White, Black, and Latina Female Victims in U.S. News: A Multivariate and Intersectional Analysis of Story Differences

• Author: Danielle C. Slakoff,Pauline K. Brennan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/2153368720961837
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

White, Black, and Latina

Female Victims in U.S. News:

A Multivariate and

Intersectional Analysis of

Story Differences

Danielle C. Slakoff

1

,

and Pauline K. Brennan

2

Abstract

Prior research suggests the media depict White female victims more sympathetically

than their minority counterparts, yet no researcher has yet examined this proposition

at the multivariate level. Moreover, prior research on media portrayals generally

include White versus non-White or White versus Black comparisons, but no

researcher has yet compared media accounts of White, Black, and Latina female

victims. Based on critical race feminism, we expected news coverage of White, Black,

and Latina victims to vary in key ways. We examined narratives at the bivariate and

multivariate levels, and we contextualized findings with story excerpts. Stories about

White female victims were more likely to contain sympathetic themes—such as

themes of religiosity and reported media attention—and to result in overall sympa-

thetic narratives compared to stories about minority victims, whereas overall nar-

ratives about Latina and Black female victims were often unsympathetic. Our findings

align with the “ideal victim” stereotype and may help explain the differential treatment

of White and minority female victims by the criminal justice system.

Keywords

critical race theory, feminist theory, stereotypes, bias in the criminal justice system,

race and public opinion, treatment by the police, African/Black Americans, race/

ethnicity, Latino/Hispanic Americans, qualitative document analysis

1

Division of Criminal Justice, California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA

2

School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Danielle C. Slakoff, Division of Criminal Justice, California State University, Sacramento, CA 95819, USA.

Email: danielle.slakoff@csus.edu

Race and Justice

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DOI: 10.1177/2153368720961837

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2023, Vol. 13(2) 155–184

Introduction

Black women and girls experience higher levels of intimate partner violence, sexual

assault, and homicide than White women and girls (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2009;

Nowotny & Graves, 2013). Hispanic women and girls have lower victimization rates

than Black women and girls but higher rates than White women and girls (Catalano,

2006).

1

Despite these realities, the media frequently publish stories about White

female victims. This unbalanced focus on White women and girls perpetuates the

“ideal” victim stereotype (Christie, 1986), and criminal justice practitioners (and the

public) may be affected by such stereotypical portrayals.

Consistent with critical race feminists, who argue women of color are oppressed by

racism and sexism (Potter, 2013), we believe news coverage will differ for White and

minority female victims. Qualitative studies find sympathetic coverage for White

women and girls (e.g., Gilchrist, 2010; Moody et al., 2009), but most provide little

insight into how specific aspects of story content may differ for Whites and minorities,

or whether findings hold once other variables are considered. Moreover, no existing

study has focused on news coverage of Latina women and girls.

2

Past researchers have

either excluded Latinas (Moody et al., 2009), grouped Latinas with others (Slakoff &

Brennan, 2019), or found too few stories about Latinas to allow statistical analyses

(Cavender et al., 1999). Attention is long overdue for Latina victims, especially given

the extent to which the Latino population has grown within the United States. In

addition, no study to date has examined whether a woman or girl’s race/ethnicity

affects the content of media coverage of her victimization at the multivariate level.

3

With past research gaps in mind, we examined front-page stories about Black,

White, and Latina female victims from seven U.S. newspapers. Critical race feminism

provided the theoretical foundation for our study, and our methodology was guided by

Altheide’s (1996) qualitative document analysis. We conducted bivariate and multi-

variate analyses and contextualized our results with story excerpts. Our findings

connect to a growing body of work on race, gender, and justice.

Literature Review

The Media’s Role in Perceptions of Crime, Offenders, and Victims

News stories about crime have been popular throughout history (Greer & Reiner,

2015), and consumers often learn about the criminal justice system and arrive at

conclusions about victimization risk (Beale, 2006) and criminality (Menj´ıvar, 2016)

via media portrayals. For example, the overrepresentation of missing White women

and girls in the news—often called the “missing White woman syndrome” (Moody

et al., 2009, p. 12)—heightens the fear of crime among White women and girls (Wade,

2011). Put another way, media outlets’ decisions to frame, create, and classify issues

in a specific way can influence perceptions (Nelson et al., 1997) and contribute to the

social construction of both race and gender (Brooks & H´ebert, 2006).

Mass communication’s cultivation theory states that “perceptions about the real

world will match what is most frequently depicted” in the media (Weitzer & Kubrin,

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