A victim is a social construct, in a similar way that crime is understood by how an act is perceived by society in general. The understanding of what constitutes a crime is not universal, as it differs according to the time, place and context. Murder carries the maximum punishment of a life sentence, and the individual murdered is generally perceived as a victim. However, this is not always the case. The State makes laws, which regulate public perceptions of an act, and can therefore decide who should be given the status of victim. Government has the monopoly on violence and as such the power to decide who is the victim and who should be viewed as the perpetrator of violence. This is not a straight forward process. Women and children are generally considered to be innocent and worthy of the label of victim. However, in the context of news reporting in Gaza, the Israeli State justifies the killing of women and children, by arguing that Hamas hides amongst the Palestinian people. Innocent civilians are therefore denied the status of victim.
The denial of victimhood by the State is also an example of structural violence. Wacquant defines structural violence as actions committed by, or inequalities perpetuated by the government. The media is also complicit in this process of misrepresentation. For example, its news values portray welfare dependent working-class females as deviant and pathological. No consideration is given to how their agency is constrained by the structural violence of patriarchy or economic changes, which are factors beyond their control. The lived-experiences of White working-class females are framed in the context of them making the wrong lifestyle choices. This is especially where having children outside of marriage is concerned.
Race also intersects class where universal acknowledgement of victimhood is concerned. This can be seen in the media portrayals of the murders of Sarah Everhard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. All three females were young, middle-class victims of male violence, and serving police officers were either directly or indirectly involved in their murders. However, Sarah was White, whilst Bibaa and her sister Nicole were Black. It can be argued that the factor of race contributed to differences in the media coverage of their murders. There was considerably more public sympathy and subsequent protests on behalf of Sarah, but a distinct lack of them on the part of Bibaa and Nicole. This suggests that regardless of inter and intra-group differences, perceptions of race are a significant factor in how the media and general public define what constitutes the ideal-type victim.
i. Using at least one real-life example, explain what are the characteristics of an ideal victim to the media.
ii. What is the problem with the media’s simplistic definition of what constitutes a victim (i.e. the problems that such representations overlooks or hides). Refer to race, class and gender differences in your response.
SOCIAL ACTION SOCIETY C.I.C. 
josh- you could argue that more victimhood attacks are against women and with attack like sexual assault and misogynistic attacks against them can be looked at with the neoliberal state and how privatised probation services have led to more attacks on women. This can be due to the over worked probation staff and lack of notice towards offenders and there actions, for example some of the offenders are being released from prison not turning up to probation meeting and are committing crimes against women due to the lack of attention by the state.
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Sarah Everard is the ideal victim she is a white middle class woman who was minding her own business in a place she was supposed to be safe walking on the side of the road. However she became a victim. What was most shocking about the case was the perpetrator who was a police officer. An agent of the state.
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The easiest way for the state to avoid its mistakes is to use the media to create other perpetrators. It cleverly avoids the state’s responsibility by placing the responsibility for failing to ensure the safety and good lives of its citizens on the people. This tactic is so clever that many people are fooled, but we need to approach information without believing everything the media says and thinking about who the vested interests behind it might be.
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Yeonsu Kim : Discrimination views related to race are embedded in various places such as gender, property, and status in addition to race itself. The media is largely responsible for this widespread discrimination view. In the case of women’s discrimination, the frequency and pattern of media exposure are much more sensitive because it is the most actively discussed issue in recent years.
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i agree with this statement as there are several statistics that convey this exact thing. for example there has been a spike in racial or religiously aggravated hate crimes, in 2013 a total of 42,255 crimes were reported however in 2022 there were 155,841.
in relation to the workplace it has been shown that 43% of muslim women have been treated differently in job interviews due to their faith. this is known as motherism (the stereotype regarding childcare).
there is also something known as ‘missing white woman syndrome’ it’s the way the media confers victim status more readily to females who are young, white, pretty and mostly middle class
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Suwon Han
Regardless of race or gender, we all have human dignity. Therefore, everyone’s life is precious, and if someone harms their life, it is common for them to be punished accordingly. However, I think that national violence, that is, a social atmosphere that does not actively respond to it, will inevitably damage not only individuals but also society as a whole. No one has the right to ignore the lives of women and children just because they are socially underprivileged. It is necessary to build a universal and equal law, taking into account the efforts of many people who have sacrificed to build an equal social atmosphere so far.
