Femicide media coverage and violence reporting behavior
Date
2021-07
Authors
Srebot Roeder, Carla María
relationships.isContributorOfPublication
Rossi, Martín A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía
Abstract
This paper explores the effect of publicizing femicide cases on the media upon the violence reporting
behavior of female victims. I hypothesize that the probability of reporting the aggressor
depends on whether the victim resides in a province that receives media coverage of femicides.
The empirical analysis uses violence reports registered by the All-women justice centers in Peru
and a unique dataset that includes the exact date of femicides and its publication on the media
between 2017 and 2018. I exploit the spatial variation of media coverage as well as the
differences in the timing of publication of femicides to measure the impact on the number of
violence reports. I find a significant effect of femicide news coverage on the reporting behavior. In particular, the publication of at least one femicide on the media increases the number of
physical violence reports by 11.5% over the sample mean. The dynamics of the relationship between
femicide media coverage and the number of violence reports depict that femicide coverage
increases the reports on the week of publication but has no effect on the number of reports in
subsequent weeks. My results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications. Based on this
evidence, I argue that the media can have a sizeable social impact on the reporting behavior by
(i) depicting relevant information of the justice centers or police and (ii) galvanizing negative
warning cues that raise women’s demand for justice services.
Description
Fil: Srebot Roeder, Carla María. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina.