Representation Of Social Actors Research Articles

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.

“Kids or demons?”: Personal referring expressions applied to juvenile offenders in English and Chinese crime news

This study reports on a contrastive study of media representations of juvenile delinquency. Based on 87 news reports, we draw on Ariel (1991) and Xu (2000)'s accessibility hierarchy to compare the forms and functions of personal referring expressions applied to juvenile offenders in English and Chinese crime news. In addition, we extend our analysis by incorporating the discussions of the evaluative meaning of nominal descriptions under the social actor representation framework of Van Leeuwen (2008). It is found that both English and Chinese data exhibit a preference for nominal description foregrounding offenders' age in the first mentions. However, in the subsequent mentions, the key differences identified are that English news has more frequent use of definite descriptions, distal demonstratives, pronouns and functional terms, whereas Chinese news has a greater incidence of surnames, proximal demonstratives, zeros and identification terms. The discussion attempts to provide possible explanations for our findings from three aspects: linguistic features, socio-cultural conventions and social justice systems in different countries. Building upon these discussions, this study may shed empirical light on the issue of referring to juvenile offenders in mass media between two disparate languages, raising media's awareness of the mediatized language of crime.

Gendered Discourses and Actor Representation in Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl Series: A Corpus-Based Study

The Artemis Fowl series (2001-2012) is described by its Irish author Eoin Colfer as “Die Hard with Fairies”. Artemis Fowl is an-eight book series of adventures and supernatural actions. The starring character, Artemis Fowl, is a twelve-year- old criminal mastermind. His primary goal is to pursue money, which makes him kidnap the fairy leader. This results in a continuing fight between two worlds: Artemis’s and the fairies’. The Fowl adventures present many themes, of which gendered discourses and actor representation inspire this research. This paper examines the eight-series child books via Corpus Linguistics apparatus. AntConc is a corpus analysis software utilized to generate wordlists of each book so that words with higher frequency may be investigated in their context of utterance via the concordance toolkit. The next step aims to detect the occurrence of search terms pertaining to gendered discourse and actor description. In this concern, the contributions presented by Tannen (1993, 1999), Edley (2001), Weatherall and Gallois (2003), Sunderland (2004), and Wetherell and Edley (2014) are considered in the detection of gendered language. Van Leeuwen’s taxonomy (1996, 2008) of social actor representation is also considered to detect actor descriptions. Accordingly, the eight-series adventure novels are linguistically analyzed so that the main themes, gender identity markers and actor representation may be uncovered. The study supports the discursive psychologists’ belief that gender is created and enhanced via discourse. The study is original in incorporating corpus linguistic toolkits, discursive psychology and discourse analysis to child Irish fantasy literature to expose the gendered-identities negotiated and the features representing social actors.

"The algorithm will screw you": Blame, social actors and the 2020 A Level results algorithm on Twitter.

In August 2020, the UK government and regulation body Ofqual replaced school examinations with automatically computed A Level grades in England and Wales. This algorithm factored in school attainment in each subject over the previous three years. Government officials initially stated that the algorithm was used to combat grade inflation. After public outcry, teacher assessment grades used instead. Views concerning who was to blame for this scandal were expressed on the social media website Twitter. While previous work used NLP-based opinion mining computational linguistic tools to analyse this discourse, shortcomings included accuracy issues, difficulties in interpretation and limited conclusions on who authors blamed. Thus, we chose to complement this research by analysing 18,239 tweets relating to the A Level algorithm using Corpus Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), underpinned by social actor representation. We examined how blame was attributed to different entities who were presented as social actors or having social agency. Through analysing transitivity in this discourse, we found the algorithm itself, the UK government and Ofqual were all implicated as potentially responsible as social actors through active agency, agency metaphor possession and instances of passive constructions. According to our results, students were found to have limited blame through the same analysis. We discuss how this builds upon existing research where the algorithm is implicated and how such a wide range of constructions obscure blame. Methodologically, we demonstrated that CL and CDA complement existing NLP-based computational linguistic tools in researching the 2020 A Level algorithm; however, there is further scope for how these approaches can be used in an iterative manner.