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Woori Chae
The government, which has the power to enact and amend laws, blames the victims for crimes. Due to the social structure, greater damage is inflicted on the victims who are weak. Structural violence is bound to exist due to the government, and social inequality is rampant. This is the cruel part: the universal status of victims is denied, working-class women are dismissed as deviant and pathological, and patriarchal violence is not considered at all.
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I was surprised to learn that the state determines the status of victims. It’s alarming that racial factors define the type of victim and that the media perpetuates such negative perceptions, which constitutes serious structural violence. It’s highly irrational for the state to exercise a monopoly on violence without considering the victim’s plight. Such actions by the state will inevitably exacerbate inequality. As an individual in society, I felt a sense of dismay.
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the media has more concern for the victims of class discrimination as the media will put out a news story more often about a middle class white woman being injured but hardly puts out new stories about the many different deaths and assaults of people of different culture and colour such as the massacre in Melilla Morocco which got a paragraph in the newspaper
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The media writes and goes over the middle white class rather than talking about more relevant and important topics and this makes many group’s such as black people unrepresented in the media. And when the groups of people are represented they are represented in a negative light.
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the media’s only concern is capital. They will use a person’s race, socials class or gender to further grab your attention. In terms of the sarah Everard case she was a white victim who was a woman.
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It can be argued that no singular aspect of an individuals identity is the largest opposition to the media’s values. Gender, race and class all impact an individual’s lived experience and oppose the hegemonic ideologies the media supports if they are a member of minority or oppressed groups. All these aspects of identity interact with one another to form a unique identity and experience, and therefore it can be difficult to separate them and conclude what opposes media values the most. Opposed groups as a whole are used by the media for entertainment, e.g. ‘poverty porn’ (Jensen), Black Archetypes in media (Bogle), and the Male Gaze (Mulvey) utilise minority groups and their oppression to entertain and play into the media’s values. Any opposition to these portrayals in the media automatically goes against media valies
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When the media is concerned about inequality being either race, gender or class discrimination the one that is more likely to aline with the media’s news values is probably class, this is due to how poverty is always in some form either wrote about in the news or talked about as it is something that is always an underlying fear throughout society and therefore will gain more media attraction.
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When it comes to the media’s representation, i believe they focus more on the gender and class based cases. this is due to the media’s focus on the ideal victim, being a female victim and a male perpetrator, in cases such as a domestic violence attack. class is focused on as the media will report on high class victims such as celebrities and those with status to draw in more viewers since that is what the care about, instead of focusing on the crimes that include the disadvantaged, ethnic minorities and educating the viewers on real life cases that’s matter.
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i believe that it is very unrealistic to put into place a monopoly of violence. which according Weber’s historical studies convey that the monopoly of violence is a decisive action which distinguishes the modern occidental state from all other historical forms of domination. this to me is unrealistic because the government hasn’t been given any consideration to any of the victims or individuals that’s been affected.
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The media is more concerned with what’s popular in the world in that moment. Their main aim is to make money so they’ll report on things that usually align with the values of the govt, or things that are most controversial in that moment. For example, the outrage about George Floyd, or the rape and murder of a woman by a police officer – someone she should’ve been able to trust. The media doesn’t hold its own values, it just projects others and usually not very accurately. We cannot look to news channels for the truth as they cater to a certain demographic
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The media is mainly responsible for the view of racism as the social media sites such as X or Facebook don’t have any regulations on what is posted on their websites and anyone can see and it can easily influence people especially young people. Also the media show young black people as perpetrator for crimes when it is actually young white people who are more likely to commit crime.
