Journal article
Of Monsters, Mothers and Murders: Fear, Loathing and “Aussie True Crime” in Tabloid Women’s Magazines
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, Vol.22(2), pp.64-76
2022
Abstract
This article combines Entman’s approach to media frames and Creed’s concept of the monstrous-feminine in a critical, close, textual analysis of the ways in which Australian women’s magazines frame murder crimes and female criminality. Using recent case studies of crime features and special issues within Australian tabloid women’s magazines, this study examines the selection and arrangement of textual features, especially sensationalistic attention-arresting headlines and visual elements, which overemphasise and misrepresent feminized and maternal aspects of violent “true” crimes. I argue that female offenders are constructed here in tabloid narratives, intended for female audiences, as one- dimensional hate objects, or dehumanised, monstrous “Others.”
Details
- Title
- Of Monsters, Mothers and Murders: Fear, Loathing and “Aussie True Crime” in Tabloid Women’s Magazines
- Authors
- Susan Hopkins - University of Southern Queensland
- Publication details
- Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, Vol.22(2), pp.64-76
- Publisher
- State University of New York at Albany, School of Criminal Justice
- Date published
- 2022
- ISSN
- 1070-8286
- Organisation Unit
- School of Education and Tertiary Access
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991136802902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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