female Survivors Chapter 7 focused on the #MeToo movement’s influence in Egypt and how social media is used to help address VAW.  In this chapter, Rasha El-Ibiary found that social media provided VAW survivors a platform from which to voice their concerns. By applying Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory and the diffusion of new behaviors to a media analysis of Egypt’s #MeToo movement, El-Ibiary assessed Egyptian women’s attempts to influence state-sponsored media and combat VAW using social media. She focused on two events. The first was the #Fairmont_crime, which involved the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman by prominent men in 2014, while the second involved the jailing of a serial rapist, Ahmed Bassam Zaki, in April 2021. By conducting eight interviews with journalists, NGOs, academics, and others, El-Ibiary found that VAW awareness had increased over the years. Further studying uncensored blog testimonies (N  =  41) on Dafter Hekayat ElModawana revealed that the blog offered women a voice rather than the legacy press to discuss their concerns about VAW. El-Ibiary found that these blog testimonies were often

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leaked to social media and the press. She concluded by suggesting that these data leaks directed attention toward VAW and consequently pressured the Egyptian regime under President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to enact anti-sexual harassment legislation that protected VAW victims, survivors, and whistle-blowers. In Chap. 8, which focused on online activism and in the contexts of war in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, Saoussen Ben Cheikh and Jeannine Relly also found that social media offered VAW survivors a platform. They analyzed social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Google News archives between 2017 and 2021, in which they concentrated on resistance terminology linked to the #MeToo movement. Using a framework of transnational and domestic feminism to research networks of collective action for institutional and social change (Relly & González de Bustamante, 2017), Ben Cheikh and Relly observed an absence of reporting on Google News. They also used key terms and the country names of Libya, Syria, and Yemen to reveal minimal social media activity (N = 226) in the use of Arabic (n = 174) and English hashtags (n = 52). Solutions reporting approaches were not present to address VAW because the news coverage was absent. Ben Cheikh and Relly highlighted that solutions-oriented programs for addressing VAW were created by NGOs and intergovernmental organizations. They found that Libya, Syria, and Yemen possessed politically constrained media environments, which made freedom of expression in news coverage and other online media outlets a challenging exercise. Ben Cheikh and Relly noted that these MENA countries had low internet penetration rates and continual conflict and that these factors subsequently influenced women’s abilities to openly engage in public-facing resistance activities and public displays of solutions and approaches to addressing the prevalence of VAW (Fig. 9.1).

Addressing the Aims of the Collection 1. Intersectional Lens in #MeToo-Related Reporting The time frames used to investigate mainstream media reporting were mostly from #MeToo’s revitalization in the Global North to the COVID-19 era of 2021. However, the news-driven hashtag journalism in all case studies was often inspired by local, intersectional hashtags, one-­ third of which existed before the #MeToo movement. For example, #MulaiBicara (“#TalkAboutIt”) in Indonesia, #NiUnaMenos in Latin

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Fig. 9.1  Image of a woman with Stop Violence Against Women on her glasses (Getty Images)

America, especially in Argentina and Mexico, in 2015 (see Table 9.1), and #BringBackOurGirls in Nigeria from 2014. Devoid of quality media coverage of VAW and minimal government support in parts of the Global South, women were taking the issue of VAW and the rising tide of femicide and feminicide into their own hands, as the media was failing to address it. The existence of this intersectional hashtag lens helps address the missing visions and tensions associated with the “classist and racist discourses of distinction and stereotyping,” which has been linked to the #MeToo reporting in the Global North (Banjac, 2021, p. 1). 2. Multidisciplinary and Multifaceted Methodologies Research Methodologies The collection’s examination of reporting of VAW in the Global South included seven case studies across 11 countries. The journalism scholars in the collection investigated the epistemologies and ontologies of the VAW field and reconceptualized it from a much-needed, non-Western perspective. Most case studies concentrated on mainstream media, while some explored social media platforms. The most common research methodology was content analysis (see Table  9.1). Mexico received the largest

#MeTooBrazil

#NiUnaMenos #MeToo

Brazil

Mexico

Latin America (N = 3) Argentina #NiUnaMenos

Southeast Asia (N = 1) Indonesia #MulaiBicara

Countries Hashtags

Content analysis (N = 419)

Interviews (N = 2)

Research method

2018–2020 Mainstream media (N = 25); local (n = 12), national (n = 23)

Content analysis (N = 1007)

2020–2021 Google News Content Brazil analysis (N = 75); case study (N = 2)

2015–2019 Mainstream media (N = 5)

2019–2020 Alternative media (N = 2)

Time frame Media

Results

Protest paradigm

News framing

News framing

(continued)

Positive media shifts regarding femicide; using family and friends of the victim as primary source instead of police authorities Feminicide is more associated with Black women. Feminist groups take charge rather than the media Positive media shift toward femicide and feminist framing. Journalist-led collectives and the feminist networks take charge

Digital gender activism Use alternative media to spread the message

Theoretical framework

Table 9.1  Summary of methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks for seven cases studies across 11 countries 9  SHIFTING THE NEWS NARRATIVE ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN… 

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#MeToo #‫أناكمان‬ #YouAreNotAlone #‫لست_وحدك‬ #MeTooLibya #MeTooSyria #MeTooYemen

2011–2021 Social media

MENA (N = 4) Egypt #Fairmont_crime #MeTooEgypt

Libya Syria Yemen

2017–2021 Mainstream media (N = 9)

