Rape on Trial: How the Mass Media Construct Legal Reform and Social Change

• NCJ Number: 161586
• Author(s): L M Cuklanz
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 138 pages
• Sale Source: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This book explains the interplay between containment and transformation of the cultural knowledge of rape through an examination of three issue-oriented trial events.

Abstract

The three highly publicized trials in the United States occurred between 1978 and 1988: the John and Greta Rideout marital rape case, the Big Dan's Tavern gang rape case, and the Webb-Dotson rape recantation case. These trials all received extensive national media coverage, and each was later used as the subject of a fictionalized text (a television movie of the week, a major motion picture, and a confessional autobiography). The analysis of these trials provide material for examining the extent to which the victim's perspective on rape has been publicly validated. Further, they afford an opportunity to examine the process of social change, the alteration of dominant ideology, as it incorporates some elements of feminist truth about rape. The emphasis is on the struggle for meaning that is acted out in mainstream texts; at various points and in differing texts, both traditional and reform voices have gained discursive authority. Public communication about rape is central to the study of the effectiveness of the rape reform movement, because only this examination can reveal the extent to which the movement has altered the public consciousness. This study provides insights into the various roles news coverage and fictionalized texts play in adjudicating between traditional views of rape and those advanced by advocates of rape law reform. In both realms of mainstream discourse, the rape law reform movement has had a significant impact on the way rape is discussed. The author traces where and how rape reform ideas were granted legitimacy in mainstream news coverage. The study found that although the subsequent fictionalized versions of the cases often adopted the themes discussed in the news coverage, they usually were more sympathetic toward the rape victim's perspective. 180 references and a subject index