From Newsroom Frames to Courtroom Registers: Language as Patriarchal Legitimation in Sexual Violence Reporting

The media coverage of an out-of-control teenage party in the Melbourne suburb of Narre Warren on 12 January 2008, and its construction of the protagonist who threw the party, has highlighted once again the inequitable treatment of youth, particularly adolescent males, in the Australian media. This paper examines the coverage in terms of the discursive strategies used by the mainstream Australian media to legitimise and naturalise the denigration and humiliation of the boy involved. It will discuss the ongoing demonisation of young males in general, and the concomitant ‘panics’ about their degeneration into moral lassitude, as well as the particular ethical and legal issues raised by the non-compliance with the industry code of ethics displayed in the news reporting of the Boy’s activities. The Incident One Saturday in January 2008, the Boy decided to have a get together in his suburban Melbourne home while his parents were away, however as news of the event spread via the internet and SMS, the crowd swelled to apparently 500 people, many of whom were gate crashers from a nearby party which had been closed down. After neighbours complained about the noise, police arrived and clashed with the party goers, some of whom threw bottles, broke a letter box and damaged cars. Police later threatened to charge the Boy and his family for the AUD$20,000 clean-up bill (The 7.30 Report, “Teen Faces $20,000 Bill”). On 14 January, journalist Leila McKinnon presented a report on the Nine Network’s A Current Affair which was the first in a series of reports demonising adolescent males in general and the Boy in particular. As discussed in more detail below, the construction of the Boy as ‘bad’ was blatant and the interviewer skilfully goaded him and ignored any comments that indicated maturity, contrition or other socially acceptable reactions, countering with condescension until she provoked the ‘desired’ response which would support the stereotype of the rebellious adolescent male. The public humiliation of the Boy instigated by A Current Affair continued for several weeks and at the time of writing the Boy was still being used as an example of the strange and unpredictable ways of children: “The aggressive, moody, whiny, excessive behaviour that drives the parents of teenagers wild is all part of the lopsided way the adolescent brain matures. That’s especially true for boys, as Melbourne teenager [the Boy] demonstrated when he hosted a wild party …” (Dayton 3). This was despite the fact that these character traits hardly seem to fit [the Boy] who was described by his parents, even at their most outraged, as “independent, socially active” with, “a lot of friends” (A Current Affair, 14 Jan. 2008) and as someone who was, “loving, kind and a fun boy who always has time for his family” (Jo and Steve Delaney). The clear ideological inflection of the McKinnon interview, and other media coverage, suggested that the positioning of the adolescent male in this discourse warranted further examination. Television news and current affair coverage of the incident between January 14 and January 20 was analysed, producing a sample of 13 stories on the topic of the Boy. Print media articles were retrieved using the Dow Jones Factiva search, which produced 1341 stories. The stories were coded and analysed using methodology commonly used in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (for example by Fowler et al.; Fowler; Van Dijk, News; Racism; “Principles”; “New(s)”; and Fairclough, Media; Language; and “Dialectics”). This paper draws on the first stage of the analysis which described a broad characterisation of the newspaper discourse surrounding the Boy’s party. The microstructural analysis of the coverage is a longer term project and still in progress. All the News That’s Fit to Print One of the prevailing aspects of the media coverage of this incident was the ubiquitous abandoning of the ideals of objectivity and ethical reporting. The Boy was presented as media savvy and uncaring about public opinion, but this should not influence the application of the journalists’ code of ethics. For example, rule 2: “ do not place unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics, including … gender, age … family relationships” or rule 8: “never exploit a person’s vulnerability” or rule 11 “respect … personal privacy”? (MEAA). Nor should it be considered a waiver of the United National Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example article 3 which states “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”; or article 16 “no child shall be subjected to … unlawful attacks on his or her honour or reputation”; or article 40 “the right of every child alleged as, accused of, or recognised as having infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth” (United Nations). Yet the Boy was denied rights for fair representation