Abstract
This qualitative study employing critical discourse analysis aimed to examine the linguistic feature, news framing, news values, identity ascribed to crime perpetrators and victims, and ideologies embedded in the presentation of the 50 riding-in-tandem cases n online news in Region XII. These crimes were published on Facebook in the year 2018 to 2022 by different news media in the Philippines. The study utilized the concepts of news values to reveal the linguistic features. The results revealed that the news values of Negativity, Eliteness, Superlativeness, Timeliness, and Personalization were present in the construction of this news. On the other hand, the news framing employed by media practitioners in the construction of online news includes the Responsibility Frame, Conflict Frame, and Human-Interest frame. Moreover, in the description of perpetrators, the results showed that perpetrators’ identities were portrayed as suspects, criminals, gunmen, and vigilantes, while the description of victims included victims as ordinary people and undeserving victims or victims implicated in illegal drugs. Along with these were the embedded political ideologies of hegemony, authoritarian populism, penal populism, and human rights.
