Framing crime: moral panic in Argentine newspapers

Abstract

Carolina Píparo was shot a few minutes after withdrawing cash from a bank branch. This case outraged the public opinion because she was eight months pregnant at the moment of the assault. She had to undergo a caesarean section and her baby only survived one week. Through an exploratory and inductive research we will analyze how the Argentine newspapers presented the case. We aim at elaborating a content analysis code book that can be validated in future similar researches on the subject. We apply the Framing theory in order to detect the frames used in the news coverage and to observe if they are compatible with the idea of «moral panic» proposed by Stanley Cohen.

Keywords

• framing
• pánico moral
• inseguridad
• medios de comunicación
• argentina