by Stefania Abis and Paolo Orrù
The perception of femicide and violence against women has known a constant evolution in recent years; both mass media and political and social actors tried to raise awareness on the issue. According to Diana Russell’s definition (the killing of females by males because they are females), femicide has to be considered as a social and political fact and not just as ordinary crimes: it represents extreme manifestations of male dominance over female. Our aim is to analyze how these facts are represented every day in the Italian press. In our thesis we collected and analyzed articles from the online edition of four of the most important national newspapers in Italy (Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Libero) and from two Sardinian local newspapers (L’Unione Sarda and La Nuova Sardegna). The time span goes from January 2010 to May 2015. We will examine how the characters are depicted in the texts, what are the reasons behind the facts, and how violence itself is described, together with other linguistic aspects related to the headlines, to the use of direct speech and quotes from the protagonists of the events.