Rape on Trial How the Mass Media Construct Legal Reform and Social Change [Paperback]

Why has so much of the public discussion of rape focused on a few specific cases, and to what extent has this discussion incorporated the feminist perspective on rape?Rape on Trialexplores these questions and provides answers based on a detailed examination of the mainstream news coverage of the John and Greta Rideout marital rape case, the Big Dan's Tavern gang rape case, and the Webb-Dotson rape recantation case.

Lisa M. Cuklanz traces where and how rape reform ideas were granted legitimacy in mainstream news coverage. She finds that while the subsequent fictionalized versions frequently adopted the themes foregrounded in the news coverage, they usually were more sympathetic toward—and indeed often took on—the rape victim's point of view.

Rape on Trialprovides insight into the different roles news coverage and fictionalized texts play in adjudicating between traditional views of rape and those advanced by advocates of rape law reform.

Lisa M. Cuklanz is Chair of the Women's Studies Program and Associate Professor of Communication at Boston College. She is on the board of directors of the Radcliffe Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies and the author of Rape on Prime TimeTrial: How the Mass Media Construct Legal Reform and Social Change, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.