Narratives, emotions and violence on television: gender attitudes towards human suffering

Abstract

The content of violent images broadcast on television is more explicit every day. New technologies favour the creation of very realistic and brutal scenes. Sources of information are increasing their use of new technologies that bring news from distant and remote places. The aim of this paper is analysing the narratives about emotions based on the exposure to violent images, particularly the differences and similarities between men and women’s gaze. The methodology of it is discourse analysis, which comes from focus groups that have been exposed to violent images extracted from TV news. The groups were formed based on the age and place of residency, with an equal participation in gender. We could conclude that both genders have more in common than the differences, as the most important and serious facts are perceived in a similar way. However, there are some differences in the attitudes towards the exposure of violence, mostly due to gender socialisation. Through the transference of the gaze that men and women capture, feel and are moved by the suffering of people close to their gender category and social role. Despite everything, we can find focus groups where men and women are reconfiguring their cognitive and emotional universe beyond traditional gender roles.