SENSATIONALISM AS A MODEL OF NEWS REPORTING ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN – A CASE STUDY OF MILENA RADULOVIĆ AND DANIJELA ŠTAJNFELD

Abstract

The media play an important role in constructing public opinion on certain personas, topics and events. If they propagate stereotypes about men and women in news texts and articles, that can negatively impact the public opinion about violence against women. Although there are rare cases of the media trying to raise awareness of the problem of domestic violence and violence against women in general, the media mostly reports only on actual cases of violence when they occur. It is mostly reported in a sensationalistic way, which brings additional harm to the victims. In this paper, we researched in what way the news stories of raped actresses Milena Radulović and Danijela Štajnfeld were covered, i.e., how tabloids (Alo, Blic, Informer, Kurir, Srpski telegraf and Večernje novosti) reported on these cases on their front pages. By analyzing six daily newspapers (in the period from January 17 to February 2, 2021, and from March 23 to March 31, 2021), we found that the majority of these articles had been written in a sensationalist way, without respect for professional journalistic standards. Driven by the desire for greater circulation and profit, today’s journalists of (semi)tabloid newspapers often turn a deaf ear to ethical norms, which every journalist should adhere to when performing his or her profession.