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This work is situated in recent research on the utility or unsuitability of broadcasting factual violence in TV news programmes, as well as the diverse ways of presenting it. Its aim is to discover and make explicit the evaluative-moral mechanisms that sustain the basis of the attitudes of distance vs. implication of audiences to diverse types of factual violence broadcasted in the mass media. On the basis of a discourse analysis of 16 focus groups that were shown violent scenes with diverse degrees of gravity, in a close vs. distant (to participants) geographic context, we describe the discursive strategies that participants use to feel involved in the suffering of the victims of violence or, on the contrary, to detach or estrange themselves. The results show a spontaneous identification and an ethical identification that is related to emotional and moral implication. Additionally, diverse mechanisms of estrangement are evident, such as denying the facts presented in the images and attributing responsibility to the victims. The implications that these strategies have in the moral debate on violence are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of watching violence on TV has been widely connected with processes of identification. Research has discovered several dimensions, but they do not properly describe the peculiar experience of spectators when watching violence. The aim of this article is to reconstruct a notion of identification from viewers' discourse. Eight focus groups of Spanish viewers were analyzed. Participants watched TV programs containing factual and fictional violence. Results show that identification is closely connected to specularity, as the possibility of experiencing the same emotion and impact as TV characters, which varies according to similarity and preference for characters. Different consequences for the effects of TV violence are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on violence on television has directed their main efforts to mostly quantitative and statistical analysis of media violence, as well as some detailed experimental studies on the effects of very specific scenes of violence. The present work deals with the interpretation of spectators of media violence. Based on the analysis of 16 focus groups, it tries to shed some light on the mediating factors of dimensions of broadcasted violence and its possible effects. In particular, the conditions for the recognition and classification of violence scenes, the functions of violent images, the emotions and feelings aroused by them, as well as the processes of identification with the main characters, have been analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to show how rape is represented in a variety of historical and contemporary discourses. Examples of rapes in Greek mythology, in the Bible, in medieval iconography, in literature, and in scientific theories, are compared and contrasted. Analysis suggests that such discourses tend to make sexual aggression (and specifically the rape of women) legitimate, be it by minimizing the harm done; by normalizing and naturalizing sexual violence; or by aesthetisizing rape as art. Finally, the paper argues that putting modern legal accounts of rape into their historical perspective brings into sharper focus the persistence of ancient myths and discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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