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Violence against women (VAW) is a pervasive social problem in Latin America, yet little is known about how global English-language media describe these events. Because media reporting shapes public perception, linguistic analysis is necessary. This study applies a comparative qualitative descriptive approach to examine twelve English-language online news articles on VAW published in Colombia and Costa Rica between 2020 and 2024. The articles were uploaded to Delve and coded using themes developed for this study. These themes were used to examine how meaning operates in the texts, drawing on Leech and Short (2007) distinction between literal, implicit, and associative levels of meaning. Delve was used as a practical tool to organize and manage the coding, while the interpretive work was guided by the theoretical framework. This approach made it possible to compare how English-language media in the two national contexts represent violence against women. These results demonstrate how semantic choices in international journalism shape narratives of gender-based violence and mediate local realities for global audiences.
