Citation

Anitha S, Gill AK. Violence Against Women 2015; 21(9): 1123-1144.

Affiliation

Department of Social Sciences, University of Roehampton, London, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077801215590671

PMID

26139693

Abstract

This article examines the British media's construction of forced marriage (FM) as an urgent social problem in a context where other forms of violence against women are not similarly problematized. A detailed analysis of four British newspapers over a 10-year period demonstrates that media reporting of FM constitutes a moral panic in that it is constructed as a cultural problem that threatens Britain's social order rather than as a specific form of violence against women. Thus, the current problematization of FM restricts discursive spaces for policy debates and hinders attempts to respond to this problem as part of broader efforts to tackle violence against women.

Language: en