Skip to main content

Media Presentation of Online Romance Fraud in the Czech Republic: Visibility, Victim-Offender Framing, and Sentiment

Abubakari, Yushawu (2026) — European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research

View Original Source (opens in a new tab)

DOI: 10.1007/s10610-026-09664-1 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   Czech Republic
Tags:   AI-Enabled Fraud, Content Analysis, Cybercrime, Czech Media, Czech Republic, Law Enforcement, Media Framing, Media Representation, Media Study, Media Visibility, Offender Framing, Offender Tactics, Platform Policy, Prevention, Psychology, Relational Quantitative Content Analysis, Risk Factors, Romance Scams, Sentiment, Sentiment Analysis, Victim Experience, Victim Framing, Victim Offender Framing, Victimization
Citation tools
Download RIS Download BibTeX 


              
              

            

          

        


      

      

    

        
Transparency

        
Evidence and review status

        
This page contains AI-generated content. No human content review or subject-matter-expert review is recorded.

    


    

                    

                
Source basis

                

                    Downloaded PDF
                

            

                    

                
AI-generated page content

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Automated checks

                

                    Passed
                

            

                    

                
Administrative approval

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Human content review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

                    

                
Subject-matter-expert review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

            


    

        
            How this was prepared
        
        

                            

                    
Source basis

                    

                    
RSRC downloaded and privately stored a copy of the paper for internal analysis. The PDF is not offered to viewers from this page.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    PDF added to RSRC:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
AI-generated page content

                    

                    
AI-generated research notes displayed on this page: Synopsis, Identified gaps, Methods, Limitations, Future work. The paper itself is not described as AI-generated.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Document analysis recorded:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                            
  • 
                                    Page record updated:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Automated checks

                    

                    
The current, source-bound synopsis passed the recorded versioned publication checks.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Checks completed:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                            

                            
                                View passed checks (3)
                            
                            
    
                                                                    
  • Length, completeness, repetition, refusal, boilerplate, and active-markup screening
    • 
                                                                    
  • Numerical claims checked against the available source text
    • 
                                                                    
  • English-source lexical grounding check
    • 
                                                            

                        

                                        

                

                            

                    
Administrative approval

                    

                    
An authenticated administrator approved the bibliographic record for public Library display. This is not a review of every research claim.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Approved for public display:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Human content review

                    

                    
No human review is recorded for the AI-generated content displayed on this page.


                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Subject-matter-expert review

                    

                    
RSRC has not recorded review of this content by a subject-matter or methods expert.


                    
                                        

                

                    

    


    

        Review-state definitions

        Found a possible error?
        Request a correction.
    



    



              

        
                  

            
Synopsis

            
This study used relational quantitative content analysis to examine how online romance fraud is presented across major Czech news outlets, public-service media, blogs, and English-language Czech coverage. The corpus was collected with Czech and English search terms, processed with web-collection and translation tools, and anchored to official cases and police communications. Psychological harm was the most visible victim frame, appearing about 160 times per 1,000 sentences versus about 120 for financial harm; both harms co-occurred strongly with negative sentiment. Fabricated crises or urgency, impersonation, and love-bombing were the most visible offender tactics, while support-seeking had a moderate association with positive sentiment. Event-driven media selection, official-source influence, translation, and interpretive coding prevent causal or population-level conclusions.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The study identifies a lack of empirical research on ORF in Central Europe, especially the Czech Republic, and a need to systematically analyze media representations, visibility, framing of victims and offenders, and sentiment over time. It notes gaps in understanding regional narratives, mechanisms, and societal impacts, calling for broader, policy-relevant analysis beyond incident reporting.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
The study uses Relational Quantitative Content Analysis (RQCA) of Czech media on ORF. It builds a corpus from major outlets (iDNES.cz, Česká televize, Novinky.cz, Seznam Zprávy, Český rozhlas, Blesk.cz, Expats.cz) and blogs, using Czech/English keywords. Data were collected with Immersive Translate and analyzed via MAXQDA Web Collector to map co-occurrences among concepts (victimization, offending, sentiment, policy framing) anchored to official cases, treating police communications as part of the ORF communication environment.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
Limitations include reliance on publicly available media sources, which may reflect episodic, event-driven reporting and institutional agendas. Translation and coding subjectivity may affect sentiment and framing inferences. The study cannot establish causality or generalize beyond the Czech media landscape, and police/public communications may bias the corpus toward official narratives. Victim/offender perspectives are largely absent.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Key future research directions include: systematically investigating the emergence, prevalence, mechanisms, and societal impacts of online romance fraud (ORF) in Central Europe and in the Czech Republic; conducting cross-country comparative framing studies; implementing longitudinal monitoring to distinguish episodic versus continuous media coverage; linking media framing to policy, prevention, and victim-support strategies; triangulating media representations with police and court data to assess accuracy and consequences; expanding cross-platform analyses to include social media and blogs alongside traditional outlets; and refining Relational Quantitative Content Analysis (RQCA) methods for cybercrime contexts.

          

              

    
    

        
Related Research Insights

        

            See how this publication connects to RSRC's living evidence syntheses through current citations and research-topic mapping.