Sub-Saharan Africa (N = 3) Kenya #EndRapeCulture Nigeria #JusticeForLiz South #ArewaMetoo Africa #BringBackOurGirls Content analysis (N = 102); interviews (N = 40)

Research method

Case study (N = 2); content analysis (N = 41); interviews (N = 8) 2017–2021 Social media; Content Google News analysis (N = 226); Arabic (n = 174); English (n = 52)

Time frame Media

Countries Hashtags

Table 9.1 (continued)

No solution journalism found, rigid media system, and entrenched patriarchy

Results

Social cognitive theory Social media alerts various public members and the government to act. Laws created to protect women Transnational and NGOs and domestic feminism intergovernmental networks of collective organizations take charge action for institutional and social change

Rape myth

Theoretical framework

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content analysis (N = 1007), which was double the stories from the next largest content analysis, Argentina (N  =  419). The two MENA studies, which focused on a social media analysis, were based in conflict-driven countries or strict authoritarian regimes and patriarchy-driven media systems in which women have a limited voice. Linked to a state-controlled media system, the Indonesia study considered alternative media to help raise awareness of VAW. Content analysis as a methodology was popular because access to victims and survivors was difficult to obtain, as many were not willing to speak because they feared the ramifications. The code of silence relating to VAW in the Global South continues, given that only two studies in the collection included interviews with either journalists, activists, or victims (sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia). Further, content analysis as a methodology is an appropriate approach for examining news coverage.  ultidisciplinary, Theoretical Frameworks M The collection incorporates a multidisciplinary discussion drawing from many fields, including media studies, feminist studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, women and gender studies, criminology, and legal studies. Therefore, the edited collection will also be of interest to the media industry, governments, NGOs, policymakers, and health professionals reporting on, working in, or researching VAW. This also builds on the work by Daigle (2021), who emphasized the need for broad multidisciplinary and methodological frameworks within the #MeToo-related discourse before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (Nygaard-Blom et al., 2021). The multifaceted approach in this collection regarding the Global South is critical because the study of reporting on VAW is complex and guided by various research methodologies and multidisciplinary, theoretical frameworks that can differ from the dominant Western lens (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). The collection highlighted five points in terms of journalism studies, approaches, and practices that are commonly used when reporting on VAW in the Global South. First, regarding theoretical frameworks, most studies used news framing techniques (Entman, 1993). The two studies from the MENA region that examined social media opted for collective action to promote institutional and social change (Relly & González de Bustamante, 2017) or Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory. Second, regarding the news stories and the sourcing practices journalists used, a high tendency was observed in media reporting to mirror and reinforce

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the dynamics that contribute to VAW, such as victim blaming. This tactic deflected the responsibility of perpetrators and deployed stigmatizing and sensationalizing language that draws on harmful gender norms and stereotypes relating to women’s roles in society. The effect of these reporting practices involves directing the public’s attention toward the behaviors and actions of victims. It also suggests that the transgression violates a gender norm rather than an act of male violence, or that it is a systemic failure on the parts of governments and society to address the problem. Third, VAW reporting was still mostly expressed as episodic events or independent incidents of crime as a shock value that determines VAW’s newsworthiness. Fourth, reporters mostly neglected to include inputs from those affected by VAW or from women’s rights and child protection experts. Finally, the media sometimes promotes the normalization of violence by endorsing tropes and stereotypes that are shaped by vectors of intersectional discrimination across regional contexts. This played a crucial role in reinforcing hierarchies by differentiating between “types” of victims (i.e., in which some victims matter or matter more than others). 3. Solutions Journalism in the Global South: Can It Work? A solutions journalism approach is linked to the fundamental assumption that what VAW news is and should do must change. This form of journalism is what visual storyteller and crisis researcher Uwe H. Martin (2022, para. 1) calls “slow journalism”—a steady, holistic approach to covering crisis topics such as VAW from a constructive angle, with the goal of slowly instilling hope and positive ways forward. Considered the third leg in journalism, the mission of the solutions journalism network is to help address the world’s issues (Solutions Journalism, 2020; Bro, 2019). However, solutions journalism has been criticized for “its alleged proximity to advocacy or activism” (Krüger et al., 2022, p. 64). For example, a survey conducted in the Global North of 79 German journalists found that the reporter’s role had eight role dimensions, of which the most important was social integrator, followed by transformation agent, active watchdog, emotional storyteller, and innovation reporter (ibid). This approach exhibited stronger ambitions to control political and business elites, to motivate people to participate, and to contribute to social change. It was also considered “a countermovement not only to a possible negativity bias in the news” (Krüger et  al., 2022, p.  64). In another study by

