Filicide, journalism and the ‘disempowered man’ in three Australian cases 2010–2016

Abstract

How can journalism about parents killing their children improve public understanding of the factors influencing these filicide perpetrators? Three Australian cases occurring between 2010 and 2016 focus this question on stepfathers and foster fathers; a group recognised by international filicide research as of high risk for filicide. I consider questions of gender and masculine subjectivity in relation to Australian media coverage of filicide that involves these father figures so that a ‘disempowered man’, a figure introduced in previous work by Little and Tyson, is seen at the centre of journalism about filicide. The purpose of this study is to highlight the need to differentiate between this representational subject as an ideological construct of journalism about lethal family violence, and the perpetrators’ more fragmented and complex lives and social circumstances. It asks how the presence of a ‘disempowered man’ in media representation of filicide signals wider assumptions about appropriate gender role performance that need to be more fully accounted for and addressed as part of improving public understanding of the crime.