par Broustau, Nadège ;Rodot, Florian
Référence Congrès DiscourseNet (6th: 6-10 juillet 2025: Université libre de Bruxelles)
Publication Non publié, 2025-07-09
Communication à un colloque
Résumé : This presentation focuses on the representations and blind spots of psychotrauma in the coverage of sexual and domestic violence in the Belgian press between 2021 and 2025. Although the medical literature about psychotrauma has increased since the official definition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) in psychiatry, especially following the Vietnam war (Freese, 2019 ; Damiani & Lebigot, 2015), social and media representations of this health issue are still blurred by reductive imaginaries. From misconceptions of traumatic situations like rapes or other life-threatening events to underestimation of their long-term psychological, physical and physiological consequences, victims and survivors have to deal with social invisibilities and misunderstandings that obstruct and undermine their path to healing (Josse, 2019; Roisin, 2015) and insight abilities (Jaafari & Marková, 2011). Stereotypes and lack of knowledge about psychotrauma in the public sphere also reinforce the altered image that non-specialists health professionals summon in their interpretive and diagnostic process (Kédia & Sabouraud-Séguin, 2020).Using NVivo, our study is based on a mixed content analysis. The initial corpus consists of some 900 articles published in local and national French Belgian newspapers, from the “#BalanceTonBar” movement in 2021 until the aftermath of the Mazan rape trial in 2025. The results stress the predominant categories of meanings associated to trauma, the global short-term vision of traumatic events’ consequences, the detailed focus on aggressors contrasting with the portrayal of the victims, the tension between surprise and banality, and the obliterated symptoms and implications of psychotrauma in the media.

Documents en relation