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When it comes to the media, they are usually more concerned with the idea of gender and class discrimination, when an ‘ideal victim’ e.g. a middle class white woman is murdered it is plastered all over the media, but when a mass murder of African immigrants occurs it’s covered in a mere paragraph in the British media and is ignored, proving that race discrimination is a major problem and needs to be focused on more in the British media
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the media’s values has, for most of time, has focused on racial and gender discrimination – mainly black men, as seen in the 1919 Guardian: ‘The quiet, apparently inoffensive n becomes a demon when armed with a revolver or razer’, extremely dehumanising individuals of African heritage. Nowadays the media focuses on negative connotations of black individuals, labelling them as ‘thugs’ or in connection with dangerous crimes, rather than celebrating individual achievements like that of prioritised white individuals.
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the media’s values has, for most of time, has focused on racial and gender discrimination – mainly black men, as seen in the 1919 Guardian: ‘The quiet, apparently inoffensive n becomes a demon when armed with a revolver or razer’, extremely dehumanising individuals of African heritage. Nowadays the media focuses on negative connotations of black individuals, labelling them as ‘thugs’ or in connection with dangerous crimes, rather than celebrating individual accomplishments like that of the prioritised whites
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majority of modern day media sites are only concerned about headlines that will positively benefit them and their beliefs, or situations that cause public outrage such as the murder of George Floyd which gathered a huge crowd in person and online during the actions that lead to his death and it is common knowledge that these situations are not rare but they need to spark widespread chaos to make it into the main stream media
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an ideal victim is someone who is weak, typically a woman, someone who is elderly or very young, and someone who can’t be blamed for being where they were
An example is Sarah Everard who was simply walking back from her friends house, was alone and female, and essentially defenceless
the Media overlooks that ANYONE can be a victim. Men can be victims of horrific crimes where they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, people of ethnic minority groups can be victims of ANY crime. Anyone can be a victim because they are human, not just women or those who are white
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The characteristics of an ideal victim are white, female, middle class, young and innocent/blameless victims, and this criteria was perfectly met with the case of Madeline McCann. Even decades on her case gets more media coverage and attention than the cases of girls and women of colour and lower class, exemplifying how the media favours reporting on the ideal type. This was theorised by Flint to be because the ideal type reflects the people and families of the majority of individuals who work in news rooms (94% white, middle class and middle aged)
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Madeline McCann- a white child from a middle class family. Her disappearance has been broadcasted so heavily that it has taken away from other issues in society. I.e other missing children, racism, gender
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The ideal victim is characterised to be a weak, innocent and blameless individual who has suffered at the hands of a big bad individual unknown to the victim. This isn’t always the case as victims can be presented in numerous ways, victims of structural violence can be anyone who doesn’t fit the media’s perception of an “ideal victim”.
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an example of an ideal victim is Sarah Everard because she is a young white girl and the media doesn’t always show ethnic people on the media and they can sometimes be seen as not victims such as terrorist attacks the victims of the bomb may be seen as calatarl damage
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The ideal type victim is a white, middle class woman, child or elderly person. Muslim women, even if they are middle class, are still not viewed the same way as white women meaning they aren’t the ideal type victim the media wants.
Anyone can be a victim, they shouldn’t need to be defined as such by the state. Women who are victims of rape are usually not seen as victims by the state and instead defend the man in the case, despite the evidence. There’s many cases where black men have been victims of institutional racism, such as being stopped and searched with no real cause. A famous example is George Floyd
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A real life example of the ideal victim in the media is Sarah Everard, being a white woman of middle class stature and being alone allowed for the mass amount of attention in the media.
The problem with the medias simplistic definition of what constitutes a victim is that any person whatsoever can be a victim, but the media focuses on what gains the most traction, not the most unjust/unfair.
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Young women are most likely to be ideal victims. an example would be Sarah Everard. her murder was portrayed in the media for many months, even years. this may be because she was a white woman. However, the murder of Zara Aleena was not shown as much as it should have been, which could be linked to the fact that she was an Asian woman. Also, women get more media attention than men as men are portrayed to be more masculine and stronger than women and should fight off their attacker.
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