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until December 31, 2018, a total of 975 women were murdered at the hands of their partners or ex-partners according to the Statistical Portal of the Government Delegation for Gender Violence.

However, official state figures are just the tip of the iceberg, since they only take intimate partner violence into account, which results in a poor and simplistic conceptualisation of the phenomenon and reduces VAW to the scenario of affectivity (Zurbano-Berenguer and Liberia-Vayá, 2014). This reductionist view is not only problematic for the female victims who are too afraid to report the crime or those who are not assaulted in their intimate-affective environment, but it also affects citizens, as they cannot get an approximate idea of the issue due to the lack of complete and real data.

In this sense, journalistic work is responsible for informing and shaping public opinion about this serious problem in which women’s human rights are systematically violated. However, the media’s explanation of violence is also reductionist, since “the journalism profession, like citizens, are not always educated in this respect” (Menéndez, 2014: 55).

For this reason, various academic and professional circles have focused on the daily activity of the media to show their concern for how VAW is conveyed and represented. A concern based on the absence of women in the media, the mistreatment of their identities, the sexualisation and objectification of their bodies and as far as this work is concerned, a distortion and simplification of the violence of which they are victims.

Therefore, the studies on the approach and treatment of this violence have multiplied in the last two decades. Works such as Simons’ and Khan’s (2018) or Simons’ and Morgan’s (2018) address the change in the coverage and configuration of the media as prevention tools for VAW, following previous research lines that reflected on the dynamics of gender representation and gendered aggressions (Anastasio and Costa, 2004; Wozniak and McCloskey, 2010; Roberto, McCann and Brossoie, 2013; Ross et al., 2018). In the current media context, reflecting on the content in digital media has begun to be a new line of specific research (Salter, 2013; Vega, 2018). Also, the consolidation of this concern in the academic sphere favours contextual studies such as Ahmed’s (2014), which works on representations in Pakistan, Bullock, and Cubert (2002) focus on Washington State or Fairbairn and Dawson (2013), who use Canada as a context for analysis.

Similarly, since the end of the 20th century, the focus on the media coverage of VAW has resulted in prolific publications of deontological documents on how to deal with this social problem sensitively, ethically and responsibly, such attention is related to the scientific evidence that the media has the capacity to influence in general, particularly in the case of VAW.

“This influence is no longer limited to the traditional functions of informing and shaping public opinion as to the most important and that which it fundamentally continues to associate its activity with. It also has a growing educational prominence, as a socialiser, creator of leisure and fashion trends, etc. As we all know, the media today constitute one of the greatest powers of the symbolic configuration of the society in which we live” (Aznar, 2005b: 20)2.

In addition to being socialisers and educators, the media are the primary source of information regarding VAW, since around 90% of the public affirm that they are made aware of this reality through the media (Ministry of Health, Social Policy, and Equality, 2011). Thus, what and how the media portrays it will determine the population’s knowledge about this problem.

2 It is a free translation of the original.