Identity construction of the subject victim of domestic violence: fetishism, aesthetization and public identity

Abstract

This article aims to explain the process of the construction of the gender-based violence victim-subject in some media discourses. Therefore seventeen Spanish institutional campaigns will be analyzed. The discursive articulation of the gender-based violence victim-subject will be addressed taking into consideration the discursive development of a fetichization practice which renders the victim-subject as an object diminishing the political agency of the victim offered by means of a public identity in the media discourses. A final reflection on the possibility of new ways of constructing the gender-based victim-subject is presented in order to point out the importance of the ethical dimension through the theory of the media opportunity.