Representation Of Social Actors Research Articles

Representation of Social Actors in COVID-19 Speeches by Southeast Asian Political Leaders

Representation of Social Actors in COVID-19 Speeches by Southeast Asian Political Leaders

(Im)politeness as a Strategy in the Discursive Construction of In-Group Solidarity in Discussions about Love, Sex and Relationships on Incels.is

As a discourse community that is formed and maintained mostly online, involuntary celibates (who are typically heterosexual men) have been known to be one of the most obvious groups presenting misogynistic attitudes (Bates 2020). There are various forums where such online users meet to discuss subjects of relevance to them, including Reddit and subreddit threads (r/incels) and websites specifically targeted at the community (such as Incels.is). Although the subject of incel discourses has been addressed from several linguistic perspectives, including the representation of social actors (Heritage & Koller 2020), toxic language in the community (Pelzer et al. 2021), metaphor (Heritage et al. 2023) and the extreme language of misogyny (Bogetić 2022), still relatively little has been written specifically about how the community of practice is formed on the basis of the discursive expression of solidarity. The present paper is an analysis of discussions on the forum Incels.is on the subject of sex and relationships, specifically investigating how both manifestations of misogynist attitudes and discursive strategies of politeness are used to form solidarity between users. The analysis considers that through the employment of positive and negative politeness strategies in an online community, group bonds are made stronger and in-group solidarity is expressed both directly and indirectly. The analysis of politeness strategies showed that positive politeness and negative politeness were both present as face-saving acts and to construct solidarity through the use of sarcasm, kinship claiming, informal language and the negative evaluation of female actors.

Van Leeuwen’s Categorization of Lower Caste Christians are in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

This study tries to explore how the lower caste Christians are represented in the text of a novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, by Mohammad Hanif. Applying van Leeuwen’s categorization from the SAR (Social Actor Representation) model, it deconstructs the textual representation of lower caste Christians in the text by the Muslim social actors and middle and upper-class Christians. Also, it attempts to highlight how the discursive representation of lower caste Christians as identification (what they are) and functionalization (what they do) presents them as marginalized characters. How these characters are appraised negatively owing to their caste and religion in the text is also presented. Van Leeuwen’s SAR emphasizes that such discursive recontextualization of the social actors by the writers reflects discrimination against these characters. These social roles given to them show their suppression in society. The analysis reveals that the representation of lower caste Christians demonstrates the following characteristics: they are represented as Choohras shit cleaners, untouchables, which is the major cause of discrimination in Pakistan. Through such depiction of lower caste Christians, the writers want to highlight the sorry plight of lower caste Christians in Pakistan.

‘Can women have it all?’ Transitions in media representations of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership and identity by a global newsroom

ABSTRACT The paper examines changing media representations of Jacinda Ardern, former Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister, from the global broadcaster, BBC News Online, across three key milestones in the politician’s career: her appointment, re-election and resignation. Our socio-semantic analysis of this representation demonstrates how the media intersect her professional identity with age, gender, social class, and later, her identity as a mother. Whilst earlier coverage of Ardern’s career praises her successfully reconciling these aspects of her personal, social and professional identities, later coverage implies that ‘having it all’ was never really possible longer term. We argue that the visibility of this discourse, and the focus on intersectional aspects of Ardern’s personal and social identities, leads to her resignation being positively evaluated as her ‘finally’ succumbing and committing to the ‘natural’ inevitabilities of heterosexual family life. The article considers what such representation means for Ardern and women politicians and leaders more broadly, and contextualises these findings in relation to existing research on media representations of women in politics and leadership. Finally, we also consider the value of a more longitudinal approach to tracking the cumulative effects of the representation of social actors and groups.