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Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard (2022) of 270 social media sites, more constructive social media posts were observed than negative posts. Based on this finding, Overgaard stated that solutions journalism can lead to higher levels of positive affect, self-efficacy, and perceived news credibility. How can knowledge emerging from the Global North be integrated into central disciplinary debates in the Global South? Perhaps solutions journalism addresses this question. In line with Krüger et al.’s (2022) suggestion that constructive media is built on a theory of positive emotions, social media might thus be an effective method for mitigating some of the solutions to address VAW. “People don’t need more information, but more navigation,” Maylia Chevalier from the World Association of News Publishers tweeted on June 16, 2020, regarding solutions journalism. Although the importance of history and tradition and how they shape journalism cultures in the Global South cannot and should not be ignored, journalists located in the Global South could ask two key questions in interviews about VAW (Mutsvairo et  al., 2021, p.  997). What do you think is the underlying contradiction here? What are the solutions according to you? Here, a solutions journalism approach might help make news about VAW more meaningful and trusted in the Global South. While commonalities are observed in the Global South, “every region has its own cultural context that has shaped how journalism is performed in that space”(Mutsvairo et al., 2021, pp. 997–998). However, as McIntyre (2019) attested, by covering responses to local and global challenges related to VAW with a solutions lens, journalists in the region are better equipped with the knowledge to envision and build a more equitable and sustainable world. She also noted that media organizations should encourage journalists to engage in solutions-driven narratives by reporting on regular promotion and reporting policies, programs, and preventive measures that target VAW reduction. These practices encourage journalists to advocate for social change in preparation for the shadow pandemic of VAW in the Global South. At the time this edited collection goes into print, the 2023 Solutions Journalism without Borders program created by former US Solutions Journalism Network (2021) Fellows will be held, and Stephanie Jane Capper will lead a solutions journalism study abroad program to countries in the Global South (e.g., Vietnam, Guatemala, and Morocco). As the first program of its kind, this study abroad program organizes cohorts of local and international aspiring journalists who want to expand their skill sets and look for ways to catalyze high-impact solutions reporting for the

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purpose of amplifying marginalized voices and reframing coverage of complex issues in underserved communities worldwide (Solutions Journalism without Borders, 2021).

Shifts in Reporting About Violence Against Women in the Global South The Argentinean and Mexican studies represented a positive, feminist shift in VAW reporting. The Argentinean study demonstrated that female voices of victims and survivors were seeping into news narratives. It also suggested that driven hashtag journalism led by #NiUnaMenos effectively raises awareness about the shadow pandemic of femicide. This study also emphasized that educational initiatives must be taken in journalism schools and newsrooms to improve the quality of VAW and femicide reporting. The study focusing on Mexican media noted a shift toward a feminist voice, or at least to being less patriarchal, during coverages of IWD marches. However, the other six studies in this collection (Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Libya) revealed that less support was offered from the mainstream media to address VAW. This was most disappointing in Brazil, where feminicide rates are rising. These six countries relied on alternative journalist-led collectives, feminist networks, and NGOs working outside the mainstream to help address VAW. Regarding the journalists, it was disheartening to note that only two studies interviewed journalists. In Mulupi and Blumell’s sub-Saharan African study of Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, they interviewed 40 journalists. However, the media rarely reported on VAW from a solutions-­ driven narrative, despite prominent hashtags such as #EndRapeCulture. Feminist support groups were also limited on the ground in these African countries. In El-Ibiary’s study of Egypt, she interviewed a few journalists. Overall, the key findings in this collection illustrate some positive shifts that have been made in reporting on VAW, though this was mostly the case in Latin America. Need for Support and Guidelines to Report on Violence Against Women in the Global South As noted in Chap. 1, NGOs and media organizations have developed guidelines for journalists who report on VAW, as well as help in funding

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feminist organizations to support victims and survivors. In October 2021, four years after the #MeToo hashtag was revitalized, MeToo International partnered with the Global Fund for Women to establish a support fund for organizations in the Global South to help eradicate VAW (Me Too, 2021, para. 1). There are other reporting guidelines from the Global North (Femifesto & Collaborators, 2015; Impe, 2019; Witness.org, 2022; Wolfe, 2020), and the Global South (Olorunyomi et al., 2022; Ghosh & Pasricha, 2019; Makombe, 2009; Saady & Walsh, 2017; Sreedharan & Thorsen, 2021). These guidelines offer lessons about what the Global North and Global South can learn from each other when reporting on VAW. Focusing on the Global South, and written in 2009 before #MeToo, is Reporting Gender-Based Violence: A Handbook for Journalists Makombe (2009) for the Inter Press Service in Africa. The handbook has 12 sections and includes information about domestic violence, sexual gender-based violence, femicide, sex work and trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual gender-based violence in armed conflict, HIV and AIDS, child abuse, the role of men in combating VAW, and criminal justices. It also explores the cost of gender-based violence, methods of coping with the trauma of reporting on VAW, and a glossary of terms. The #MeToo Era The revitalization of the #MeToo movement offered the journalism field and news media industry fresh opportunities to improve the quality of VAW reportage. The What If? safety handbook for women journalists, written by journalists Abeer Saady and Nonee Walsh, was published in November 2017, a month after the revitalized #MeToo emerged in Hollywood. The What If? handbook was a response to the United Nation’s Safety of Journalists agenda in 2015, which highlighted that VAW was a critical issue for local female journalists and international female correspondents who worked in war and conflict, such as the MENA region and sub-Saharan Africa (Pöyhtäri & Berger 2015, p.  3). Saady and Walsh (2017) noted that these female journalists “wage a war on two fronts: the war to survive, and the war against the system” (p. 7). The What If? handbook covers risk assessment; profile management: gender violence and harassment: travel safety; digital and equipment safety; crowd management; and ethical, legal, and psychosocial safety. The 2019 Gender-Based Violence in Media: A Media Ethics Toolkit on Sensitive Reportage by Asmita Ghosh and Japleen Pasrich (2019) provides an overview of rape reportage

