Constructing victims and perpetrators of sexual violence in Drum magazine between 1984 and 2004 : a discourse analytical study

This thesis reports on the ways in which rape perpetrated by males on females is constructed in news stories and the advice column, Dear Dolly, published in the South African publication, Drum magazine. The data collected for the study spans from 1984 to 2004, encompassing both 10 years before and 10 years after a democracy. The paper uses critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2003) as main analytical tool and but also draws on critical feminist theory (Bourke 2007) and other strands of discourse analysis such as Van DijkÀŸs (1998) socio-cognitive approach. The findings suggest that there is on the one hand a decrease in explicit victim blaming after 1994, but that subtle and opaque victim blaming is still evident in the news stories, letters to the advice column, and the responses from the columnist. These rape discourses presented in Drum magazine after 1994 are as Bakhtin (1981) suggests made up of multiple voices articulating different gendered discourses. Discourses that make women responsible for their safety and protection against rape are prevalent while at the same time rape is constructed as a “horror story” and the perpetrator as the “monster”. In this thesis, I argue that even though the use of less explicit victim blaming might seem like a positive move in the representation of rape and gender, this is not always the case. The more subtle forms of victim blaming avoid contestation and consequently often go unchecked (Fairclough 2003: 58). This makes the manufacturing of consent easier and makes it more difficult to counteract dominant discourses. I subsequently call for more studies on this underrepresented topic in discourse analysis in South Africa.

Publisher: University of Stellenbosch
Year of Publication: 2013