Intersemiotic Translation: Mat Dollah’s Batik Paintings of the Malay Folktale “Puteri Gunung Ledang”

In translation studies, intersemiotic translation, which is the transference of a verbal sign system to a non-verbal sign, vice-versa or between two non-verbal modes, is a dynamically creative form of translation often involving literary works. Intersemiotic translations make it possible for written source texts to be brought to life in various artistic ways; they can usurp the power of the written word to transfer sense and meaning through unforgettable images from one culture to another. Folktales, documented in writings, have been translated into many different forms, such as in performing arts, animations, paintings, and illustrated books. This article examines the intersemiotic translation of the evergreen Malay folktale, “Puteri Gunung Ledang” or “The Princess of Mount Ledang” recreated in the form of batik paintings by the batik artist, Mat Dollah. The first specific objective of this study is to identify the variant and invariant features in Mat Dollah’s representation of the folktale by comparing his batik paintings to its original written account. The second objective is to investigate Mat Dollah’s skopos or purpose for recreating the folktale in his batik paintings in the ways that he has represented it. Six selected batik paintings of the folktale are analysed using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) multimodality approaches in visual grammar focusing on social actor representations and viewer networks (2008), colour (2011) and modality to fulfil the first objective. Transcripts from an email interview with the painter are analysed to fulfil the second objective. In this study, Vermeer's Skopos Theory underpins the overall discussion. The findings show that one invariant core links the batik paintings to the written source text. Next, the skopos or purpose of the artist in producing these recreations in his own unique ways is strongly influenced by his personal experience, his work as an artist, and his perspectives of the world. Two key insights can be surmised about intersemiotic translations from these findings. Firstly, it is the translators’ intent that determines the translation strategies used, ultimately shaping the final translated product. Secondly, this makes the translator’s presence highly visible in intersemiotic translations.

Representation of social actors in The Straits Times and The Independent Singapore: A comparative critical discourse analysis of the repeal of Section 377A in Singapore

Section 377A was a decades-old law introduced in Singapore in 1938, which had made sexual intimacy between gay men, even when consensual, punishable by a maximum sentence of two years in prison. In Aug 2022, in what many considered as a historic moment in Singapore, the Prime Minister announced its repeal. Following the announcement, several related news articles were published by the news outlets The Straits Times and The Independent Singapore. This study, therefore, sets out to undertake a critical discourse analysis of these news articles, focusing on the representation of two groups of social actors, namely the Singapore government and gay people. Guided by a framework that constitutes the theoretical approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Fairclough, Van Dijk and Wodak’s perspectives on power relations as discursive, as well as Van Leeuwen's theories on discourse construction and representations of social actors, the analysis of the textual data reveals distinct patterns in how the Singapore government and gay people are represented. In an area where there is little comparative critical discourse research on how more powerful groups and less powerful groups are represented in news coverage following significant legal and sociopolitical changes in a society, this article aims to deepen readers’ understanding of such discursive patterns and foster media literacy, thereby attaining the practical result of pointing readers in the direction of change – a desired outcome that CDA seeks through its research.

Discursive Representation of Social Actors in Selected Speeches of the Former Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe

This study investigates the discursive devices deployed by the late former Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, to represent social actors in his speeches, in order to unveil how these devices and the ideologies in them are mobilized to maintain political power and garner popular support. The data for the study comprise his: 2002 world summit on sustainable development speech in South Africa, 2005 party manifesto speech in Zimbabwe, 2003 Non-aligned speech in Malaysia, and 2007 UN speech in New York. These were subjected to qualitative analysis with insights from Teun A. van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of Critical Discourse Analysis. The study reveals that Mugabe uses discursive polarization strategies to emphasize positive things/de-emphasize negative things about his in-group (himself, Zanu-PF, the majority black, majority Zimbabwean supporters, and the third-world country allies), but emphasizes negative things/de-emphasizes positive things about the out-group (the minority white Zimbabwean land grabbers, the USA, the UK, Tony Blair, George Bush, etc.). The discursive strategies identified were used to pursue land ownership, anti-imperialist, revolutionary, and Marxist ideologies. The study concludes that these strategies were employed by Mugabe as linguistic, rhetorical and political strategies to maintain power and mobilize the support of majority black Zimbabweans for years.