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by the English mainstream media in India. It details how problematic practices such as an absence of stories and sensationalist reporting can be replaced with sensitive and affirming methods that uphold the human rights of survivors. COVID-19 Era The recent COVID-19 pandemic and the shadow pandemic of VAW amplified the need for reporting guidelines from the Global South that are not ethnocentric, such as in Africa (Olorunyomi et al., 2022) and India (Sreedharan & Thorsen, 2021; Ghosh & Pasricha, 2019). The Gender-­ Based Violence Reporting Handbook was written in 2022 and led  by Adenle for the Nigeria-based Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, but it references other African countries, such as West Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Liberia. It noted that the converging crises of the pandemic and VAW pandemic highlighted the ineffectiveness of singular, short-term solutions for addressing the issue, which are tied to intrenched, social, and cultural norms (Adenle, 2022). In 2021, UNESCO commissioned Sexual Violence and the News Media: Issues, Challenges, and Guidelines for Journalists in India. These guidelines were written by UK-based journalism scholars Sreedharan and Thorsen after they researched #MeToo in Indian newsrooms. These UNESCO guidelines considered victim and survivor interviews, use of sources, cultural contexts of the Global South, story development, legal implications, media organization policies, and the debunking of the rape myth. The work examined national initiatives, including the development of a national charter and education and training programs. Other Education and Training Programs Added by a financial grant, Egab is an online platform that enables journalists from the Middle East and Africa to pitch solutions-oriented stories to editors of regional and international media outlets. Based in Kenya, Mobile Journalism Africa (2022) uses mobile devices to train journalists to revolutionize storytelling from different locations. In 2021, the organization offered 15 Constructive Journalism Lab fellowships to visual journalists from the Middle East and Africa. Founded in 1995, and based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Fondation Hirondelle understands that women and girls are disproportionately affected by violence in conflict situations

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(Fondation Hirondelle, 2022, para. 1). The foundation provides support and training for journalists in Africa and Asia to ensure that women’s views and voices are heard in the news coverage (para. 2).

Conclusion: Ontologies of Media Reporting of Violence Against Women the Global South As the edited collection illustrates, six years after the #MeToo movement revitalized in 2017. Slow change is unfolding in Global South countries such as Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. One of #MeToo’s most significant effects on the media in the Global South has been demonstrating how widespread VAW is in the region (North, 2019; Ruiz, 2021). This collection has revealed which ontologies limit the complex organization of VAW media coverage into viable information and knowledge in the Global South. It highlighted six challenges, including the following: 1. The entrenched gender inequity norms continue to hinder efforts to address VAW. 2. Violence against women often normalized at home, in workplaces, and in public spaces. 3. It is crucial that victims/survivors and their sources are honored because both might face social, cultural, and economic retribution if they break the code of silence relating to VAW. 4. The absence of stories focusing on VAW in the media, combined with the sensationalist ways in which the media frames such stories, requires critical attention. 5. The covert use of social media to obtain stories about VAW should be improved, though the often low rate of internet penetration in some Global South countries inhibits the communication process. 6. The inadequate coordination and implementation performed by key stakeholders and the ineffective legal and policy frameworks created to address VAW are critical limiting factors. The edited collection highlighted several existing frameworks and guidelines that can be used to promote more gender-sensitive, solutions-­ driven, and victim or survivor-centered reporting. Therefore, clear pathways forward exist in terms of what must be done to drive positive change.

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However, a gap remains regarding how incentives can be offered; how the uptake and implementation of these frameworks can be endured; and how strategies can be implemented for more responsible reporting of VAW within media organizations and among journalists based in the Global South. As the collection reflects, leveraging insights from stakeholders might be key to unlocking the potential within these existing frameworks. This include dynamics that might have more or less influence at scale, including the values and commitments of individual journalists, networks of feminist journalists, and gender editors. The collection also includes the presence of strong feminist and women’s movements that mobilize civil society in response to VAW and push for greater accountability from the state and media organizations. Further, there is also a need for international organizations to practice advocacy and engagement with local news organizations and media practitioners. The way forward is to enact changes that enable more gendered reporting on VAW, which will require a combination of formal and informal mechanisms, strategies, and long-term efforts and investments. These must acknowledge that even though gender norms and stereotypes take time to change, the media’s influence signifies how it can offer tremendous opportunities and entry points for catalyzing positive changes in how VAW is represented and how the Global South interprets and responds to it.

Suggestions for Future Research The collection identifies a burgeoning literature that centers on analyzing the dynamics of media reporting on VAW in the Global South and on understanding how these relate to perpetuating discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes. This collection further highlights the existing gap in similar scholarly literature “that centres the age-related gendered lens that is relatively thin or nascent” (UNICEF, UN Women, 2022, p.  6). Changes must also occur in federal laws and safety laws to allow VAW survivors to speak out, many of whom still face harsh repercussions (North, 2019). It is clear from the reporting guidelines in the Global South that the lack of resources and clarity in policy expectations often hinder the implementation of training, guidelines, and processes related to the coverage of VAW.