by the media. About a Boy The sixteen year old who threw the party has been charged as a result of events that night and so is not named here, although the blanket media coverage has meant that it is unlikely that anyone reading this paper does not know his name. None the less, he is a child; a boy; an adolescent; a minor; but what does this really mean? The term ‘Boy’, like other gender identifiers, is a contested, social construction; a malleable liminal state in which the young male is neither fully a child nor an adult; and this uncertainty feeds the cultural anxiety that permeates public displays of pubescence. Age is certainly one of the major cultural markers that western societies use to distinguish between an adult and a child, however it is applied arbitrarily. For example, in Australia, childhood appears to be defined by the activity in question. Children can legally have sex – which some might consider an adult activity – at the age of sixteen yet they can’t marry without permission; vote; own land; hold a driving or gun licence or buy cigarettes or alcohol until they are 18. Forty years ago, Philippe Aries stimulated a debate, which continues, about the concept of childhood through time, claiming that the current conception of children as a discrete group, separate from other humans in various ways is a characteristic of western industrialised society (Aries). For example adolescence is generally considered as a biological marker, rather than a cultural construct, in the process of human development, yet the concept as generally understood and applied in discussions about young people did not exist before the last two decades of the nineteenth century (Demos and Demos 632). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is quite clear, in Article 1, that, “a child means every human being below the age of 18 years” (UNCROC). Not withstanding the fact that the concept of child is contested, and socially constructed, children in general are a contradiction in 21st century western society. On one hand, society pays lip service to their importance as, ‘our future,’ and our most important asset, yet on the other they are perceived as problems to be solved by regulation. As Angela Shanahan wrote in her column for The Australian: What is to be done with the [Boy]s of this world? On one hand we know they are silly children whose parents should take more control. But, on the other hand, as anyone who has had a child go off the rails knows, the ability of parents to discipline adolescents is severely limited and often thwarted by the medical and educational establishments and by the various agencies of the social welfare bureaucracy. In fact, there is a growing institutional bias against parental authority. (26 Jan. 2008) In just one paragraph Shanahan manages to denigrate the Boy as a “silly child”; blame parents for not being more authoritarian; and invoke the need to ignore those children’s rights which are protected by bureaucracies. Even the choice of the word “bureaucracies” instead of organisations connotes incompetence. The discourses of regulation and rationality run through this column, whose header reads, “Science says teens don’t have the brains to cope”, thus invoking the authority of science to support her call for greater oppression of youth. Her strategy is to cite experts who can prove that the teenage brain is unformed and inferior to the normal, that is, adult, brain. Richard Kerbaj, also writing in The Australian, employs a similar discursive strategy, using “experts” who call on parents to, “take a more hardline approach” and suggest punishments for the Boy because otherwise, “we’ll have copycat parties throughout the place”. Kerbaj has no doubt about what young people want when he describes “every teenager’s dream: throw a party when the parents are out of the house, make international headlines and watch mum and dad get blamed for it” (Kerbaj). This level of premeditation and malice wasn’t present in the Boy’s answer, during a grilling on A Current Affair (14 Jan. 2008), to the question, “why did you do it?” BOY: Um I don’t know. It was just a get together with a couple of mates at first and then we thought we might as well just have a bit of a party and then it just sort of got out of hand … The interviewer doesn’t appear interested in any retrospection or acknowledgment of being unable to deal with the situation on the Boy’s part, but seems intent on proving that the Boy is irresponsible and unremorseful. Failure to show “appropriate” emotions during public media appearances have dire consequences. For example the demonisation, and subsequent imprisonment, of Lindy Chamberlain almost 30 years ago seemed to be at least partly the result of her inability to display the ‘right’ response, and her refusal to break down on camera was seen as evidence that she was capable of murdering her own child. More recently, British tourist Joanne Lees was positioned as suspect rather than vict

