Authors

Discussion

This study examines the representations of intimate partner violence (IPV) incidents in Russian media outlets during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020, or at the time when increased attention began to be drawn to the global “shadow pandemic” of violence in the home. To assess if changes and continuities in media coverage of IPV occurred during this extraordinary period, we analysed 124 articles published by the most popular Russia newspapers and news agencies in March-May 2019 and March-May 2020. The results show that while during the COVID-19 lockdown the number of articles reporting on IPV significantly increased and the use of sensational language declined, very few articles cited IPV experts, and in general the media continued to reproduce victim blaming attitudes and the perception of IPV as isolated incidents rather than as a broader social issue. While previous research conducted in Russia has focused primarily on different legal aspects of IPV, our work makes an important contribution by investigating the peculiarities of the media representations of IPV incidents in the Russian media and the potential effects that global events such as a pandemic can have on this type of media coverage. The study discusses the implications of its findings for feminist media analysis.