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Rise of Extremism and Misinformation The collection also notes the underlying assumption that the rise of extremism results in an escalation of VAW. Beyond the scope of this collection, other parts of the Global South in need of further exploration are South Asia, East and Central Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. In these regions, the #MeToo movement has struggled to gain momentum, allowing VAW to remain a shadow pandemic. Central Asia is a region that generally lacks any legal prohibition against sexual harassment or announced proposed legislations that would ban the offense and require employers to adopt preventive measures (Adam & Booth, 2018). There is also a need to better understand the governments’ capacities in terms of addressing VAW in the context of religious extremism within the broader framework of upholding the rights of minorities in South Asia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In these countries, extremism is not associated with one religion (e.g., Islam). Additionally, other types of extremisms exist, in which VAW is not just physical but also manifested through speech or public policy and perpetrated by governments and citizens. Other parts of the sub-Saharan Africa region have barely conducted #MeToo investigations in the media, yet the region is rife with femicide cases, genital mutilation, child marriage, polygamy, trafficking, and rape as tools of war (Stone & Vogelstein, 2019). Further, as noted in Chap. 1, Wasserman and Madrid-Morales (2022) contended that authoritarian governments in the Global South mimic verification processes to control political discourses and censor unwanted information in the name of stemming fake news. Further research should be undertaken in the Global South to address the growing threat of disinformation and fake news in relation to reporting on VAW. In general, we hope that this collection will lead to new ontological engagements that elaborate on the reportage of VAW in the 61 other nations in the Global South that were not covered in this edited collection.

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Index1

A Abdelaziz, M., 185, 186 Afghanistan, 245 Africa, 3, 17, 19, 147, 150, 241–243 African National Congress (ANC), 17, 148, 154, 156, 158–160 Afro-Brazilians, 87, 89, 230 Agencia Patricia Galvão, 16, 86, 88, 90, 103 Ahora Que Sí Nos Ven (Now Yes, They See Us), 57, 229 Algeria, 203 Alma Preta (Black Soul), 100, 103 Alterman Blay, E., 89 Alternative media, 45, 228–229, 237 American University in Cairo, 193 Amnesty International, 14, 32, 185, 189, 191, 192 ANC Women’s League, 158 ANC Youth League, 158

Anglophone countries, 10 Anthropology, 13, 45, 89, 237 Anti-rape culture, 17, 151–153, 157–164, 232 Arab Spring, 18, 174, 180, 201, 205–207, 220 Argentina, 3, 5, 12, 15, 19, 57–79, 115, 118, 123, 124n2, 136, 229, 230, 234, 237, 243 Asia, 243 Assault, 4, 8, 17, 18, 34, 35, 45, 113, 117, 132, 134, 150, 174, 175, 179, 180, 182, 183, 189, 192–194, 193n1, 207 Association of Brazilian Judges, 97 Australia, 2, 3, 6, 33, 228 Azmina Catarinas, 92 Azzazi, I., 189, 192

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. J. Baker et al. (eds.), Violence Against Women in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30911-3

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INDEX

B Bandura’s social cognitive theory, 175–176, 194 Banet-Weiser, S., 10 Bassam Zaki, A., 17, 174, 177, 192–194, 232 Black (Preto), 87 Black women, 6, 7, 87, 89, 92, 99–103, 149, 230 Blogger, 40, 91, 92, 187, 188 Blogueiras Negras (Black Women Bloggers), 88, 92 Bolivia, 60, 115 Bolsonaro, J., 89 Brazil, 3, 5, 15, 16, 19, 86–90, 87n1, 92, 94, 96, 99–105, 115, 230, 240, 243 Brazilian Forum of Public Safety, 87 Brazilian Forum of Public Security, 86, 87, 99 Brazil’s Supreme Court, 96, 97 Brown (Pardo), 87 Bruna Quirino, 16, 94–95, 99–102, 104, 230 Buenos Aires, 58, 60n2, 63, 76 Burke, T., 6, 202n2 C Cadernos Pagu, 90 Cairo, 174, 177, 179, 192 Campaign journalism, 14, 229 Canada, 3, 6, 152 Caribbean, 3, 5, 63 Censorship, 11, 179, 182, 194, 195 Central Asia, 3, 19, 245 Chávez, S., 58 Chega de Fiu-Fiu (‘Enough with the Whistling’), 88 Chile, 12, 60, 123, 228 China, 3 Chi-square, 69, 72–75

Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), 156, 157 The Church, 63, 92, 155–160, 162–164, 232 Cis-women, 4 Ciudad Juárez, 58 Clarín, 15, 59, 66, 69–73, 77, 78, 229, 230 Collective action, 18, 58, 123, 136, 202–205, 208, 209, 211, 219, 233, 237 Colombia, 60, 115, 123, 124n2 Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 43 Committee to Protect Journalists, 220 COVID-19 pandemic, 1, 2, 5, 12, 16, 18, 64, 86, 87, 90, 93, 104, 116, 137, 174, 219, 230, 237, 242 Cramer’s V test, 69, 72–75 Crenshaw, K., 6, 7, 206, 219 Criminology, 2, 13, 237 Critical race theory, 6–8 Cullors, P., 7 D Dafter Hekayat ElModawana, 232 Daily Dispatch, 156, 163 Dakolo, B., 153, 155–159 A Day Without Women protest, 118–119, 127 Defamation, 149, 189, 192 Delgado, R., 6 Denmark, 228 De Zamora, L., 58 Diario de Yucatán, 113 Digital activism, 33, 42, 43, 46–50, 120, 151–152, 210, 222, 229 Digital divide, 176, 179, 187, 206, 220, 222 Digital literacy, 8

