Gender-based Violence and the Mediatization of the Law

Abstract

This paper focuses on a global social conflict, gender-based violence, that only in Spain caused the death of over one thousand women between 1997 and 2018. From a legal linguistics perspective, we examine the concept of gender-based violence as well as the effects of the mediatization of the law (Hepp / Hjarvard / Lundby 2015: 314–324). We hypothesise that gender-based violence is the ultimate social consequence and surface effect of heteropatriarchal values, beliefs, basic assumptions, and ideals which are at the core of this dominant cultural paradigm based on power and domination, and for this reason resilient to change, as illustrated by the emergence of the latest development of gender-based violence: cyberviolence against women. The questions we discuss are: can linguistics help to better understand the overarching concept of gender-based violence? Which roles do the news media play concerning gender-based violence? How do the news media and the law interact with each other? And which are the effects of this interaction? Our methods include Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (Wierzbicka 1972, 1996; Goddard 1998;Wierzbicka / Goddard (Eds.) 2002;Wierbicka / Goddard 2014) and a multidimensional approach to the analysis of heteropatriarchal culture consisting of four interrelated levels: (a) gender as a value dimension, (b) ideology, (c) social ractices, and (d) discursive practices.