"Hen Pecked Husbands": A Qualitative Analysis of the Portrayal of Male Victims of Intimate Partner Violence in the News Media

Abstract

Following a gap in the analytical field of male victimization, this study performs an exploratory analysis of how males are represented in the news when they are victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). To capture a snapshot of these portrayals, I collected all relevant 2019 stories on female perpetrated IPV against male victims and performed a qualitative content analysis to ascertain any available themes. As one of the first articles focusing only on male victims, the results will focus primarily on how the media frames the incident, the tone of the story, which contextual factors are focused on, and whether the victim is actually portrayed as a victim.

From these results, I aim to have an understanding of the mechanisms behind media representation as well as being able to compare these representations against the larger array of victimization and media literature.