Twice missing: Mass media and the social construction of the missing women problem.

摘要

The mass media play an important role in constructing a phenomenon as a social problem---or alternatively, in failing to construct phenomena as social problems---thus effectively working as public agenda setters. Take the issue of missing women, for example. How was the case of the women missing from Vancouver's East Side district different from Laci Peterson's? And generally speaking, how are certain issues constructed by the media to be more problematic than others? In my thesis I address how mass media contribute to the construction of social problems. My focus is on the issue of missing women---a much under-researched social issue. Precisely, I ask: How is the phenomenon of missing women constructed as either a social problem or a non-problem by Canadian print news media? In addressing this issue, I conduct a Critical Discourse Analysis focusing on issues of race, class, gender and lifestyle. This analysis is based in social constructionism and third wave feminism.