On February 15, 2014, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was arrested for assaulting his then fiancé, Janay Palmer, at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City (Bien, 2014). Four days later, a video surfaced via TMZ, which showed Rice dragging an unconscious Palmer out of an elevator at the casino. In June, the NFL held a disciplinary hearing with Rice, and on July 24, the league suspended Rice for two games. Fast-forward a month and a half, on September 8, TMZ released another video, which showed Rice punching Palmer in the face inside the elevator at the casino back in February (Bien, 2014). That same day, the Ravens terminated their contract with Rice and released him from the team, and shortly thereafter, the NFL suspended Rice from the league indefinitely. The public outcry over the assault video generated a national conversation around intimate partner violence unlike anything seen before (Blow, 2014). Rice's assault arguably became the most publicized incident of domestic violence since O.J. Simpson, and therefore, it is important to analyze the media narratives surrounding it. As McDonald (1999) noted, media coverage of domestic abuse committed by male athletes may "offer some of the most visible cases of domestic violence available for public consumption," functioning "as significant sites where larger cultural understandings of domestic violence are constructed, contested, and struggled over" (p. 112-113). With the purpose of discovering how journalists construct particular understandings of domestic violence that (re)produce dominant ideologies, I conducted a critical discourse analysis of multiple mainstream media sources, including national newspapers, local Baltimore newspapers, online sports news, and women's magazines. Additionally, because the entire Ray Rice assault case—from his initial arrest until he appealed his suspension—occurred over a seven-month timespan, it was important to map the (re)construction of the assault over time. Thus, I isolated five important time frames for analysis, broken into one-week intervals, in order to examine the initial framing of each event. The research questions that I sought to address were as follows: 1) Do journalists give voice to domestic violence victims, or do they continue to silence the voices of victims and support the hegemonic structure of oppression? 2) Do journalists discuss the larger cultural problem of domestic violence, or do they continue to treat domestic violence as an individual issue? 3) As new information is released and different events unfold, does the narrative change, and if so, what is the instigating factor? That is, how do different objects of reference construct particular understandings of domestic violence and possibly change the narrative? In answering these research questions, I argue that, after Rice's initial arrest and through his two-game suspension, many journalists conformed to previous patriarchal narratives that have consistently blamed the victim, excused the perpetrator, and ignored the social problem of domestic violence. In doing so, journalists continued to reinforce dominant ideologies that silence the voices of victims and support the hegemonic structure of oppression. Although several critical narratives emerged after Rice's two-game suspension in July, it was not until TMZ released the second assault video in September that the narrative drastically changed. There was a clear shift in coverage after the release of the second assault video, as many journalists began critiquing tone-deaf narratives that have consistently blamed victims, excused perpetrators, and ignored the social problem of domestic abuse. With this, journalists began talking about domestic violence in a much more sensitive way than ever before. Although this discourse is crucial to changing the national conversation surrounding domestic violence, several problems still exist. First, it took a video of domestic abuse for most of these discussions to emerge. In regards to victim blaming, it appears that much of society—and certainly the NFL—does in fact need to see it to believe it. Second, even after the release of the assault video, football remained more important than domestic violence to many fans and journalists. While many fans continued to support the running back on social media and at Ravens games, many journalists focused on the game of football more than Rice's assault. Third, a majority of the critical narratives that emerged throughout the Ray Rice assault case focused on the league's (mis)handling of the assault. While these narratives are certainly important, they shift the focus away from the real issue—domestic violence. Fourth, although critical narratives surrounding domestic violence finally came to the forefront after the release of the second assault video, the number of articles that actually discussed domestic violence as a cultural problem were few and far between. Fifth, in order for these critical narratives surrounding domestic violence to emerge, Palmer's physical body had to be continually revictimized, and she was stripped of any agency she once had. Thus, although critical discussions surrounding domestic violence emerged during the Ray Rice assault case, there are still many issues surrounding gender and power that must be discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 12, 2017. / Includes bibliographical references. / Joshua Newman, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Arthur Raney, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Michael Giardina, University Representative; Donna Nudd, Committee Member; Brian Graves, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_507620 |
| Contributors | Anderson, Lauren Christine (authoraut), Newman, Joshua I., 1976- (professor co-directing dissertation), Raney, Arthur A. (professor co-directing dissertation), Giardina, Michael D., 1976- (university representative), Nudd, Donna M. (committee member), Graves, Brian (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Communication and Information (degree granting college), School of Communication (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (291 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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