Pickup artists (PUA) apply strategies from evolutionary psychology to seduce and manipulate women. In China, a number of online organizations offer PUA courses that teach men how to exploit women emotionally, sexually, and financially. Many Chinese women have been the victims of PUA, and this issue has been garnering attention from journalists and news media. However, scholars have yet to explore how this issue has been portrayed in Chinese online news media. To fill this gap, the current study applies the attribution of responsibility frame to investigate the portrayal of victims and perpetrators in online news articles related to PUA, and takes into consideration the effects of journalist gender. Under the broad umbrella of framing theory, the attribution of responsibility frame suggests that there are two types of attributions: causal attribution and treatment attribution. Causal attribution deals with who is responsible for causing the issue/situation, and treatment attribution focuses on who is responsible for solving the issue/situation. In the context of current study, the authors aim to examine, in news articles related to PUA, whether the responsibility for causing and/or solving the issue is attributed to the victims, perpetrators, or society. Because many studies have suggested that journalist gender has a significant impact on victim portrayal, the current study also aims to investigate whether there is a significant difference in the attribution of responsibility among news articles related to PUA issues when the journalist is female as opposed to male.
In accordance with the research purposes, the current study entails a content analysis. A total of 131 online news articles related to PUA issues were collected from 14 national-level news websites (e.g., people.cn/Ren Min Wang) and 21 provincial news websites (e.g., newssc.org/ Si Chuan Xin Wen Wang). These news websites are selected because of their history, size, and credibility. The time frame is from 2009 to 2019. The unit of analysis is each individual article. The two authors will code the articles individually. Each article will be coded for (a) gender of journalist (female, male, others), (b) responsibility for causing the issue attributed to the victim, (c) responsibility for causing the issue attributed to the perpetrator, (d) responsibility for causing the issue attributed to the society, (e) responsibility for solving the issue attributed to the victim, (f) responsibility for solving the issue attributed to the perpetrator, and (g) responsibility for solving the issue attributed to the society. Using Cohen’s Kappa, the intercoder reliability will be assessed at the beginning and end of the coding. The authors plan to complete the coding in April 2020 and use SPSS for data analysis. With regard to the study purposes, descriptive analysis and a series of Chi-square tests will be performed.