Social Actors Represented at the Press Conference on the Case of Chaka Zulu

In June 2022, people in the United States, especially celebrities were shocked by the news of the murder. The manager of actor and rapper Ludacris, Chaka Zulu, was accused as the murderer. With that accusations, he receive various negative reaction from the public. Chaka’s legal team immediately held a press conference to sway public opinion and in that occasion, it could be found social actor representation. Among the many pieces of research regarding social actor representation, research that investigate spoken discourse is rarely carried out. Therefore, this study aims to investigate exclusion and inclusion strategies used by lawyers when representing social actors in press conference. This study uses van Leeuwen’s social actor representation theory (2008). It uses a descriptive-qualitative method to ensure clear data analysis. The data were obtained from the FOX 5 Atlanta YouTube channel. This study reveals that lawyers use exclusion and inclusion. The lawyers used more inclusion than exclusion. Moreover, the most frequent sub-inclusion strategy is role allocation, as active and passive roles allow lawyers to show who is guilty and who is not. Meanwhile, the most frequent exclusion strategy is suppression, it allows lawyers to eliminate actors and emphasize others. Future studies is recommended to explore other van Leeuwen approaches. Future studies can also use other spoken discourse as research topics, for example press conference with public relation or others.

Polarisation in Venezuelan presidential tweets

Abstract The Venezuelan Presidential Crisis emerged as a unique polarising political scenario in January 2019, when Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself interim president of the country, despite the victory obtained by Nicolás Maduro in the May 2018 presidential elections. Considering this context and the role of social media in the spread of polarisation, the present manuscript examines how metaphors and social actor representations act as divisive discursive tools in the tweets of Maduro and Guaidó. To do so, a corpus of tweets posted by these politicians during the first year of the conflict (2019–2020) is analysed, adopting a target-based approach (Stefanowitsch and Gries 2006) to identify the polarising metaphors and a socio-cognitive framework (Darics and Koller 2019; van Leeuwen 2008) to study the social actor representations. The results reveal that these discursive devices help both leaders to construct their social identities, legitimise themselves, delegitimise the other and reproduce their polarising ideological schemas.

Triangulating visual and textual corpus-assisted discourse analysis to study social actor representations: the case of Saudi women in the British and Saudi news media

Investigations of social actor representations across media present a large and important body of research in corpus-assisted discourse studies (cads). However, most studies focus exclusively on one mode, the text, whilst other modes of communication (for example, visuals) are either considered partially or not at all. Whilst insights from textual analyses are invaluable in revealing salient and nuanced patterns of social actor representations in the media, visual accompaniments can reinforce particular ‘angles’ creating lasting perceptions for readers and viewers. Though some approaches exist to study considerable numbers of images, visual media data can be complex rendering them difficult to be studied alongside textual cads. This paper uses a triangulation of visual and textual cads analysis to explore social actor representations in media texts and images. It does so by focussing on the representations of Saudi women in the UK and Saudi news media within the context of evolving women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. The study shows how such triangulation can be conducted in a doable and systematic way and how it can enrich cads research on discursive representations of social actors across contexts.

Representation of Social Actors in US Egress from Afghanistan: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Media through discursive representation as contended by Van Leeuwen (2008) shapes the identity of the participants positively or negatively by their purposeful inclusion or exclusion in a text to gain desired results. Hence, readers' sympathy, cooperation, acceptance or rejection, contempt, and criticism primarily depend on how a social actor (Henceforth SA) has been represented. The objective of this study is to reveal how, at the time of US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the New York Times and USA TODAY have represented the Afghan army, the Afghan government, the US army, the US government as In-group and the Taliban as Out-group in the news. The findings reveal that both newspapers reported the event discursively by building a positive image of the In-group and creating a negative image of the Out-group to influence the perception of the readers.

