Overview

UnCoveR | Sexual Violence in Portuguese Mediascape is the first-ever comprehensive transdisciplinary study about sexual violence in Portuguese mediascape. It examines how the media reported, discussed and imagined sexual violence between 2011 and 2022, and how audiences interacted with these media narratives. Inaugurated by the Istanbul Convention, a legal-political landmark in the prevention of gender-based violence, this period is marked by significant media visibility of sexual violence and important institutional interventions and movements aimed at combating (the impunity) of sexual violence. Gender norms and jurisprudence underwent major changes in the last decades. Growing public awareness and vast research have contributed to increasing knowledge on sexual violence. Portugal is on par with the EU in terms of legislation concerning gender equality and the compliance towards international regimes of protection of women’s rights. Nonetheless, sexual violence remains pervasive. Stemming from this puzzle, UnCoveR explores the centrality of the (media’s) mediation of sexual violence, shedding light on (mediated) causes, processes, and effects.

In this public presentation of UnCover, a research projected financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), we will also present the results of a preliminary incursion of the team on the topic of the project – the chapter “Forward and backwards: Sexual Violence in Portuguese News Media” by Júlia Garraio, Sofia José Santos, Inês Amaral and Rita Basílio Simões. This chapter will be published in the Routledge Companion on Gender, Media, Violence (forthcoming 2023), which is co-organized by Karen Boyle, who is consultant of the project.

Programme

Presentation of the project UnCover | Sofia José Santos

Forward and backwards: Sexual Violence in Portuguese News Media | Júlia Garraio

Presentation of the Routledge Companion on Gender, Media, Violence | Karen Boyle 

Bio notes

Sofia José Santos is an Assistant Professor in International Relations at the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, and a Researcher at the Center for Social Studies, where she coordinates the UnCoveR project as a Principal Investigator. Since 2008 she has developed research on media and global intervention; media, violence and securitization processes; media and foreign policy; internet and technopolitics; and media and masculinities. Within CES, she is also co-editor of Alice News. She holds a PhD and an MA in International Politics and Conflict Resolution from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, a degree in International Relations from the same university, and a Diploma in Advanced Studies in Communication Sciences from ISCTE-IUL. Previously, she was an Invited Assistant Professor in International Relations at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (2016-2019), a postdoctoral researcher at OBSERVARE / UAL (2015/2016) and CES (2015), and researcher and coordinator of media and communication in Promundo-Europa (2014-2015). She was also a visiting scholar at the Flemish Peace Institute and a Marie Curie fellow at the Universiteit Utrecht. In addition to publications, conferences and national and international research projects, it is also worth mentioning her work in co-coordinating and co-editing the P@x Bulletin of the NHUMEP Peace Studies Group, her involvement in international networks, social movements, and the several research works she has undertaken for international think tanks and development agencies such as NOREF, UKAID, Palladium, and Promundo-US. Her current research interests focus on media and international relations; media representations and securitization; media and foreign policy; media, masculinities and violence; and critical internet studies

Júlia Garraio is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, where she integrates the research thematic line on Democracy, Justice and Human Rights. She is co-coordinator of the working group Policredos - Religions and Society and the Observatory masculinidades.pt. She is a fellow (CEEC) of the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) with the project Dis/entangling Rape: Sexual Violence in Portuguese literature and cinema in the 21st century (2023-2028). She is Co-PI of the FCT project UnCoveR - Sexual Violence in Portuguese Mediascape (2023-2025). She is co-founder of the international research group SVAC-Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict. She is review editor of the European Journal of Women's Studies. She integrated the Historical Research Group of the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church (2022-23). She participated in several projects in the areas of Memory Studies, Gender Studies, Media, Literature and Cultural Studies. She was engaged as a researcher by the projects DeCodeM - (De)Coding Masculinities: Towards an enhanced understanding of media's role in shaping perceptions of masculinities in Portugal.

Karen Boyle is Professor of Feminist Media Studies at Strathclyde since 2018, having previously held positions at the Universities of Stirling (Professor of Feminist Media Studies), Glasgow (Senior/Lecturer in Film & Television Studies) and Wolverhampton (Lecturer in Women's Studies). 

Her research has long focused on questions of violence, gender and representation: her most recent book is #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism (Palgrave, 2019 - with an expanded and revised edition commissioned for publication in 2024); she has recently co-edited (with Susan Berridge) a major international collection for Routledge, focusing on gender and violence in fact-based media (to be published summer 2023). Earlier publications include Media and Violence: Gendering the Debate (Sage 2005) and, as editor, Everyday Pornography (Routledge 2010). She has additional research interests in media audiences, gender and news, and the women's movement in Scotland.

Current funded projects include a BA/Leverhulme small grant project on the use of Trigger Warnings in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (with Melanie McCarry) and a Scottish Universities Insight Institute Project on women of colour in Scotland's news media (with Kate Sang from Heriot Watt and Talat Yaqoob from Pass the Mic). The SUII project builds on previous work with Talat Yaqoob and Melody House. She was Scottish coordinator for the Global Media Monitoring Project (2015, 2020) and, in 2018, she led a Royal Society of Edinburgh-funded Workshop series on Tackling Gendered Inequalities in Scottish News, which led to the foundation of Gender Equal Media Scotland, a grouping of academics, journalists and activists working towards gender equality in Scottish media.

Activity in collaboration with the masculinidades.pt Observatory and the work group GPS-CES - Research Group on Sexualities

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