This study examines how online media construct the representation of the National Recreational Sports Festival (FORNAS) organized by KORMI as a strategic instrument for tourism branding in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara. Using Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the research explores linguistic choices, framing strategies, and discursive practices employed by national and local media in shaping public perceptions of the event. The analysis draws on news articles published between January and August 2025, covering pre-event, implementation, and post-event phases. Findings reveal that media discourse consistently links FORNAS with Lombok’s tourism identity, portraying the event as a celebration of cultural richness, natural beauty, and regional progress. Through selective diction, metaphors, and narrative structures, media outlets emphasize themes of festivity, economic benefit, and destination appeal while marginalizing critical issues such as infrastructure challenges and environmental concerns. The dominance of official voices further reinforces power relations that privilege government and tourism-industry interests. This study concludes that media coverage does not merely inform audiences but actively constructs symbolic meanings that strengthen Lombok’s branding as a leading sport-tourism destination. The findings underscore the strategic role of language, power, and discourse in shaping tourism imaginaries and policy directions.

In most traditional accounts of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) text and discourse are viewed as being the product of a one-directional flow of information from a handful of dominant (and powerful) text producers to an seemingly subordinate mass of readers who passively consume texts. To this end, CDA proclaims an interest in both production and reception factors as they are reflected in social practices (Fetzer & Johansson, 2008). Yet, in the CDA literature actual empirical data focusing on reception factors have often been lacking and/or have been limited to the researcher’s personal reading of a text. With the advent and spread of converged media platforms (Herring, 2013) and the new discourse practices this entails such factors need to be reconsidered and the more prominent role played by users in both reception and (co-)construction of texts embraced (Boyd, 2014). This work focuses on the importance of user-generated content in user comments written in response to online newspaper editorials and proposes that such commenting practices not only change media discourse and social practice but also, ultimately, may upend the traditional flow of media discourse, transforming it from a primarily top-down, one-to-many model to a more interactive and participatory model that fosters many-to-many participation schemes (KhosraviNik & Zia, 2014). In traditional print newspapers text consumers had few opportunities to respond directly to a topic they felt strongly about if not in the form of a “letter to the editor” which was not guaranteed publication. Furthermore, editorials, as the official mouthpiece of a news organisation, were seen as playing a predominant role in evaluating issues, forming public opinion and eliciting reader support and agreement (Henry & Tator, 2002; Moon, 1994; Van Dijk, 1991). Today, most online newspapers allow users to comment on both news reports and opinion articles, including editorials, in which they can react to as well as interact with media texts. Such social interaction gives the (CDA) researcher access to valuable user-generated content which can help to gauge, in part, the degree to which such media texts as editorials still have in forming and swaying public opinion. By focusing on reader comments in a limited set of editorials (dealing with the European migrant crisis), this study attempts to determine readers’ varying opinions about the issue and how this reflects and/or diverges from the view(s) presented by the editorial. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the empirical data (the editorials and reader comments) aim to demonstrate the various representations of society inherent in online newspaper discourse. In particular, the analysis focuses on the linguistic means adopted by text producers to align themselves with (proximization) or differentiate themselves from (distancing) from the views presented in the editorial. Thus, the work is interested in the ways in which powerful public discourses are received by the general public through the interactive feature of text commenting available on many media platforms. Text commenting, in turn, is seen as crucial to understanding how certain texts are received and transformed by different types of (social) media users in the online newspaper.

The main objective of the article is to conduct a critical media discourse analysis as presented in the Polish and international editions of the "Newsweek" magazine in the years 2001-2006 and 2012-2016; the subject of which was climate change. The introduction provides the definitions of the key terms, such as: the greenhouse effect and critical discourse analysis (CDA). The theoretical part presents the most important assumptions of the CDA and presents a characteristic of the weekly. The results of the conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis partially lead to varying conclusions. Based on the CDA, the hypothesis was assumed that more attention was provided to climate change in the international (English) edition of "Newsweek", than in the Polish-language edition. Rejected in turn was the hypothesis, according to which, more importance to climate change and their repercussions was provided in the discourse within the last 5years of publication of the weekly than in the discourse from the years 2001-2006. As a result of comparison of both discourses, the disturbing fact that media discourse did not present and encourage among the readers an active stance in favour of the climate was noticed. It is the task of this influential weekly, the message of which reaches many people, not only to provide knowledge and shape specific values or view, but also to encourage and popularise attitudes in favour of the climate. If man wants to continue to live on earth, then one of their goals is to modify the form of discourse by entities responsible for its form.