Snyder and Habermas on the war in Ukraine: a critical discourse analysis of elite media discourse in Germany

ABSTRACT This article presents a critical qualitative study of two opinion articles, written by two eminent scholars (Jürgen Habermas and Timothy Snyder), on the German government’s hesitant arms supply for Ukraine during the first phase of the Russian war of aggression in 2022. The main aim of the article is the uncovering of the discursive practices of critique performed by two major public intellectuals. This case study thus allows insights into the simplistic representation of the Russo-Ukrainian war in German elite media discourse. The analysis focuses on actor representations and topic limitations and manipulations in the two op-eds. It is shown that both Habermas and Snyder use characteristic ways of social actor representations in their texts which exhibit their allegiances. Furthermore, both of them limit and change topics at the meso- and macro-levels of their texts in order to make their arguments sound. In closing, the critical potential of linguistic discourse analysis is shortly addressed by arguing that the context sensitive application of the categories for analyzing discourse can uncover the internal norms to which authors orient which makes them open for a critical analysis.

Perceptions of the Agency and Responsibility of the NHS COVID-19 App on Twitter: Critical Discourse Analysis.

Since September 2020, the National Health Service (NHS) COVID-19 contact-tracing app has been used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. Since its launch, this app has been a part of the discussion regarding the perceived social agency of decision-making algorithms. On the social media website Twitter, a plethora of views about the app have been found but only analyzed for sentiment and topic trajectories thus far, leaving the perceived social agency of the app underexplored. We aimed to examine the discussion of social agency in social media public discourse regarding algorithm-operated decisions, particularly when the artificial intelligence agency responsible for specific information systems is not openly disclosed in an example such as the COVID-19 contact-tracing app. To do this, we analyzed the presentation of the NHS COVID-19 App on Twitter, focusing on the portrayal of social agency and the impact of its deployment on society. We also aimed to discover what the presentation of social agents communicates about the perceived responsibility of the app. Using corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, underpinned by social actor representation, we used the link between grammatical and social agency and analyzed a corpus of 118,316 tweets from September 2020 to July 2021 to see whether the app was portrayed as a social actor. We found that active presentations of the app-seen mainly through personalization and agency metaphor-dominated the discourse. The app was presented as a social actor in 96% of the cases considered and grew in proportion to passive presentations over time. These active presentations showed the app to be a social actor in 5 main ways: informing, instructing, providing permission, disrupting, and functioning. We found a small number of occasions on which the app was presented passively through backgrounding and exclusion. Twitter users presented the NHS COVID-19 App as an active social actor with a clear sense of social agency. The study also revealed that Twitter users perceived the app as responsible for their welfare, particularly when it provided instructions or permission, and this perception remained consistent throughout the discourse, particularly during significant events. Overall, this study contributes to understanding how social agency is discussed in social media discourse related to algorithmic-operated decisions This research offers valuable insights into public perceptions of decision-making digital contact-tracing health care technologies and their perceptions on the web, which, even in a postpandemic world, may shed light on how the public might respond to forthcoming interventions.

“ChatGPT says no”: agency, trust, and blame in Twitter discourses after the launch of ChatGPT

AbstractChatGPT, a chatbot using the GPT-n series large language model, has surged in popularity by providing conversation, assistance, and entertainment. This has raised questions about its agency and resulting implications on trust and blame, particularly when concerning its portrayal on social media platforms like Twitter. Understanding trust and blame is crucial for gauging public perception, reliance on, and adoption of AI-driven tools like ChatGPT. To explore ChatGPT’s perceived status as an algorithmic social actor and uncover implications for trust and blame through agency and transitivity, we examined 88,058 tweets about ChatGPT, published in a ‘hype period’ between November 2022 and March 2023, using Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, underpinned by Social Actor Representation. Notably, ChatGPT was presented in tweets as a social actor on 87% of occasions, using personalisation and agency metaphor to emphasise its role in content creation, information dissemination, and influence. However, a dynamic presentation, oscillating between a creative social actor and an information source, reflected users’ uncertainty regarding its capabilities and, thus, blame attribution occurred. On 13% of occasions, ChatGPT was presented passively through backgrounding and exclusion. Here, the emphasis on ChatGPT’s role in informing and influencing underscores interactors’ reliance on it for information, bearing implications for information dissemination and trust in AI-generated content. Therefore, this study contributes to understanding the perceived social agency of decision-making algorithms and their implications on trust and blame, valuable to AI developers and policymakers and relevant in comprehending and dealing with power dynamics in today’s age of AI.

