The mainstream media holds an important role in the distribution of information and the construction of criminality and the criminal justice system. Public perceptions are formed by journalists and news reporter’s portrayals of victims and criminals in the news media. They focus on the drama of the crime story rather than the content, resulting in the skewing of reality. Within the context of Canada, a researcher at the Université du Québec à Montréal revealed that 95% of news reporters use the media to disseminate information about crime related issues (Carli, 2008). Canadian news reporters have placed special emphasis on gender-based crimes (Leone, 2016). The coverage of Marc Lepine’s case characterises not only crime news, but the conflict
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It's evident that the excessive use of the words “Montreal Massacre” shifted the importance of violence against women to Marc Lepine’s action. Journalist recognised this tragedy as an isolated issue of male violence against women. The initial reason was for recognition, but the event could have been easily called “The Misogynistic Massacre” ( Maureen, 2006). Similarly, the film Polytechnique (2009) depicted women as not being affected by the massacre and portrayed men as the main victims of the crime. As a result, the film minimises violence against women where they were no longer seen as victims, but women using the massacre to promote their feminist perspectives.According to Melissa Blais (2013), the film watered-down the political impact of the massacre (p. 126).The importance of the event has diminished because the film producers did not want to appear …show more content…
Journalists identified the massacre as not a single man’s crime and portrayed men as naturally violent. Bockings (1989) wrote a news article ten days after the massacre Men are Taught to Deal With Pain by Resorting to Violence Against Others while a journalists from The Gazette titled his article Men Must Force Themselves to Change; Violence Toward Women Just not Tolerable Today (Don, 1990). The keyword “men” was infrequently used when reporting the massacre. This suggested that all men were taught to be violent from a young age and that all men were misogynistic. Bockings further made the point that “men's anger and violence against women is not a women's issue, it is a man's issue” (Toronto Star, 1989). The author failed to specifically state that Marc Lepine was the perpetrator of the crime. The fact that the media waited until a mass murder happened to bring forth the issue of violence against women, proved that they used the massacre as an opportunity to stigmatise men as perpetrators of violence. The intensity of the media coverage created a public debate where one article stated that “men cannot know the feelings of fear” (Randall, 1989). These types of assumptions nullified violence against
It's evident that the excessive use of the words “Montreal Massacre” shifted the importance of violence against women to Marc Lepine’s action. Journalist recognised this tragedy as an isolated issue of male violence against women. The initial reason was for recognition, but the event could have been easily called “The Misogynistic Massacre” ( Maureen, 2006). Similarly, the film Polytechnique (2009) depicted women as not being affected by the massacre and portrayed men as the main victims of the crime. As a result, the film minimises violence against women where they were no longer seen as victims, but women using the massacre to promote their feminist perspectives.According to Melissa Blais (2013), the film watered-down the political impact of the massacre (p. 126).The importance of the event has diminished because the film producers did not want to appear …show more content…
Journalists identified the massacre as not a single man’s crime and portrayed men as naturally violent. Bockings (1989) wrote a news article ten days after the massacre Men are Taught to Deal With Pain by Resorting to Violence Against Others while a journalists from The Gazette titled his article Men Must Force Themselves to Change; Violence Toward Women Just not Tolerable Today (Don, 1990). The keyword “men” was infrequently used when reporting the massacre. This suggested that all men were taught to be violent from a young age and that all men were misogynistic. Bockings further made the point that “men's anger and violence against women is not a women's issue, it is a man's issue” (Toronto Star, 1989). The author failed to specifically state that Marc Lepine was the perpetrator of the crime. The fact that the media waited until a mass murder happened to bring forth the issue of violence against women, proved that they used the massacre as an opportunity to stigmatise men as perpetrators of violence. The intensity of the media coverage created a public debate where one article stated that “men cannot know the feelings of fear” (Randall, 1989). These types of assumptions nullified violence against