Discursive Construction of OnlyFans and Its Content Creators in the British and Thai News Media: A Cross-Linguistic Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study
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Abstract
This comparative study examines the way the news media in the United Kingdom and Thailand discursively portrayed the platform OnlyFans and its content creators. Two specialized corpora of news articles about the platform published between January 2016 and July 2022 in both countries formed the data. Using the approaches of Cross-linguistic Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies (CL-CADS) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study found two common themes, portraying the platform as a pornographic site and monetization opportunities. Specifically, the British news media construct a discourse of objectifying female content creators, while the Thai counterpart portray sexual content creators as illegal and immoral. This analysis speaks to the significance of media discourse in producing and maintaining stigma among online sex workers across different cultures.
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