“Does such a thing as rape really exist?” - Media coverage and representations of rape on French public radio and television (1970-1990)
Beccarelli, Marine
“Does such a thing as rape really exist?” - Media coverage and representations of rape on French public radio and television (1970-1990) - 2025.
4
This article examines the media coverage and representations of rape and rapists in French public broadcast media from a historical perspective, covering the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s, based on a body of archives from the INA (Institut national de l’audiovisuel). The issue of rape, which was absent from the media landscape in the late 1960s, suddenly emerged in the French media in the mid-1970s, in the wake of a rape trial before a criminal court, at a time when feminists were beginning to address this societal problem. Considered in turn as a non-issue, a minor news item, or a serious societal problem, rape received inconsistent media coverage during this period. After being ignored or denied, rape emerged as a public issue, sometimes presented in the media as a symptom of male domination over women. However, the predominantly male radio and television editorial staffs quickly shifted their coverage of the issue. Minimizing or turning a blind eye to the everyday nature of sexual violence, the media most often reported on rapes committed outside the private sphere by rapists unknown to their victims. While television and radio played a crucial role in the coverage of sexual violence during the 1970s and 1980s, these media also contributed to distancing this crime by creating an othered image of the rapist and, in most cases, ignoring the issue of domestic violence. Despite the emergence of incest as a topic in the TV show Les Dossiers de l’écran in 1986, it was not until the 1990s that the myth of the unknown rapist began to be truly and very gradually dismantled.
“Does such a thing as rape really exist?” - Media coverage and representations of rape on French public radio and television (1970-1990) - 2025.
4
This article examines the media coverage and representations of rape and rapists in French public broadcast media from a historical perspective, covering the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s, based on a body of archives from the INA (Institut national de l’audiovisuel). The issue of rape, which was absent from the media landscape in the late 1960s, suddenly emerged in the French media in the mid-1970s, in the wake of a rape trial before a criminal court, at a time when feminists were beginning to address this societal problem. Considered in turn as a non-issue, a minor news item, or a serious societal problem, rape received inconsistent media coverage during this period. After being ignored or denied, rape emerged as a public issue, sometimes presented in the media as a symptom of male domination over women. However, the predominantly male radio and television editorial staffs quickly shifted their coverage of the issue. Minimizing or turning a blind eye to the everyday nature of sexual violence, the media most often reported on rapes committed outside the private sphere by rapists unknown to their victims. While television and radio played a crucial role in the coverage of sexual violence during the 1970s and 1980s, these media also contributed to distancing this crime by creating an othered image of the rapist and, in most cases, ignoring the issue of domestic violence. Despite the emergence of incest as a topic in the TV show Les Dossiers de l’écran in 1986, it was not until the 1990s that the myth of the unknown rapist began to be truly and very gradually dismantled.
Réseaux sociaux