The paper presents the analysis of linguistic means of manipulative influence in the modern German-speaking discourse. Nowadays, the media remains an important and no less influential part of a society. Mass media is the main source of human consciousness formation and public opinion correction. The topic of the thesis is the peculiarities of the translation of means of manipulative influence in modern German-language media discourse. The object of scientific research is the media discourse of modern German-speaking media. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to identify and study the mechanisms of verbal influence in media discourse, as manipulation in discourse is one of the current problems of the modern linguistics. To reach the goal, the paper considers the functional direction of media discourse, highlights the linguistic specifics of manipulation tactics, and determines the basic methods of translation of means of manipulative influence. The subject of the research is a comparative analysis of the application of translation strategies and methods of translation of means of manipulative influence. Various methods were used in the research: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, pragmatic, discursive analysis, critical discourse analysis, comparison, descriptive method, classification analysis, comparative analysis of source text and translation, as well as contrastive translation analysis. The materials of the research are news reports from the website of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Ukraine, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Federal Republic of Germany, the news site Deutsche Welle in German and Ukrainian. The scientific novelty of the obtained results is to highlight the features of modern German-speaking media discourse, the typology of translation transformations for the transmission of verbal means of manipulative influence in German-language texts and their practical application in translation studies. The study is based on the tactics of manipulation. The verbal plane is represented by a number of linguistic means implementing the tactics. Tactics of manipulation presuppose the use of the technique of appealing to expert opinion, dramatization of the situation with the help of numbers and emotionally-colored vocabulary, imposition of positive and negative facts in the message, as well as use of euphemisms. In our work, we presented definitions, identified the main features and the functions of media discourse and did the comprehensive analysis of the content, structure and lexical-syntactic content, as well as the transfer of these characteristics in translation.

Applying Critical Discourse Analysis as a conceptual framework for investigating gender stereotypes in political media discourse

The aim of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is to reveal how ideologies influence the discourse, and vice versa by studying the linguistic characteristics of the discourse and the specific social, economic, political and historical contexts the discourse itself is based on. As a type of mass media discourse, news plays a more and more important role in the society. It not only conveys the information to the readers, but also influences the attitudes and concepts of the readers by the embedded ideologies. Thus, news discourses evoke much interest of critical linguistics. The present study selects the news reports on the 2010 Diaoyu Islands incident from three newspapers: China Daily, The Japan Times and The New York Times. Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and Systematic Functional Grammar, the present thesis conducts a contrastive critical analysis of news reports in three stages. In response to the research questions, this study has obtained the following findings: The different linguistic features are shown in the three newspapers towards the report on the same event. In the lexical choices, the three newspapers report differently from three perspectives, i.e., the description of the incident location, the description of the cause of the incident and the naming of the incident. In the distribution of the processes, verbal process takes the highest percentage both in China Daily and The Japan Times, while material process takes the highest percentage in The New York Times. In the distribution of the news sources, the quotation from its own authorities takes the highest percentage both in China Daily and The Japan Times, while the quotation from all walks of Japan takes the highest percentage in The New York Times. Besides that, news sources from Chinese experts and scholars in China Daily take a high proportion; and a large number of news sources from American authorities are detected in The Japan Times. Different linguistic features reflect different ideologies embedded in the three newspapers. And the main reason for that is the difference of politics, history and culture existing in the three countries. Accordingly, news discourse, especially political news discourse could not only reflect the dominant ideology, but also serve to convey the ideology to influence or even change the reader’s understanding of the events reported in the newspapers.