Social and Political Actors in the Czech Media Discourse on Ph.D. – A Content Analysis

Aim/Purpose: This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the media portrayal of Ph.D. programs in the Czech Republic. Specifically, it explores how doctoral study programs, their students, and the Ph.D. degree are represented across various topics and social actors over an 18-month period. Background: The societal perception of Ph.D. studies, especially at the postgraduate level, is significantly shaped by media representations, including their connections to science, academia, and broader social life. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the portrayal of the Ph.D. phenomenon in the media. The Czech Republic provides a relevant use case because of Central Eastern European (CEE) settings and amplified media coverage. The main factors are several political and social influences and governmental discussions regarding the legality of and against precarious conditions. Methodology: This study utilizes a qualitative method of conventional and directed content analysis to thematically categorize a corpus of 456 articles on Czech news platforms. A subset of these articles (thematic cluster about study conditions) undergoes further analysis to identify represented social actors. The results are clustered and interpreted using examples from the dataset. The instances of studied phenomena are quantified to provide an enumerated representation of individual themes and social actors. Contribution: The author contributes to research on doctoral studies by expanding the existing knowledge through media content analysis within the social constructivist paradigm. Moreover, the CEE region, often overlooked in doctoral studies and science communication research, is highlighted here. Finally, this article enriches the understanding of public relations strategies for higher-education institutions by focusing on earned media channels as opposed to solely owned ones. Findings: The analysis leads to the determination of 10 thematic clusters that can be succinctly categorized into four main areas: “Ph.D. Title,” “University Life,” “Study Conditions,” and “Controversial Issues.” The latter two categories are notably politicized, a fact underscored by the actor analysis, which shows a predominance of political figures in the media coverage. An unexpected result of the research is the significant underrepresentation of student voices in the analyzed sample of media outputs, except for those doctoral students who also hold positions such as student initiative chairs. Additionally, comparing the results to previous research on doctoral studies, it can be argued that many of the critical topics discussed by the research community, such as mental health issues or diversity of the student cohort, are not equally represented in media portrayals. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners, especially communication professionals from higher education institutions and research centers, can leverage these insights to refine their communication strategy. This can help counterbalance prevailing media narratives and provide a more representative portrayal of study programs, focusing on areas currently underrepresented in media discourse. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers from other regions are encouraged to conduct similar studies using the presented framework to map the representation of Ph.D. in respective media outlets. It is advisable to consider the local context in the interpretative phase of the content analysis, as demonstrated in this study. Impact on Society: The findings elucidate the role of the Ph.D. within the national media landscape of higher education, potentially influencing policymakers, journalists, and science communication professionals to reconsider their approaches to media discourse. Lastly, as hinted above, science communication professionals can benefit from the results in terms of future development of media outreach strategy with a focus on targeted topics. Future Research: The presented work would benefit from a broader, multinational comparison and also a complementary audience analysis to understand how Ph.D. students and possible applicants interpret these messages and whether they correlate with their attitudes.

The construction of agency in the discourse of Barbados’ prime minister Mia Mottley

Abstract Informed by a critical discourse analytical approach to agency, this paper examines the construction of agency in the speeches of Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados. The analysis reveals that she enacts her agency in three main ways: (1) constructing strong and decisive leadership, (2) sculpting a ‘prophetess’ image and (3) issuing a clarion call to action. These processes enable her to project her voice, foreground the issues that are relevant to her and establish her legitimacy and authority. The study finds that Mia Mottley’s construction of agency is expressed via referential terms, personal pronouns, modal verbs and the representation of social actors. This paper extends existing work on discursive agency and illustrates the role of language and Global South leaders in the decolonization of political processes. It also affirms the view that research that foregrounds female agency is important in dismantling repressive patriarchal structures and building inclusive communities.

