Realities beyond reporting

Women environmental defenders continue to face marginalization despite their growing significance in ecological conflicts. The media?s role in empowering or further rendering them invisible is unclear. This study thus examines depictions of South African women defenders in news articles. A feminist...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Tran, Dalena|||0000-0003-2644-1042
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:257320
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/257320
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1080/14680777.2022.2045335
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Environmental defenders
Women
South Africa
Violence
Media
EJAtlas
Descripción
Sumario:Women environmental defenders continue to face marginalization despite their growing significance in ecological conflicts. The media?s role in empowering or further rendering them invisible is unclear. This study thus examines depictions of South African women defenders in news articles. A feminist critical discourse analysis of 98 media reports about 48 conflicts suggests a typology of the conflicts and the women involved. I argue that media depictions of women defenders can sometimes enact discursive violence by imposing agendas and stereotypes that do not reflect their lived realities. This study identifies two tropes depicting women defenders as desperate mothers or underdogs, which empowers yet silences diverse women in diverse ways. The implications of such archetypes are that reporting may not only oversimplify the complexity of their experiences, but also contribute to pressures on women to be self-sacrificing and docile.