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Domestic violence

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An Elite Squad?: Intimate Partner Violence Myths In "Law & Order: Special Victim Unit", Katelyn Ahern Jan 2020

An Elite Squad?: Intimate Partner Violence Myths In "Law & Order: Special Victim Unit", Katelyn Ahern

Capstone Showcase

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is a long-running fictional crime drama centering on “an elite squad” (NBCUniversal 2019) of detectives. While the show touts a progressive image, it has been previously found to victim-blame, stereotype, and contain rape myths (Brinson 1992; Rader and Rhineberger-Dunn 2010; Rader, Rhineerger-Dunn, and Vasquez 2016). For the present study, I examined how intimate partner violence (IPV) myths are represented in episodes of Law & Order: SVU. I conceptualized IPV myths for use in this study using Peter’s (2008) Domestic Violence Myth Scale. It was found that characters on SVU overwhelmingly support myths more often …