The Loathsome, the Rough Type and the Monster: The Violence and Wounding of Media Texts on Rape

Abstract

This chapter seeks to engage the reader with the question of what sexualised and embodied speech, in the context of media narrative about sexual crime in the press, actually do. It takes media reporting of a case of serial rape, as a starting point to explore wounding in terms of violent categorisation and emotions of fear produced by dominant and sexualised speech and visual symbolism (Livholts, 2007).¹ The purpose is to analyse the violence and wounding of media texts by focusing on the forming of men and masculinity in the context of media reports and to explore the function and consequences of academic and journalist authorship. The chapter illustrates how journalists’ use of language does violence to the people in the text by the way it represents them, and also how it disrupts the researchers attempt to study rape. Starting with a critical reading of the relevant newspapers, I found myself so affected by the fearful descriptions of a serial rapist who strikes in the darkness, but also the dominant and sometimes aggressive voices of the journalists, that I was inclined to end the research completely. The chapter puts forward the argument that by using a multi-methodological reflexive approach and focusing on the complex function of authoring in journalism and research, it is possible to contribute to new understandings of the violence and wounding of media texts on rape.

I am the author and I have fear. But in the world I describe this word is never used. Never ever!

Fear is nothing below the surface.

Fear is soluble by water, dissolves.

Fear is consumed by the element itself, becomes part of it. Has no name of its own.

Has no name.

(Aino Trosell, Ytspänning)