Constructing sexual danger in the Spanish media: A mixed-method analysis of a high-profile, non-intimate femicide case in El País

Sammanfattning: From January 2016 until August 2021, at least 436 women or girls have been deliberately murdered in Spain by men. Non-intimate femicide (and, particularly, murder committed by complete strangers to the victim, to which this study refers as “stranger femicide”) has historically been, and still is, the most covered type of femicide in the media. This is also the case in the Spanish press, and more specifically, El País, the most read media outlet in the country. This thesis examines how El País framed Diana Quer’s case, the most high-profile, intensively covered femicide case in Spain in the past 5 years. It will also examine which ethical problems the reporting presented. From a feminist perspective and through a mixed-method approach of content analysis and frame analysis, this study examines 86 articles corresponding to the two informative peaks of Diana Quer’s case coverage. The periods go from August to October 2016, the first two months of her disappearance, and from December 2017 to January 2018, the 15 days following her killer’s arrest and crime confession. The findings reveal that the coverage in El País constructed a victimization iconography with DQ’s case that engendered cautionary tales and failed to address femicide as a social issue. The reporting also presented a series of critical ethical problems calling for a reformation of femicide reporting guidelines.