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Abstract

This research explored the representation of male rape within newspaper articles in the UK. Aiming to determine if the reality of statistics equates to the informational coverage of provided by newspapers, or if the media perpetuates myths surrounding this topic. The theoretical framework used is social gender constructions while utilising masculine studies as a sub-category of feminist theory. To understand how hegemonic masculinity contributes to the stigmatisation and silence culture, explain why victims find it challenging to report and share their occurrences. For the methodological approach, secondary sources were utilised due to the high sensitivity of male rape. The data was collected by a specific search in the Lexis Nexis search engine, the newspaper articles were then analysed through thematic analysis of newspapers and then organised under a thematic tree to facilitate the visualisation of themes and subthemes to better understand the portrayal of male rape understandings by the media. The main findings that emerged from this research suggested that the portrayal of male rape within newspaper articles is continuously portrayed through myths. These myths were directly conjoined with homosexuality, offender deviancy, dramatization, and over-representation of sensationalist cases. The findings dispersed ideas on hegemonic masculinity, where victims felt ashamed or there was given a sense of disbelief or superficiality to cases and victim accounts. The overall analysis suggested that male rape was similarly constructed across all themes and sub-themes produced by the Lexis Nexis search engine. Only was theme was distinctly different from the rest stressing the problematic stigmatisation of the topic and the need for further education.

Course: Sociology - BSc (Hons) - C0315

Date Deposited: 2024-01-25

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14325.html