‘A victim, and that’s all’: the construction of Meredith Kercher in the British national newspapers

ABSTRACT

What journalistic techniques are employed to construct a newsworthy female murder victim in the age of social media? Focusing on Meredith Kercher’s murder, this article examines how Kercher’s victim persona was fashioned by the British national press before the arrests of Amanda Knox and two others. Contrary to prevailing perspectives, we argue that the newsworthy murder victim is not necessarily an ideal victim. Murder victim status in a news story is a multi-faceted construction, contingent on whatever will magnify newsworthiness. The Kercher case is the first example of British journalists using the murder victim’s Facebook content as the primary news resource, adding “authenticity” to the text and images used, since it originated from the victim herself. The research findings illustrate how Kercher was sexualized through the application of misogynist victim-blaming templates used in the reporting of sex crimes. It was the degradation of her ideal victim status that drove the initial newsworthiness of the murder story.

KEYWORDS:

• Facebook
• ideal victim
• Meredith Kercher
• status degradation
• victim blaming

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Sky News, the BFI and the British Library for access to their news archives and are very grateful to the journal’s reviewers for their feedback and suggestions on the original version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Atalanta Goulandris

Atalanta Goulandris was a barrister and has been a visiting lecturer in criminology at City, University of London, UK. Email: [email protected]

Eugene McLaughlin

Eugene McLaughlin is Professor of Criminology, City, University of London, UK. Email: [email protected]