Narrating Femicide Beyond the Domestic Sphere: Swedish News Media Representations of Non-Intimate Femicide
(2026) CCRM15 20261Department of Sociology
- Abstract
- The study examines Swedish news media representations of non-intimate femicide from a feminist perspective. This due to femicide having been a previously overlooked concept within Swedish law, research and policy. Through a narrative analysis where 33 news articles from Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter was retrieved, the study identifies recurring patterns of how gender, victims and perpetrators are represented. The theoretical framework of the study is based on a feminist perspective primarily of patriarchy and radical feminism, as well as representation theory and the ideal victim concept. The findings show that non-intimate femicides are frequently represented as individualized, pathological acts linked to... (More)
- The study examines Swedish news media representations of non-intimate femicide from a feminist perspective. This due to femicide having been a previously overlooked concept within Swedish law, research and policy. Through a narrative analysis where 33 news articles from Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter was retrieved, the study identifies recurring patterns of how gender, victims and perpetrators are represented. The theoretical framework of the study is based on a feminist perspective primarily of patriarchy and radical feminism, as well as representation theory and the ideal victim concept. The findings show that non-intimate femicides are frequently represented as individualized, pathological acts linked to institutional failure, rather than as part of a broader structure of gender-based violence. Although many articles contain sexualized and gendered characteristics of the cases, these aspects are often obscured. The analysis further demonstrates that media narratives tend to highlight the view of the perpetrators, while victims are given comparatively limited attention. While previous research has highlighted how non-intimate femicide cases tend to receive heavy mediated attention, this study points to a renegotiation of the ideal victim concept where victims fulfill these criteria but are not treated as such in the in the articles. Overall, the study argues that Swedish news media contribute to a de-gendered understanding of non-intimate femicide, obscuring patriarchal structures and misogyny of a gendered issue. Future research is therefore encouraged to systematically compare media constructions of intimate and non-intimate femicide cases to explore how victimhood is represented differently across cases. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- Gender-based violence has often been explored within the domestic sphere, directing preventative measures against domestic violence and killings. But what about the non-intimate killings of women, where the perpetrator is not a previous or current partner of the victim? Femicide, has been a much-overlooked concept despite evoking strong emotions. It involves crimes such as honor-related killings, sexualized violence, and other situations where women are killed as a result of being women. Given that the gendered and sexualized elements of the non-intimate femicide cases have received comparatively limited attention, it is of interest to explore how media representations negotiate such aspects.
Therefore, in this study, I have analyzed... (More) - Gender-based violence has often been explored within the domestic sphere, directing preventative measures against domestic violence and killings. But what about the non-intimate killings of women, where the perpetrator is not a previous or current partner of the victim? Femicide, has been a much-overlooked concept despite evoking strong emotions. It involves crimes such as honor-related killings, sexualized violence, and other situations where women are killed as a result of being women. Given that the gendered and sexualized elements of the non-intimate femicide cases have received comparatively limited attention, it is of interest to explore how media representations negotiate such aspects.
Therefore, in this study, I have analyzed news articles from Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter from a feminist perspective to see how specifically non-intimate femicide cases are represented, and how the news articles describe or downplay the role of gender in these killings. What has become clear when analyzing the articles is that despite containing gendered and sexualized characteristics that point to a structural gendered problem of men’s violence against women, they are rarely addressed as such. While the victims are consequently women and the perpetrators men, men tend to avoid getting the blame in several representations. Instead, the reporting often focuses on factors such as mental illness within perpetrators, culture or institutional failures. While previous focus has been on how non-intimate femicide victims tend to receive much mediated attention, this attention tends to shift away from the victims and toward the perpetrators’ perspectives. The findings suggest that when these femicides are not represented as part of a broader pattern of men’s violence against women, the structural nature of the problem risks remaining invisible. This shapes how the term is understood and the kinds of preventative measures considered possible. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9241586
- author
- Bengtsson, Thea LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- CCRM15 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Femicide, gender, gender-based violence, patriarchy, misogyny, media
- language
- English
- id
- 9241586
- date added to LUP
- 2026-07-03 11:00:55
- date last changed
- 2026-07-03 11:00:55
@misc{9241586,
abstract = {{The study examines Swedish news media representations of non-intimate femicide from a feminist perspective. This due to femicide having been a previously overlooked concept within Swedish law, research and policy. Through a narrative analysis where 33 news articles from Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter was retrieved, the study identifies recurring patterns of how gender, victims and perpetrators are represented. The theoretical framework of the study is based on a feminist perspective primarily of patriarchy and radical feminism, as well as representation theory and the ideal victim concept. The findings show that non-intimate femicides are frequently represented as individualized, pathological acts linked to institutional failure, rather than as part of a broader structure of gender-based violence. Although many articles contain sexualized and gendered characteristics of the cases, these aspects are often obscured. The analysis further demonstrates that media narratives tend to highlight the view of the perpetrators, while victims are given comparatively limited attention. While previous research has highlighted how non-intimate femicide cases tend to receive heavy mediated attention, this study points to a renegotiation of the ideal victim concept where victims fulfill these criteria but are not treated as such in the in the articles. Overall, the study argues that Swedish news media contribute to a de-gendered understanding of non-intimate femicide, obscuring patriarchal structures and misogyny of a gendered issue. Future research is therefore encouraged to systematically compare media constructions of intimate and non-intimate femicide cases to explore how victimhood is represented differently across cases.}},
author = {{Bengtsson, Thea}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Narrating Femicide Beyond the Domestic Sphere: Swedish News Media Representations of Non-Intimate Femicide}},
year = {{2026}},
}