FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2018

Femicide in Italy is a very delicate social issue. In order to find effective solutions, arguing the reasons behind the violence against women is needed. Media can play a pivotal role in raising up a public debate thus sustaining deep analysis and educational initiatives. Notwithstanding, competitive media markets sometimes are inclined to boost sensationalism and superficiality thus spreading misinformation, reinforcing prejudices, muddling the facts and telling half-truths. In such a similar environment, a serious reporting is difficult to have. Contrariwise, a  proper storytelling provided by journalists and by other professional figures can effectively stimulate questions, reflections and ad-hoc solutions. The proposed work describes a holistic analysis of the femicide reporting in Italy. Objective data, relative to the facts occurred along the period 2015-2017, have been gathered and classified thus returning a quantitative overview. Then, a preliminary analysis has been conducted on the textual contents extracted by the digital contents which have been reporting those facts. This analysis is aimed at highlighting the possible presence of cultural constraints and stereotypes (e.g. "raptus", "again a violent stranger", etc) which might be even in contrast with the facts really occurred. The availability of these contents confirms the social and cultural role of archives, namely to guarantee a sedimentation and construction of an individual and collective memory on a specific topic*. The work is going to provide as an output a documentation addressed to different professional figures and containing good practices or recommendations in reporting femicide news. Finally, the proposed work is part of an ongoing funded research project** carried out by the RAI Research Center and the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin (Italy).