 INDEX 

Discrimination, 6, 38, 44, 48–50, 102, 103, 117, 177, 182, 206, 229, 238 Domestic violence, 4, 5, 18, 86, 88, 90, 95–98, 100, 101, 174, 183, 205, 241 E Ecuador, 59 Edrak Foundation for Development and Equality, 18, 174 Egypt, 3, 12, 17–19, 173–195, 203, 206, 232, 240, 243 Egyptian Streets, 192, 195 El Diario de Xalapa, 114, 128 #EleNão (‘Not Him’), 88 El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, 184 El País newspaper, 96 El Salvador, 63, 115 El Sisi, F., 175, 179, 195, 233 El Universal, 16, 66, 132 #EuNaoMereçoSerEstuprada (‘I Don’t Deserve to be Raped’), 8, 88 Euro-Mediterranean Women’s Foundation, 217 Europe, 14, 15, 60, 193, 205 European Union, 207 Excélsior, 130 Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security, 114, 117, 117n1, 231 F Family violence, 4 Farrow, R., 6 Fasci Zuazua, A., 132 Fathy, A., 185 Fatoyinbo, B., 17, 148, 153–159, 161

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Female genital mutilation (FGM), 18, 149, 174, 175 Femicide, 4–5, 8, 11, 15, 16, 57–61, 57n1, 63–67, 69–72, 74–79, 85–105, 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 127, 133, 134, 136–138, 213, 229–231, 234, 240, 241, 245 Femicide Law, 87 Feminism Black, 89 popular, 7 trans, 7 Fitzgerald, L., 8 Fontevecchia, J., 67 Framing theory, 16, 91–93 France, 60, 216 Fux, L., 97 G Gargaresh attack, 215 Garza, A., 7 Gender-based violence (GBV), 4, 38, 58, 59, 76, 79, 100, 114, 116, 154, 203, 207, 215, 218, 230, 241 Gender equality, 32, 34, 49 Gender inequalities, 2, 9, 12, 102, 103, 219 Ghana, 242 Global North, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8–14, 18, 33, 62, 64, 89, 147–149, 151, 152, 161, 162, 204, 206, 207, 210, 212, 213, 222, 228, 229, 233, 234, 238, 239, 241 Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse, 228 Global South, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10–19, 31–33, 48, 50, 61, 86–87, 89, 102, 105, 114–115, 135, 137,

254 

INDEX

148–150, 152, 161–164, 174, 176–177, 179, 182–185, 187, 194, 195, 202, 204–207, 209, 219, 221, 227–245 Gonçalves, F., 89, 97 Google News, 18, 94, 96, 105, 202, 209, 211, 212, 217–219, 221, 233 Google News Brazil, 16, 91, 93, 99, 230 Grassroots organizations, 180 Grocott’s Mail, 151 Guatemala, 63, 239 H Habeas corpus, 62 HarassMap.org, 181 Harper’s Bazaar Brazil, 100 Hashtag activism, 6–8, 61, 135 Hashtag journalism, 5–8, 233, 240 Hashtags, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 32–34, 36, 37, 58, 60, 75, 88, 118, 147, 173, 174, 180–182, 185, 188, 192, 194, 202, 202n2, 208, 209, 211–215, 217–219, 221, 228–231, 233, 234, 240, 241 #AnaKaman, 8 #AntiHarassment, 180 #ARapistInYourPath, 120 #ArewaMetoo, 147 #BackwardIdeology, 214 #BeenRapedNeverReported, 152 #BlackLivesMatter, 7, 8, 121 #BringBackOurGirls, 8, 152, 234 #ChurchToo, 159 #CrimeAgainstHumanity, 213 #Cuéntalo, 152 #EndRapeCulture, 8, 147, 240 #ENDSGBV, 216 #Everyday Sexism, 152

#ExposeHarasser, 180 #Fairmont_crime, 17, 173, 175, 177, 232 #GerakBersama, 47 #indonesiatanpafeminis, 36 #JusticeForLiz, 8, 147 #Justice4Syria, 216 #MenareTrash, 8, 147 #MeToo #‫أناكمان‬, 18 #Metoo #‫( أناكمان‬Ena Kamen), 211 #MeToo Brazil, 103 #MeTooIndia, 8 #MeTooLibya, 8, 211, 212, 215 #MetooMENA, 215 #MeTooSyria, 8, 211–217, 221 #MeTooYemen, 8, 211, 212, 215 #MulaiBicara, 8, 14, 31–50, 228, 229, 233 #MyDressMyChoice, 8, 147 #Nirbhaya, 152 #NiUnaMás, 118, 135 #NiUnaMenos, 8, 15, 57–79, 135, 136, 229, 233, 240 #NoMeCuidanMeViolan, 118, 135 #NotOneLessTakenFromUs, 118 #Orangetheworld, 215, 216 #Oscars2018, 213 #SaveJanda, 44 #SayHerName, 7, 8 #TalkAboutIt, 8, 14, 31–50, 228, 229, 233 #TheyDon’tDefendMeTheyRap eMe, 118, 135 #TimesUp, 213 #UNSCR1325, 216 #VivasNosQueremos, 118, 135 #WeWantUsAlive, 118, 135 #WomenPeaceSecurity, 216 #WomensHistoryMonth, 213 #Women’s Rights, 213 #Women Survivors, 216 #WPS, 216

