THE REPRESENTATION OF THE CRIMINAL WOMAN IN THE VEJA MAGAZINE

Abstract

The research aimed to investigate the representation of criminal woman in journalism speech of Veja magazine. Initially, it explored the theoretical discussions about crime and woman upon the marks of gender paradigm and critical criminology. The journalism was perceived as a space of construction of meaning in the form of narratives. With these foundations, a Discourse Analysis was performed from the text of four issues of the magazine Veja, between 2003 and 2013, which brought criminal women in cover stories. The analysis considered the research conducted by Yvonne Jewkes (2004), which identified eight standard narrative forms that journalism uses when speaking of female crime: 1) sexuality and sexual deviance; 2) physical attractiveness; 3) bad wives; 4) bad mothers; 5) mythical monsters; 6) “mad cows; 7) evil manipulators; e 8) non-agents. The research concluded that the eight narrative forms appear in Veja magazine, mobilized in narratives of criminal women, reinforcing values that contribute to the construction of a stereotypical and reductionist image, according to patriarchal gender patterns that undervalue women.