Social Actor Analysis Research Articles

Social Actors’ Representations in Newspaper Headlines on Domestic Violence against Men and Women in Sub-Saharan, Africa

Domestic violence is a pervasive issue in Sub-Saharan Africa, shaped by socio-cultural norms, economic disparities, and systemic inequalities. Media representations of domestic violence, particularly through newspaper headlines, play a significant role in shaping public perceptions and responses to this pressing societal issue. This study conducts a comparative analysis of social actors’ representation in newspaper headlines of domestic violence against men and women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a discursive analysis, the paper explores the representation of the victims, perpetrators, and authorities, across various newspapers within the regions. The findings from the analysis of headlines in three African regions show a pronounced media focus on victims rather than perpetrators in the headlines. Additionally, the inclusion of OTHERS enriches the narrative, with Western Africa showing the highest. Furthermore, the analysis reveals distinct patterns in role allocation, with perpetrators often depicted as active agents and conversely, sometimes represented as passive agents, shifting the narrative to victims' experiences and suffering. The study also highlights regional differences, with Eastern Africa less frequently activating perpetrators in headlines. Finally, the use of nomination, categorization, and collectivization in headlines adds depth, emphasizes collective efforts, and highlights the prevalence of domestic violence, although sometimes at the expense of individual experiences. Keywords: media representations, social actors, domestic violence, men and women

Family, politics and media

Abstract In this paper, we utilise the Nineteenth Century Newspaper Corpus to examine reporting surrounding William Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign, a key point in the democratization of British politics where a politician not only communicated with ordinary people through hustings but indirectly to a wider electorate via media reporting of those hustings. With the use of social actor analysis (van Leeuwen 2008), approached through collocation, we find that a distinctive feature of media reporting was a focus on Gladstone’s family. This surprising intersection of family and electioneering reveals a powerful hierarchy of social relationships in terms of gender and seniority, which became an effective propaganda strategy as Gladstone, enabled by Liberal-supporting newspapers, utilised his family as a political tool.

Portraying people with disability in Indonesian online news reports: a corpus-assisted discourse study

This article investigates representations of individuals with disabilities in Indonesian news media by drawing on corpus-assisted discourse study, social actor analysis, and news models of disability. The data comprises news articles which refer to disability published on popular Indonesian online news platforms over a ten-year period (2011–2020). The findings reveal prevalent portrayals of disabled people as passive beneficiaries and objects of representation, which implies a tendency to diminish their active involvement in society, supporting the social pathology model of disability. The progressive models, including the civil rights and consumer models, which highlight the active participation of disabled people, are limited. The article concludes by emphasising the need for a more balanced portrayal of disabled individuals by incorporating more news articles that underscore their agency. It also recommends the integration of diverse viewpoints from individuals with disabilities to attain a more comprehensive understanding of their challenges and perspectives.

DISCOURSE OF IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY: THE TALIBAN’S WOMEN EDUCATION BAN POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN

Online newspaper is one of the media in the present time that can convey modified information according to the ideology of the institution. It can create a public opinion amongst its readers depending on how the media represents the state of the world. In addition, Stuart Hall (1997) clarifies that no accurate representation exists because there are many different ways to represent them depending on the person. The news discourse within a media can represent a problem within a nation from the perspective of ordinary people in which it may portray more about its effect on their daily life, but can also represent the problem from a general point of view in which it may only portray the general scale of effects on the people. To understand the meaning or ideology behind the text, one would need to conduct a discourse analysis. It is noted that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is one of the more appropriate perspectives that can be used in analysing discourse in a news item. According to van Dijk (2008), CDA is a discourse investigation that investigates social power, dominance, and imbalance. There are many frameworks within the category of CDA. However, this essay only uses the framework proposed by Theo van Leeuwen, which is social actor analysis..
 
 Keywords: newspaper, CDA

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.

