Traditionally, patriarchal societies have repressed women who practice sex work. Today, that repression continues through mass media. In this article we analyze the treatment given to sex worker coverage in the two printed newspaper with the largest circulation in Costa Rica: Diario Extra and La Nación. We recorded all news mentioning sex work in both newspapers during the year 2010 and applied a logistic regression analysis to indicators. To study the association of these indicators with the newspaper and gender of the reporter, we used contingency tables and likelihood ratios. The majority of the 56 reporters who wrote the news items were men and most of the news items related with sex work had a social approach, followed by those with criminal and morality approaches. The articles tend to present sex workers as being outside the law (even though sex work is legal in Costa Rica) and in conflict with other social actors. Despite scientific findings that show otherwise, the media continue to spread myths about frequent “exploitation” and “child prostitution”.
Tear of Publication: 2013
Author(s): Julián Monge-Nájera, Karla Vega Corrales, and María Isabel González Lutz