 INDEX 

#WTFMedia, 40, 41, 229 #YesAllWomen, 152 #YouAreNotAlone #‫لست_وحدك‬, 8, 18, 211, 213–215, 217 #YouAreNotAlone #‫لست_وحدك‬ (Lassta Wahdek), 211 #YouAreNotAloneLibya, 211 #YouAreNotAloneSyria, 211 #YouAreNotAloneYemen, 211 Health studies, 2, 13 HollaBack!, 152 Hollywood, 6, 7, 211, 213, 241 House of the Unsilenced, 45–48 Human Rights and Gender Justice, 218 Human Rights Watch, 149, 177, 208 I Imprint Movement and Shoft Taharosh (I have seen Harassment), 180 Impunity, 5, 97–99, 117, 118, 183, 184, 189, 191, 192, 194, 207 India, 6, 12, 13, 242, 245 Indonesia, 3, 8, 11, 14, 15, 19, 31–39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 48, 50, 229, 233, 237, 240, 243 @Indonesiatanpafeminis, 36, 37 Infobae, 15, 59, 66, 70, 71, 73, 78, 229 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), 114 Intercoder reliability, 68–70 International Day of Workers (IDW), 34 International Labour Organization, 43 International Monetary Fund, 115 International Women’s Day (IWD), 16, 34–37, 41, 47, 49, 113–116, 122, 126–128, 134–136, 231, 240 Intersectionality, 6–8, 89, 219 Intersex women, 4

255

Intimate partner violence (IPV), 4, 114, 206, 208 Iraq, 204 Islam, 245 Israel, 3, 6 Italy, 2, 60 J Jakarta Feminist Discussion Group, 35, 37 The Jakarta Globe, 39 The Jakarta Post, 39, 45 Jalisco, 117 Jamaica, 63 Janda, 39 Japan, 3, 217 Jubilee Party, 17, 148 Jurnalis Perempuan Bicara, 43 K Kantor, J., 6 Kekana, K., 153, 155, 156, 160 Kelly, L., 4 Kenya, 3, 8, 12, 17, 19, 147–150, 152–155, 163, 231, 232, 240, 242, 243 Konde.co, 15, 32–35, 38, 43–49, 229 Konde Institute, 44 Konde Productions, 44 Krippendorff, K., 68, 70 L La Jornada, 16, 66 La Nación, 15, 58, 59, 66, 69, 71, 73, 78, 229 Lanata, J., 67 Latin America, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15–16, 19, 58, 62–64, 105, 115, 122, 134, 135, 137, 228–231, 233, 240

256 

INDEX

Lawyers for Justice in Libya, 218 Lentera Sintas Indonesia (Lentera ID), 34, 37, 41, 47 LexisNexis database, 153 LGBTQIA+, 89 Libya, 3, 17–19, 201–222, 233, 240, 243 Likert-type scale, 69 Linturi, M., 17, 148, 152–155, 157 Lonsway, K., 8 López Obrador, A. M., 116, 126, 130 M Mabe, P., 17, 148, 153, 154, 159–161 Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo), 63 Magdalene.co, 15, 33–35, 38–42, 44–50, 229 Mail & Guardian, 17, 153, 154, 156, 158–161, 163, 232 Mainstream media, 8, 13, 18, 39, 40, 43, 45, 48–50, 93, 98, 103, 116, 121, 174, 222, 231–234, 240, 242 Malaysia, 33 Male violence, 4, 238 Marea verde, 61 Maria da Penha Law, 87, 90, 94, 96 Martínez de Perón, I., 62 Mendes, K., 7, 33, 151 Metro TV, 43 #MexeuComUmaMexeuComTodas (‘Mess with One of Us, Mess with Us All’), 8, 88 Mexico, 3, 5, 15, 16, 19, 60, 66, 113–138, 231, 234, 243 Mexico City, 114, 117, 118, 120, 121, 126, 129, 132, 135, 231

Middle East, 3, 12, 17–18, 242 Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 3, 8, 11, 12, 17–19, 191, 201–210, 212, 216, 217, 219–222, 228, 232–233, 237, 241 Milano, A., 6, 202n2 Minas Gerais (state feminist movement), 98 Miramax, 6 Misogyny, 103 Mitre, B., 66 Mob censorship, 182, 194, 195 Monterrey, 65 Ms. Magazine, 228 Muslims, 37 N The Nation, 17, 34, 96, 114, 115, 134, 136, 153, 156–159, 163, 231 National Commission on Violence Against Women, 44 Networks, 12, 18, 37, 43, 44, 60, 101, 135, 136, 175, 176, 194, 205, 210, 231, 233, 238, 240, 244 The New Yorker, 6 The New York Post, 9 The New York Times, 6, 9 Nigeria, 3, 8, 12, 17, 19, 147–150, 152, 153, 161, 163, 231, 232, 234, 240, 243 Non-government organizations (NGOs), 9, 13, 18, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49, 68, 70, 74, 77, 96, 174, 180–182, 195, 207, 217–219, 222, 232, 233, 237, 240 Nuevo León, 117

 INDEX 

O O Estado de Minas newspaper, 94, 98 Ojeda, M., 15, 58 Online gender activism, 32 Online harassment, 182, 195 Organization for Women in Science, 114, 115 P Pacific region, 3 Páez, C., 58 Página/12, 15, 59, 67, 69, 71, 73, 77, 78, 229 Pakistan, 245 Palestine, 203 Papo de Mae (feminist news website), 96 Paraguay, 60 Paramadina University, 43 Patriarchy, 6, 8, 10, 116, 151, 157, 159, 161–164, 204, 218, 232 Payne, D., 8, 150, 154, 156, 232 Penal code, 183 Peña Nieto, E., 120 Pennacchi, F., 58 Perón, E., 62 Perpetrators, 4, 63, 65–70, 72–75, 77, 78, 94, 96, 98, 100, 101, 103–105, 117, 126, 147, 150–154, 156–160, 162, 173, 177, 180, 183, 186, 187, 189, 192–195, 222, 230, 238 Peru, 60, 115, 124, 124n2 Plaza de Tlatelolco, 121, 122 Police sources, 9, 99, 100 Post-colonial, 204 Press freedom, 11, 33, 150 #PrimeiroAssedio (‘The First Harassment’), 8, 88 Protest paradigm, 16, 113–138, 231 Psychology, 89

