The Silencing of Rape Victims in Readers’ Comments on Serbian News Websites

Abstract

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Spanish

French

Chinese

Based on Framing Theory and Sociocognitive Discourse Studies, the study analyzes 1,010 comments following 15 news articles on four Serbian news websites about a Serbian actress accusing her acting teacher of rape. The hate speech in the comments results from five frames evident in the news headlines and includes discourse structures indicating victim blaming, victim shaming, and the lack of sympathy for the victim. The discourse structures are openly telling victims to remain silent about their experience, establishing a specific relationship between certain news frames, online hate speech that rape victims face, and the sociocognitive dimension forcing them into silence.

Keywords

hate speech comments framing discourse structures rape victims

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