Female Media Images Of Domestic Violence Reporting

For a long time,domestic violence has been hidden as a behavioral response in private relationships,and has rarely been raised to the level of a public issue to be discussed.Nowadays,the traditional concept of "family shame cannot be exposed" is gradually dissipating due to the change of the era,and most victims no longer avoid talking about violence.From passively holding back and talking about "violence" to independently defending their rights and bravely exposing it,victims are writing a chapter of human rights and equality driven by their sense of independence.At the same time,vulnerable groups such as women are unable to resist the physical and mental persecution caused by violence because of their "vulnerability".In this regard,the mass media,based on the needs of women,has taken on the role of conveying information and appealing for help in its reports,becoming a key force in portraying women,helping the disadvantaged and guiding positive public opinion.This paper takes two media outlets,China Women’s Daily and Southern Metropolis Daily,as the subjects of this study,and uses "care ethics" as the research perspective.Through analyzing the domestic violence reports of the two media,we aim to clarify the presentation of female media images in the reports and explain the attribution of female images,as well as propose solutions to the existing problems in the domestic violence reports.The study found that China Women’s Daily and Southern Metropolis Daily have long paid attention to the topic of women’s rights,showing a rich and diverse aspect in terms of topics,forms,genres and sources of coverage,while at the same time,the number of reports reached a peak after the implementation of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law in 2016.Due to the differences in media positions,the domestic violence reports in China Women’s Daily and Southern Metropolis Daily show two different reporting frameworks: "Appealing for help" and "Presenting individual cases" respectively.Based on the analysis of the sample of domestic violence reports,the image of women can be divided into five types: helpless victims,defiant perpetrators,defenders of rights,caring recipients,and kind-hearted helpers.In this regard,from the perspective of ethics of care,this study argues that the characteristics that influence the female image of domestic violence reports are: the maintenance of "relationship" in the family environment,the need to realize "value" under the power imbalance,and the ethical concern of "responsibility".The study found that two media outlets have problems of violence consumption,narrative alienation,and gender blindness in domestic violence reporting.To address the existing problems,this paper proposes four care paths for domestic violence reporting,combining the theoretical elaboration of care ethics on the four dimensions of emotion,situation,relationship and responsibility.These are to reduce the physical narrative,pay attention to balanced reporting,strengthen the appeal for help,and emphasize the guidance of public opinion,in order to apply the ethics of care to news production and to report news that is both fair and objective and humanistic.