257

Q Qualitative research, 18, 153, 177, 178, 202, 211 Quem Ama Não Mata (he who loves doesn’t kill), 88 R Rape culture, 17, 147–164, 195, 231–232 Rape myth, 8, 150–152, 154, 157, 160, 162, 164, 232, 242 Rede Feminista de Saúde (Feminist Health Network), 88 Reforma, 16 Reformasi era, 45 Reporters without Borders, 150, 220 Resistance, 18, 63, 65, 78, 152, 208–211, 218, 219, 221, 233 Revista de Estudos Feministas, 90 Rio de Janeiro, 91, 93, 94, 97, 99, 104, 230 Rousseff, D., 97 Russia, 2, 3 RUU Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual (RUU PKS), 47 S Safety of Journalists, 241 Saffioti, H., 89 Santa Fe province, 58 Sao Paulo, 91, 93, 95, 96, 99, 102, 104, 230 Second-wave feminism, 150 Sexism, 8, 9, 11, 96 Sexual harassment, 17, 18, 60, 87, 88, 114, 117, 119, 148, 152, 153, 160, 161, 174, 175, 180–186, 192, 193, 206, 214, 241, 245

258 

INDEX

Sexual violence, 2, 8, 10, 17, 34, 35, 41, 42, 46, 47, 147–152, 155, 157, 159, 161–164, 173, 177, 184–188, 192, 193, 195, 206–208, 214, 216–218 Sexual Violence Crime Bill, 35 Sierre Leone, 242 Singapore, 3, 33, 34 Slutwalk, 152 Social activism, 11 Social change, 3, 18, 34, 38, 42, 48, 65, 195, 202, 205–206, 210, 211, 221, 222, 233, 237–239 Social cognitive theory, 18, 175–177, 194, 232 Social media, 2, 6, 9, 16–18, 35–37, 40–42, 45–49, 58–60, 88, 91, 94–95, 98–104, 116, 118, 158, 159, 173–195, 202, 208–212, 216–220, 222, 227, 230, 232–234, 237, 239, 243 Sociology, 2, 13, 89, 237 Solutions journalism, 13–14, 228, 232, 238–240 Soriano, O., 67 South Africa, 3, 8, 17, 19, 63, 147–150, 152, 153, 158, 160, 161, 163, 232, 240, 243 Southeast Asia Indonesia, 3, 19 South Korea, 3, 228 The Sowetan, 17, 153, 156, 160, 163, 232 Spain, 2, 60, 193 Sri Lanka, 245 The Standard, 17, 153, 155, 163, 231 The Star, 17, 153, 154, 156, 158–161, 163, 231, 232 Strategic Review Journal, 39 Subianto, P., 37 Sub-Saharan Africa, 3, 8, 11, 17, 19, 147–164, 228, 231–232, 237, 241, 245

Suffrage movement, 62 Sweden, 228 Syria, 3, 11, 12, 17–19, 201–222, 233, 240, 243 T Tahrir Square, 174, 175, 179, 181, 182, 186 Tempo, 33 Themis, 88, 96, 103 Think Olga, 88, 92, 103 Tomet, O., 7 Transexual, 86 Transgender, 86 Trans women, 4 Twitter, 5, 7, 18, 58, 60, 88, 119, 173, 176, 181, 192, 202, 210–215, 233 Twohey, M., 6 U United Kingdom (UK), 3, 6, 10, 14, 228 United Nations Women, 206 United States (US), 2, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 60, 99, 115, 152, 191, 192, 210, 228 University of Indonesia, 31, 43 Uruguay, 59 V The Vanguard, 17, 75, 153, 155–160, 163, 232 Venezuela, 60 Veracruz, 113, 117, 128 Verbitsky, H., 67 Victim blaming, 65, 68, 70, 72, 78, 79, 151, 152, 230, 238

 INDEX 

Victim-survivors, 2, 4, 5, 9, 11, 88, 155, 156, 158, 176, 218, 227, 233, 237, 240–243 Viera do Amaral, V., 230 Violence against women (VAW), 1–19, 31–34, 38, 40, 44, 49, 57–79, 114–120, 123, 134–137, 148, 150, 151, 173–195, 202–204, 206–212, 217–222, 227–245 Voice of America, 39 W The Wall Street Journal, 9 The Washington Post, 10, 228 Weinstein, H., 6, 7, 11 WhatsApp groups, 91 Widodo, J., 31, 35, 37, 41 Women against Fundamentalism, 205 Women in Black, 205

259

Women Living under Muslim Laws, 205 Women now for Development, 216 Women of color, 7 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 213, 216 World Health Organization, 4, 59 World Population Review, 3, 16, 61, 114, 229 Y #YaNoNosCallamosMas (#WeAreNotShuttingUp), 8, 60 Yemen, 3, 11, 12, 17–19, 201–222, 233, 240, 243 Z Zimbabwe, 151