Who counts as a victim? Hierarchies of victimhood in Greek femicide news

Femicide reporting has long occupied feminist media research, interrogating how news storytelling misrecognises the killing of women because of their gender. Less examined is how such storytelling constructs hierarchies of female victimhood, valuing some lives while erasing others. We address this gap through thematic analysis of 206 Greek news stories from 2021, identifying five frames that shape narrative context: bureaucratic, cinematic, witnessing, politicised, interventionist. Each proposes distinct ethical engagements with victims and perpetrators and variation in frame combinations across stories produces a hierarchy of victimhood from “adventure news” to “ecstatic news” and “emergency news.” We introduce the term femicidal politics of pain to understand news storytelling as a symbolic terrain where shifting frames unequally redistribute empathy, blame and humanity, shaping which deaths are grieved and which go unnoticed. We conclude with a proposal for news storytelling to frame femicides as political events caused by patriarchal violence and to humanise women.