Research On The Media Image Construction Of Victims In The Coverage Of Telecom Fraud Issues

In the information age,the hidden dangers that endanger personal property and personal safety are increasing,and telecommunication fraud is the focus of these hidden dangers.2016,several media reports of the death of young student Xu Yuyu who died because she was scammed out of her tuition fees by telecommunication fraud,and the case of Tsinghua professor who was scammed out of ten million yuan in savings,triggered the concern of the whole society on the topic of telecommunication fraud,and the government also began to vigorously combat telecommunication fraud.In recent years,there are many different types of telecommunication frauds and their schemes are constantly being updated,making it difficult to guard against them,and the news reports related are increasingly appearing in major newspapers.This study focuses on the construction of the media image of the "victim" in the coverage of telecom fraud,and uses Van Dijk’s discourse analysis theory as a framework to conduct research and analysis from both macro and micro dimensions,using the discourse analysis method in content analysis.This paper uses the Wisers database to search for keywords such as "telecommunication fraud" and "Internet fraud",and the secondary selection option "the most influential comprehensive newspaper in Chinese mainland" yielded 2297 results for the time span of August 2016-August 2022,and 226 valid samples were obtained after reading and sorting the contents one by one.Firstly,we used quantitative data analysis to statistically analyze and categorize the overall profile of the report,and summarized four typical images: 1.the typical person who was widely concerned;2.the rescued person who was discouraged;3.the perceptive "wise fighter";4.the selfreflective person who called the police.Secondly,we used specific discourse analysis to analyze three aspects of the sample: vocabulary choice,discourse style,and rhetorical style.After analyzing the news text discourse,it was concluded that the news discourse in the sample of this paper has several implications or the media image construction: 1.the positive effect of the typical news figure is obvious;2.it enhances the trust of government actions and public officials;3.there exists a stereotype of the media image of the deceived;4.the image construction of the victims is patterned.The core view of this study can be summarized as follows after the relevant discussion: the effect of the news media on the victims of telecommunication fraud should not be to make the readers feel that the victims are "deserving" of what happened to them,and to describe how they are thoughtless,short-sighted and limited by their life experiences;it should not be to construct a stereotype-ridden media image in a facetious and schematic way.We should not construct a stereotypical image of the media.It is not important who they are,but the objective and deep-seated social reasons why they were defrauded: the omission of supervision,the leakage of personal information,and the imperfection of laws and regulations.In the final chapter,recommendations will be made from the perspective of news production practices,summarized as: do not being biased in discourse style,focusing on showing the psychological motivations of the victims of deception,expanding the sources of news selection,focusing on the constructive meaning of news,and focusing on media ethics in practice.