Topaloudi’s Legacy
Abstract
This article deals with the diachronic issue of gender-based violence as inherited social practices constituting a form of shadow global legacy. My research investigates circumstances under which such practices can be transformed through enlightened interventions in the interior of long-established social settings such as the media, traditionally tolerating violence against women. By focusing on a notorious femicide incident as presented in a Greek TV infotainment show in 2018/2019, I examine the paradoxically illuminating role of the latter, and in addition family micro-environments, in raising community awareness to such long-suppressed matters. Drawing from systems, field, and gender theory and based on both content and discourse analysis of various media resources, this particular presentation of a femicide case is also associated with local specificities compensating for limitations of institutions formally assigned to administer justice. Furthermore, it is discussed in the context of global developments, mostly as a local manifestation of the contemporary #MeToo movement.