Fear generation in the multimodal communication of sexual and reproductive health to Malaysian adolescents

There has been much debate about the state of sexuality education in Malaysia which is heavily influenced by conservative cultural and religious attitudes. To better understand the scenario, this study examines how sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) education is communicated multimodally to adolescents via printed and digital promotional materials. These materials were produced by the three main responsible agencies: the National Population and Family Development Board, the Ministry of Health Malaysia and the Federation of Reproductive Health Association Malaysia. Adopting Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar framework in Reading Images (1996) with a focus on visual composition, social actor analysis and viewer positioning, the materials were found to predominantly address Malay teenagers and carry fear-based messages about abstinence and the consequences of committing zina (a Malay word for illicit sexual relations). Custom and conformity rather than expert legitimation and trust in the social and health authorities dominate local sexual health education. The authors argue that contraception should be advocated through a discourse of health and social risk mitigation and responsible gender roles while respecting cultural and moral obligations. Adolescents also have a right to be informed about options appropriate to their own circumstances in line with Target 3.7 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Locally, such recommendations would contribute to Malaysia’s Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 and Twelfth Malaysia Plan which seek to improve the well-being of young citizens through targeted education and public services.

Challenging the elite-public divide; Representing former Indonesian first lady, Ani Yudhoyono in online news discourse

Women in politics invariably attract heightened levels of attention due to their marked difference to the masculine political norm. With the rise of social media and online news, political women can achieve visibility, but also experience even more intense scrutiny. Former first lady, Ani Yudhoyono became an iconic figure in the lead up to the 2014 Indonesian presidential election, through her association with her husband’s flailing presidency, and as a high-profile political woman involved in social media blunders. Using critical discourse analysis, specifically social actor analysis, this paper examines the discursive strategies engaged by the mainstream Indonesian online news media to malign Ani Yudhoyono, and draw a wedge between her and the Indonesian public, which in turn undermined her husband’s presidency. The analysis highlights the role of online news media discourse in shaping power relations and ideological groupings, as well as the role of first lady as a target of political contestation.

Super, social, medical: Person-first and identity-first representations of disabled people in Australian newspapers, 2000–2019

This paper provides an interdisciplinary, corpus-based study of naming practices for disabled people in a collection of Australian newspaper articles spanning 20 years. We analyse head nouns, modifiers, and coordinating structures for both person-first and identity-first language, drawing on social actor analysis as well as previously-identified models of media representation. Overall, we find similar usage of both naming practices with respect to the types of social actors that occur, the categorisations of disabilities that are referenced, and the associations that are established, with only minor differences. Additionally, both naming practices are strongly associated with the medical and social pathology models of media representation, which emphasise disadvantage, with almost a total absence of ‘progressive’ models, which represent people as multifaceted agents. We conclude by emphasising the need for the news media to incorporate the voices and preferences of disabled people themselves.

Strategies of ideological polarisation in the online news media: A social actor analysis of Megawati Soekarnoputri

This article examines strategies of ideological polarisation in the discourse of the Indonesian online news media site, Kompas.com. Applying Van Leeuwen’s model of social actor analysis and van Dijk’s concept of the ideological square, the study focuses on the representation of Megawati Soekarnoputri, leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) as an icon of ideological contestation during the 2014 presidential election. Situated in the era of digital platform convergence, the analysis uncovers a pattern of strategically ambiguous representations of Megawati and her apparently transgressive actions and interactions. This practice entices readers to ‘read between the lines’ and activate their ideological repertoire to determine in-group and out-group members. It also enables Kompas.com to pursue commercial objectives and navigate journalistic constraints by obscuring explicitly ideological content. The implications are discussed in terms of the impact of online news media discourse upon democratic political engagement, and women’s political participation.

The men and women, guys and girls of the ‘manosphere’: A corpus-assisted discourse approach

This study investigates how the lemmas woman, girl, man and guy are used to discursively represent and construct gender identities in an anti-feminist forum on the discussion website Reddit. The lemmas were analysed using corpus-assisted social actor analysis and appraisal theory. Similarities and differences within three sub-communities of the TRP subreddit were considered: Men’s Rights (activists who believe that men are systemically disadvantaged in society), Men Going Their Own Way (who abstain from relationships with women), and Red Pill Theory (primarily pick-up artists). The corpus was characterised by bare assertions about gendered behaviour, although the masculine gender role was less well-defined than the feminine one. Women and girls were dehumanised and sexually objectified, negatively judged for morality and veracity, and constructed as desiring hostile behaviour from male social actors. Conversely, men were constructed as victims of female social actors and external institutions and, as a result, as unhappy and insecure.

Invisible or high-risk: Computer-assisted discourse analysis of references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) and issues in a newspaper corpus about diabetes.

