“Lifetime Lessons: Constructions of Victims and Perpetrators on Television for WomenÀ

Prior research demonstrates that media draws from cultural stereotypes in its depictions of victims and perpetrators. Feminist scholars criticize media for reifying understandings of some victims as either innocent or blameworthy, challenge depictions of women as powerless, and criticize media for marginalizing the experiences of women of color with its primary focus on white women as victims. What remains unclear, though, is how media directed toward improving women’s lives constructs victimization. Committed to bettering the lives of women through education and awareness, Lifetime telefeatures offer a rich source of data from which to explore this issue. Analyzing the content of 50 telefeatures using Berg’s (2001) method of content analysis, I find that Lifetime does little to challenge preexisting understandings of women as victims and actually reaffirms age-old understandings of woman as either “good girlsÀ or “bad girls.À Findings also suggest that Lifetime attributes victimization to both the victim’s behavior and the perpetrator’s shortcomings, rather than to social systems that may oppress women.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Aug 11, 2006
Year of Publication: 2006