Nothing in Excess: Physical Activity, Health, and Life World in Senegalese Fulani Male Pastoralists, a Mixed Method Approach

Objectives: The goal of this study was to evaluate the application of the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire Survey (IPAQ-SF) in the rural Senegalese Fulani pastoralist population by combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Design and participants: For the quantitative method, 101 men completed the IPAQ-SF questionnaire measuring moderate, vigorous, and walking physical activity. Self-rated health, BMI, and sociodemographic variables were also collected. With regard to the qualitative methods, a total of 22 participants were recruited and interviewed. Four themes were addressed, including (i) physical activity (PA) and its definition, description, related experiences, and representations of social actors; (ii) PA and health; (iii) PA and sport; and (iv) the body and Fulani world of life (i.e., Pulaagu/Ndimaagu). Results: Sahelian herders have a high level of self-reported PA and a low amount of daily sitting time. The measure of PA as proposed by the IPAQ-SF is not adapted to the Senegalese Ferlo pastoralists, mainly because this scale gives too much importance to leisure-time PA, perceived as unproductive energy expenditure, which is factually and symbolically antinomic to the Fulani lifeworld. Thus, neither intense nor moderate PA is related to self-rated health. However, sedentary lifestyles are linked to self-rated health and, therefore, to mortality and morbidity in Fulani pastoralists. Finally, walking, which is the dominant PA during transhumance and herd surveillance, is related to BMI. It therefore represents a protective factor against the occurrence of overweight and associated chronic non-communicable diseases. Conclusion: The mixed method approach developed in this study has shown that the IPAQ-SF is not a valid measure of PA in the population of Fulani male herders from the Ferlo region, given that unproductive energy expenditure is incompatible with the Fulani way of life, which condemns excess and immoderation.

Representation of social actors in economic and financial crimes reports in selected Nigerian newspapers

This paper investigates the representation of social actors in news reports on economic and financial crimes in four Nigerian newspapers: Punch, The Guardian, The Nation and ThisDay. Theo van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic inventory for the representation of social actors and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) served as the theoretical framework. Five socio-semantic categories were applied in the news reports: functionalisation, backgrounding and suppression, activation and passivation, personalisation and impersonalisation and nomination and categorisation. Only the accused were both nominated and categorised. They were nominated when the reference is to people of high status and categorised when the reference is to ordinary or middle-class people. All the other social actors were nominated because of their roles in the fight against economic and financial crimes. The study shows that language is a medium for hidden meaning in the reportage of economic and financial crimes.

Keep our mob safe

This paper examines how semiotic resources, including text, song, dance and visual imagery, are utilised in a COVID-19 public health outreach campaign to communicate to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). Content analysis and multimodal critical discourse analysis are employed to study a corpus of multimodal videos with a visible, speaking social actor published between July 2020 and June 2022 on the official NSW Ministry of Health Facebook page (n=1010), including ‘Keep Our Mob Safe’ public health outreach campaign videos (n=38). The analysis focuses on the discursive representation and recontextualisation of social actors in order to ascertain who the state considers a ‘linguistic and cultural asset’, a term used in NSW language and health policies. The findings indicate that social actors use creative and transformational material processes and through their actions reveal covert language policy mechanisms.

Reconstructing #NotMyPM from the #backdoorgovernment: a social actor analysis of Muhyiddin Yassin

In March 2020, Muhyiddin Yassin assumed power following Mahathir Mohamad’s resignation. However, his rise to office triggered significant backlash, with the hashtag “NotMyPM” trending on Twitter, reflecting widespread public discontent. This sentiment was rooted in the perception that his ascendancy contravened the people’s mandate and the democratic values upheld in Malaysia, resulting in his government being dubbed the ‘backdoor government.’ Amid the dual challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and a pivotal moment for democracy, this paper contends that a strategically constructed portrayal of Muhyiddin Yassin possesses the capacity to sway public sentiment directly or indirectly, thereby reshaping negative perceptions of his government. Drawing on van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic Social Actor Representation (SAR) framework, we analyze the strategies employed by the local news sites in their portrayal of Muhyiddin Yassin when reporting his first speech as prime minister on the second Economic Stimulus Package (ESP) in March 2020. The findings unveil a consistent utilization of distinct linguistic features and strategies across various online news platforms, effectively contributing to the cultivation of Muhyiddin Yassin’s image as a responsible and trustworthy leader.