In contemporary democratic societies, political apologies have evolved into strategic rhetorical acts used by state leaders to manage public perception, repair moral standing, and reinforce political values. In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo’s public apology near the end of his presidency attracted widespread attention and provoked discourse about its underlying ideological motives. Rather than a spontaneous expression of regret, the apology appeared to be a calculated act of political communication, shaped by cultural values and designed to influence the public’s perception of his leadership. This study aims to uncover the ideological tendencies embedded in Jokowi’s apology by analyzing how the apology is represented in two prominent English-language newspapers in Indonesia, The Jakarta Post (TJP) and The Jakarta Globe (TJG). It seeks to determine how transitivity choices in the language are used to convey deeper political and cultural meanings. Employing a qualitative research design supported by quantitative content analysis, the study integrates Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), particularly the transitivity framework, to examine 43 clauses extracted from news articles published in TJP and TJG. The transitivity analysis reveals that material processes dominate the discourse (40.5%), followed by mental (25.5%) and verbal (23.2%) processes. In terms of participant roles, Actor and Sayer occur most frequently, indicating that Jokowi strategically presented himself as an active doer and a sincere speaker. These linguistic patterns suggest a deliberate construction of identity, emphasizing responsibility, empathy, and leadership. The analysis further shows how Jokowi's apology aligns with Javanese cultural ideals of humility and Islamic values of repentance, which are embedded in Indonesian socio-political discourse. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of how political apologies are not only personal but also ideological acts embedded in media discourse. This study highlights the usefulness of integrating CDA and SFL in uncovering how language functions to maintain power, shape public memory, and preserve political legitimacy in post-presidency contexts. It also underscores the cultural specificity of apology strategies in Indonesia, suggesting that future discourse studies consider local traditions and values when analyzing political speech.

Sexual violence constitutes a worldwide concern that jeopardizes individual security and integrity while eroding the social and moral fabric of society. When perpetrated by religious leaders, the issue becomes more intricate due to the exploitation of power, trust, and elevated social status. These leaders, expected to serve as moral exemplars, become offenders of crimes that infringe upon human rights. Legislators have established many laws and regulations, with the provisions controlling sexual violence delineated in Law Number 12 of 2022. However, there are still many cases of sexual violence against children both in the education environment and in society in Indonesia, especially those that occur in the Aru Maluku Islands Regency. The problem encountered is why there is an inequality in criminal law enforcement against children as victims of sexual violence committed by religious leaders?. This research aims to analyze the legal protection of victims of sexual violence committed by religious leaders. The research findings indicate a necessity for legal and policy reform, emphasizing that sanctions imposed on perpetrators of sexual violence who are religious leaders must be stringent to prevent the perception of legal immunity due to their religious status. So it is recommended that the government revise the law to remove legal immunity for religious leaders.

This comparative study aims to critically analyze the media discourse of Arab Gulf countries in terms of objectivity, persuasion, and national brands. It is also necessary to investigate the power relations in the Gulf media discourse and the ideologies adopted by the conflicting parties which aim to mobilize public opinion locally and internationally. Arab Gulf media outlets attempt to convince the masses of the legitimacy of the political agenda and foreign policies of Arab countries in the region. In many cases, the Arab Gulf regimes attempt to own hegemony and control over power relations by adopting an inflammatory media discourse capable of distorting the true image of other groups on the one hand and supporting the national brand and the foreign policies of the ruling families on the other. This complex relationship between the media discourse and the structures of power makes the task more difficult to uncover the deep link that constitutes the components of the adopted discourse and opens the door to many interpretations that need good textual and ontological analysis. Therefore, critical discourse analysis was used as a method of data analysis to understand the ideological attitudes during the online media coverage of both Aljazeera and al-Arabiya media networks. The stratified sample of this comparative study consists of 8 news reports retrieved from both websites. The comparative analysis reveals that the Arab media discourse employed by the conflicting parties is far from neutral especially when political crises arise between major powers as in the case of the Gulf dispute between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and other countries. Al-Arabiya English has used an inflammatory discourse against the Qatari regime to create a negative image of Qatar's foreign policies, while Al-Jazeera English has adopted the Qatari narrative to refute the claims of supporting terrorism, spreading hate speech, and marketing extremist ideologies. However, both media outlets funded by Arab Gulf countries manipulate media content and meaning to mobilize public opinion and convince the international community of the legitimacy of their political agenda, foreign policies, and national identities.

