Sensitive to others: emotions, care and gender in the construction of news

Resumo

In media, as well as in broader society, the focus on emotions is usually associated with women and it seems to be at odds with other prevailing believes on the value of detachment and reason as key to an ethical public sphere that informs rational citizens. Yet, emotions have always been an important part of news narratives. In our paper, we seek to untangle reason and emotion in the production of news as we recall the historical and contemporary gender dimension of its production. Also, looking into the pragmatic challenge to dispassionate ethics we argue that one way of discerning on what makes ethical and compelling news is not necessarily the separation of these two dimensions, but the inclusion of the insights from a feminist ethics of care.