This article employs computer-assisted methods to analyse references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) and issues in a newspaper corpus about diabetes. The objectives are to identify both the frequency and quality of social representation. The dataset consisted of 694 items from 12 Australian newspapers in a five-year period (2013–2017). The quantitative analysis focused on frequency (raw/normalised) and range (number/percentage of texts). The qualitative analysis focused on the identification of semantic prosody (co-occurrence with negative/positive words and phrases) and on selective social actor analysis. The qualitative analysis also compared choices made by the press to language practices recommended in relevant reporting guidelines. Key results include that references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) or matters appear to be extremely rare. In addition, newspapers’ language choices only partially align with guidelines. References that do occur can be classified into four categories: a) references to [groups of] people and other references to identity; b) names of services, institutions, professions, roles etc; c) non-human nouns related to health; d) non-human nouns related to culture. Qualitative analysis of the word COMMUNITY suggests that newspapers for the most part do recognise the existence of different communities at a national level. However, analysis of all references to [groups of] people shows that the vast majority occur in contexts to do with negativity, therefore having a negative semantic prosody. More specifically, there is a strong association with mentions of a higher risk, likelihood, or incidence of having or developing diabetes (or complications/effects). In sum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) and issues lack in visibility in Australian diabetes coverage, and are associated with deficit framing, which can be disempowering. To change the discourse would require both an increased visibility as well as changing the deficit lens.

The discursive (mis)representation of English language proficiency

Abstract International education constitutes a key industry in Australia and international students represent a third of university students at Australian universities. This paper examines the media representation of international students in terms of their English language proficiency. The study applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the multimodal data of an episode of a current affairs TV program, Four Corners, and social media comments made to the episode. Using Social Actor Analysis, the study finds that the responsibility for declining standards at universities is assigned to international students through representations of their language use as problematic. This is supported by the visual representation of international students as different. By systematically mapping out the English-as-a-problem discourse, the paper finds that the media representation of language proficiency and language learning is simplistic and naïve and the social media discussion reinforces this. This further contributes to the discursive exclusion of international students.

비결정상태로서 다중흐름의 이론적 모색: 여성정책 의제의 무의사결정 인식을 중심으로

비결정상태로서 다중흐름의 이론적 모색: 여성정책 의제의 무의사결정 인식을 중심으로

A critical discourse analysis of women’s portrayal in news reporting of sexual violence

This study explores and compares the portrayal of women in the news reporting of crimes of sexual violence against women between two newspapers from different cultures, the Jakarta Post and the Guardian. The Jakarta Post is an English quality newspaper published in Indonesia, and the Guardian is a quality broadsheet from Great Britain. To explore the representation of women, this study accounts the portrayal of men as well since the two entities are strongly inter-related. The analytical tool used in this study is naming analysis of social actors, which is a part of critical discourse analysis. This analysis is aimed at probing the representation through the choice of lexical items in representing the main news actors. The findings of the analysis indicate that the choices of the naming categories used by both newspapers are different. The Jakarta Post mostly functionalises both the victims and the perpetrators in terms of their legal status in the criminal cases. This suggests that the broadsheet tends to view them as part of the legal processes instead of as people. The Guardian typically classifies the victims in terms of their age and gender and refers to the perpetrators with their surnames instead of as parts of the criminal cases. The Guardian’s tendency to represent both perpetrators and victims as people instead of parts of legal processes indicates that the paper is attempting to focus the reports more on the crimes themselves rather than the participants involved in the cases.

‘The BP is a great British company’: The discursive transformation of an environmental disaster into a national economic problem

In the contemporary globalized economy, multinational companies have come to hold considerable power that may previously have rested with nation states. However, state structures remain relevant. With Brexit, the year 2016 featured an exemplary case in which the ongoing importance of nation states came to the fore. Preceding the British referendum to exit the European Union (EU), discourses of national identity were deployed to promote a vote for the anti-globalization campaign. It is against this background that this research investigates how the relationship between multinational corporations and nation states is constructed in news discourse. The underlying assumption is that news actively construct rather than merely reflects the nature of this relationship. Drawing on Social Actor Analysis and Transitivity as a theoretical framework, this study examines news coverage of the BP oil spill that occurred in the United States in 2010 but was caused by a multinational company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The main research question is ‘How does the media establish a link between multinational corporations and nation states?’. To address this central question, this study investigates how (1) corporate responsibility is assigned, (2) the role of the nation state is portrayed and (3) victim status is allocated in the news. Findings show that the nature of the problem is constructed differently according to diverging national interests or priorities of the two nations represented by the media sources analyzed. The study indicates that the discourse around British nationality emphasized in the political struggle around Brexit was already mobilized extensively in the years leading up to the referendum.