This research paper tries to use Critical Discourse Analysis especially Van Dijk’s (1988) Discourse Analytical Perspective and complementary insights from Fairclough (1988, 1995) and Van Leeuwen (2008) to analyze two news reports from a Nigerian newspaper. These reports from the Daily Sun show two distinct and parallel kinds of reportage even though they both have a particular overriding theme which is violence. This paper analyzes both the textual and contextual aspects of the reports. The result reveals that news reports are sometimes made from an a priori perspective based on frames recalled and rebuilt in fresher news and that actors and actions are constructed to suit the perspectives. In this analysis, we see how Muslims in the Jos attacks are built into frames where they can only be assailants not victims even in a case where they are grossly victimized. This paper enforces the notion of bias and subjective reportage of events in the media as espoused by CDA.

This paper uses a Computer-Aided Text Analysis (CATA) and a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate the language of persuasion in courtroom discourse. More specifically, the paper tries to explore the extent to which a computer-aided text analysis contributes to decoding the various persuasive strategies employed to control, defend or accuse within the framework of courtroom discourse. Two research questions are tackled in this paper: first, what are the strategies of persuasion employed in the selected data? Second, how can a computer-aided text analysis reveal these persuasive tools that influence the attitudes of recipients? By means of the adopted computer-assisted textual analysis, four CDA strategies are discussed in this study: questioning, repetition, emotive language, and justification. The paper reveals that language in courtroom discourse can be used to persuade or biased to manipulate. In both cases, a triadic relationship between language, law, and computer is emphasized.

This critical discourse analysis (CDA) investigates how The Hindu and the Washington Post (WP) construct their online news in depicting the Israeli onslaught on Gaza in August 2022. Halliday’s transitivity system was adopted to explore the hidden ideologies and analyze the textual choice or words' features in the clauses of thirteen (13) news articles from The Hindu and nine (9) from WP. The study's findings indicate that the most dominant processes in both news media were the verbal and material processes. Within the verbal process, it was divided into three sides: Palestinian, Israel and neutral. The findings reveal that both media have common strategies to represent the Israeli and neutral verbal process, while the selected media share similarities and differences in representing the Palestinian verbal process. The findings through the material process suggest that both media show Israel as an actor more than as a goal. They tend to use processes ‘verbs’ that are associated with extreme violence and less violence with Israel, whereas Palestinian are associated with less violence process, but the process is supported with adjectives, adverbs and numbers to place it in extreme violence. The analysis is then followed by the revealed methods and techniques used by the selected media. Overall, both news media have hidden ideologies to construct their news articles. Based on these empirical evidences, (CDA) appears to play an essential part in understanding the language that is employed in media discourses.

Building on the call to further integrate emotions in critical security and terrorism studies, we explore the ways emotions figure in media discourses and shape responses and policies on the returnee question. Through critical discourse analysis and thick description, we show how Belgian (potential) returnee men were subject to varying securitising discourses and emotional portrayals in media coverage over the past decade. Our argument contends that media discourse(s) on the returnee question exhibit a complex emotional landscape. We discern dominant, alternative and rising emotions that undergird the media coverage. We will illustrate how the “dominant” emotion of fear oscillated with an “alternative” emotion of vulnerability and, over the course of a decade, was accompanied by a “rising” emotion of vindictiveness. We argue that the cultivation of vindictiveness contributes to securitising narratives that portray Belgian (potential) returnee men as irredeemable monsters deserving of extreme punishments. This rising discourse undermines democratic principles and the rule of law. We speak of political emotions because emotions are deeply intertwined with power dynamics, societal structures, and political processes, which shape collective attitudes, behaviours, and policies towards (potential) returnees.

This study emphasises the need for greater critical discourse analysis (CDA) research on how sexual assault is represented in popular culture. Emphasis is placed on the conceptual links between victim-blaming in media coverage and social norms, which implicitly accentuates an ethic of "personal responsibility" for risk management while putting structural issues in the background. Feminist media studies research demonstrates how victim conduct and individualising incidents lead to a misrepresentation of gendered crime in the media. This article builds on previous research by using coverage of the widely publicised 2020 Sialkot Motorway rape as a case study to perform a systematic, grammar-based analysis of transitivity and agency in news reports and show their frequently subtle connection with neoliberal notions of victimisation and risk that support the interests of perpetrators. Keywords: Transitivity; Sexual Assault; Agency; Feminism; News Media; Neoliberalism; Critical Discourse Analysis