Discourses on fathers who use intimate partner violence: an example from Icelandic mass media

ABSTRACT

Despite an increased interest in studying masculinity in terms of the merging experiences of fatherhood and violence, the way this subject position appears in the media is often left out of the academic debate on fatherhood and masculinity. This paper offers a contribution to extant research on fatherhood and masculinity by providing a discourse analysis of how fathers and violence are constituted in Icelandic mass media from a feminist poststructuralist perspective. Our findings indicate that ‘good and involved’ versus ‘bad and violent’ fathers are framed in the media as two fundamentally different types of fathers. This paper demonstrates the critical role mass media plays in reproducing individualized discourses about IPVAW by presenting fathers who have been violent as a certain type of ‘strange’ and ‘dangerous’ men. Through this representation of fathers who have been violent, the media fails to acknowledge gendered social norms and structures that continue to produce IPV against women and children.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatherhood
• violence
• media
• discourses
• masculinity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In all articles that included the words father and violence, the violence was perpetrated against an (ex) partner and/or child.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Icelandic research fund under Grant 196082-051 and the Icelandic equality fund under Grant 190156-5501.

Notes on contributors

Rannveig Ágústa Guðjónsdóttir

Rannveig Ágústa Guðjónsdóttir is a Ph.D. student at the University of Iceland exploring fathers and violence from the perspective of fathers who have been violent and the way they are represented through media discourses. Her research takes on feminist and critical perspectives on intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW), masculinities, and youth.

Jón Ingvar Kjaran

Dr. Jón Ingvar Kjaran is a professor of anthropology/sociology of education at the University of Iceland, School of Education/Faculty of Diversity and Education. His research focuses on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, queer issues, and violence. He is currently leading two research projects on gender violence funded by the Icelandic Research Fund.