To whom, what for and how far is the sociology of organization still needed?

Historical development and current state of affairs in sociology of organization and wider field of organization studies have been analyzed in the paper. Sociology of organization has usually been considered to be a sociological discipline, but also a sub-discipline of the sociology of work. Two concepts of organization have been extracted in the sociological studies - organization as a process and organization as a social unit or a state. The agreement of the researchers that we live today in the 'world of Organizations' points out to the relevance of the sociological analysis of social actors and social relationships inside organizations, and consequently the sociology of organization as a scientific discipline. During time, four directions in theoretical explanations of social reality of organizations have been developed - classical, neo-classical, modern and post-modern. These approaches have been the result of the changing social nature of modern and post-modern organizations, as well as different paradigms in their scientific study.

A Social Semiotic Analysis of Social Actors in English-Learning Software Applications

This study drew upon Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006, [1996]) visual grammar and Van Leeuwen’s (2008) social semiotic model to interrogate ways through which social actors of different races are visually and textually represented in four award-winning English-learning software packages. The analysis was based on narrative actional/reactional processes at the ideational level; mood, perspective, social distance, and modality at the interpersonal level; and salience, framing, and vector at the compositional level. The findings revealed that although contemporary multimodal texts have tried to be unbiased and neutral in the verbal mode, there are still traces of discrimination, bias, and stereotyping in the visual mode. The results of this research can be of potential help and use for researchers, pedagogues, material developers, software designers, teachers , and students to become visually literate and get aware of the hidden messages that can be communicated by images in textbooks and multimedia.

Life in the ghetto: How the media represent British lifestyle migration to France

This study is part of a wider analysis of migrant identity within the context of British lifestyle migration to south-west France. The study uses an integrated methodology of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis (Social Actor Analysis) to examine how British migration to France is discursively represented within the UK media. The analysis reveals common keywords and patterns of language use that carry negative evaluation;distinctions are made between the existing British residents and a recent and more generalised phenomenon of migration, where the latter is portrayed in terms of a threatening invasion of ghetto-dwellers. Lifestyle migration is thus presented on different levels, with an overall sense that one kind of lifestyle migration is portrayed as more acceptable, or legitimate, than another. Such stereotypical positioning can be taken up as a resource by writers to self-identify against what they are not, at the same time reproducing ideologies of lifestyle migration. The study also concludes that although the British do not constitute a marginalised and vulnerable group, they are represented in the media using similar linguistic strategies to those seen in the representations of immigrants and asylum seekers.

Talking “race” through 1Malaysia in editorials

This study focuses on the discussion of 1Malaysia, Malaysia’s latest national blueprint for unity and identity, in the New Straits Times (NST), Malaysia’s oldest and state-owned English language print media. We examine the means by which NST has constructed the latest political venture in forging a national identity, while negotiating the various challenges to such an undertaking. Employing the critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, we look at distinctive nomination and predication patterns as well as the occurrence of high and low factuality. This is conducted primarily through an analysis of social actors, their predication and modality to show how these contribute to the construction of the 1Malaysia ideology. Findings suggest that the signifier of 1Malaysia serves not only as a reference point for discussing subjects of concern to reformists, but also provides opportunities for the newspaper to hold institutions to account.

Personalising crime and crime-fighting in factual television: an analysis of social actors and transitivity in language and images

This article addresses the lack of work on media and crime in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), using an example of a factual television crime report. The existing research in media studies and criminology points to the way that the media misrepresents crime by distorting public understandings and backgrounding structural issues, such as poverty, which are related to crime thereby legitimising a criminal justice system that serves the interests of the powerful in society. Using social actor and transitivity analysis, this article shows how multimodal CDA can make an important contribution as it reveals the more subtle linguistic strategies and visual representations by which this process is accomplished, showing how each plays a part in the recontextualisation of social practice. This programme backgrounds which crimes are committed but foregrounds mental states and the neutrality of policing.