The Discursive Construction of Victimhood in Anti- and Pro-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric on Malaysian Social Media.

While symbolic elites have traditionally monopolized victimhood discourse through discursive power, social media has disrupted these dynamics by enabling ordinary individuals to deploy such discourse, creating a landscape where victimhood emerges as a contested terrain of ideological values. Despite...

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Publicado en:Journal of Homosexuality Vol. 73; no. 6; pp. 1501 - 1530
Autores principales: Xia, Chenri, Jalalian Daghigh, Ali, Rasoulikolamaki, Sahar
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: 2026
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        atl: The Discursive Construction of Victimhood in Anti- and Pro-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric on Malaysian Social Media.
      aug:
        au:
          Xia, Chenri
          Jalalian Daghigh, Ali
          Rasoulikolamaki, Sahar
        affil: Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
      su:
        Discourse
        Social media
        Social theory
        Homophobia
        Critical discourse analysis
        Polarization (Social sciences)
      sug:
        subj:
          Discourse
          Social media
          Social theory
          Homophobia
          Critical discourse analysis
          Polarization (Social sciences)
      keyword:
        agency
        discursive strategies
        LGBTQ+ representation
        power
        social media
        Socio-semantic approach
        Victimhood discourse
        agency
        discursive strategies
        LGBTQ+ representation
        power
        social media
        Socio-semantic approach
        Victimhood discourse
      ab: While symbolic elites have traditionally monopolized victimhood discourse through discursive power, social media has disrupted these dynamics by enabling ordinary individuals to deploy such discourse, creating a landscape where victimhood emerges as a contested terrain of ideological values. Despite substantial scholarly attention to the invocation of victimhood in justifying dominant ideologies within institutional and top-down contexts, literature on victimhood in bottom-up discourses remains comparatively scarce, particularly LGBTQ+ communities. This study addresses this gap by examining how victimhood is constructed in both anti- and pro-LGBTQ+ discourses on Malaysian social media, utilizing van Leeuwen's socio-semantic approach to Critical Discourse Studies. Our findings reveal competing victimhood discourses constructed through the polarized ways of manipulating LGBTQ+ individuals' sociological agency. Anti-LGBTQ+ discourse amplifies LGBTQ+ individuals' agency through activation in material transactions, passivation paired with negation, activation of their actions, and association with criminal perpetrators, representing them as powerful victimizers. Pro-LGBTQ+ discourse, conversely, diminishes their agency through passivation, reactions, non-transactions, activation in material transactions combined with negation and interrogation, and association with victims of persecution, positioning them as disempowered victims. Our study highlights how multiple discursive strategies and linguistic resources work in tandem to shape agency, establishing victim-victimizer dynamics that legitimize opposing ideological positions.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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