Intimate Partner Femicide in Portugal: The perception of intervention professionals with intimate partner violence

Abstract

This investigation paper intends to analyze perceptions and impacts from media narratives about intimate partner femicide (IPF) starting from the discourses of support/intervention professionals that work closely with intimate partner violence (IPV) victims, concretely, Criminal Police Professionals and Victim’s Support Technicians. The data collection was realized through semi structured interviews with 25 professionals in a national level, 11 females and 14 males, with an average age of 42 years (SD=7.05). The discourses emerged from the thematic analysis, underline the sensationalism proliferation that characterizes these narratives, making aware to its copycat potential in intimate partner violence perpetrators, as well as inhibits victims seeking help and skew the IPF social construction. Based on the participants representations, media coverage for IPF recommendations were listed, highlighting the importance in defining accuracy as the foundation of media coverage. Also underscored the urge in training and specialize journalists in gender violence as well as recommended a positive approach, emphasizing cases of women who survived IPF attempts and women who overcame their victimization processes. The representations shared by the participants converge with the national report from the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence that monitories the Istanbul Convention execution, pointing out the necessity in standardizing knowledge and procedures regarding to gender violence, acknowledging that media coverage varies according to beliefs, training, and personal interests of journalists (GREVIO, 2019). Therefore, it is recognized the urgency in promoting an ethically compromised journalism, adding to an effective regulation and a critical, conscient and reflexive media consumption – critical media literacy.