The Construction of the Iraqi Child in the UNICEF Reports during Covid19 Pandemic: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The present paper aims at investigating the linguistic image portrayed by UNICEF reports on the Iraqi child from a critical discourse analysis perspective during Covid19 pandemic (2020). The paper attempts to fill a gap in research literature concerning the linguistic construction of the Iraqi child by the UNICEF reports during the critical health crisis of Covid19. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) approach of social actor representation has been adopted for this purpose. From Van Leeuwen’s approach, the category of determination (single determination and overdetermination) has been selected to be the main analytical tool for its high compatibility with the set of objectives put forward to figure out how such a globally effective and easily accessible discourse constructs the Iraqi child. The research is qualitative in nature and the findings are supported by some figures and percentages. The paper has come up with a number of conclusions that spot an interesting situation. First, The USRs do not imprison the IC within a limited vision that usually accompanies the linguistic reliance towards single determination. Second, the USRs have assigned the IC a number of social roles that are compatible with the IC him/herself. This leads to the third conclusion which states that the USRs put the IC in wider perspectives that come within the domains of reality which is bound to the surrounding physical environment. Fourth, although the social roles assigned to the IC vary in the attitude they embed towards the IC, the neutral roles have outperformed the positive and negative ones.

Inclusion Strategies on @greenpeaceid Instagram Posts: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The study aims to analyze the inclusion strategies in the discourse regarding environmental issues uploaded by @greenpeaceid Instagram account. This research was conducted based on a descriptive qualitative approach. The data collection and analysis were carried out using read and record techniques by virtually observing the Instagram account of @greenpeaceid. Furthermore, the data were categorized and analyzed according to van Leeuwen’s critical discourse analysis, namely social actor representation theory. The data were collected from 24 October 2022 to 9 November 2022. The research data were in forms of words, phrases, and sentences contained in the captions used by @greenpeaceid. The results show that in representing the social actors involved in the discourse regarding environmental issues, the @greenpeaceid used the strategy of differentiation, objectivation, indetermination, nominations, and association. The presence of actors/events in discourse is considered to be able to clearly describe the involvement of related social actors in their campaigns to overcome the climate crisis. Therefore, the intended goals and information can be conveyed to the readers. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the @greenpeaceid account shows the ideological stance of pro-government which they consider as partners in efforts to overcome the climate crisis.

Discursive Representation of Victims of Mosque Attacks in Egypt and New Zealand

This study examined the discursive representation of victims of two terrorist attacks that occurred in Egypt and New Zealand. The data include all news reports released by the online version of The Guardian and The Washington Post on the attacks. To this end, we employ Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal Theory, van Leeuwen's (2008) Socio-semantic Inventory and Entman’s (1993) Framing Theory. This article filled a gap in literature as it is the first – to the best of our knowledge - to address Muslim victims of terrorist attacks in two countries, one Muslim, and one Christian. Discussion reinforced the belief that there is disparity in journalistic treatment in favour of victims in a country culturally and linguistically belonging to the west (New Zealand). All the 10 frames devised for this study, side by side with the appraisal resources deployed, reveal a marked difference between the ‘high-profile’ representation of Christchurch social actors and the ‘low-profile’ depiction of the Sinai social actors. All the socio-semantic categorisations of victims also prove such discursive disproportion.

Representation of Nigerian Internet Scamsters in selected Nigerian and International News Reports

Linguistic studies on Nigerian internet scamsters have dwelt on the aspects of language use. These studies focused on the linguistic features, slangy expressions, discourse and persuasive strategies used by scamsters in scam messages. However, the aspect of media representation of the social actors of Nigerian internet fraud has not been given adequate attention. This study, therefore, explores the representation of social actors of Nigerian internet fraud in Nigerian and international news reports. Headlines and news contents are purposively sampled from forty-five news articles published between 2019 and 2021, from two Nigerian newspapers and two international news media. Guided by Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) and Van Leeuwen’s early work on social actor representation (1996), ten forms of representations were identified. Nigerian Internet Scamsters were represented as educated, role models, imposters, parentally supported, abductors, wrong ambassadors/negative nationals, friends to the security agents, desperate/money ritualists, guilty and convicted, exploiters and victimizers. The negative connotation of these labels indicates that the media are not neutral in their representation of scammers. This study shows that the representation of the social actions and actors in internet fraud are linguistically and discursively framed to fit their ideology.