Accounting has no shortage of scandals – from Enron and WorldCom to Volkswagen and Wirecard. But how does the media portray such fraud scandals? In their new paper published in Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Sebastian Oelrich (assistant professor in Management Accounting) and Nicole Siebold (associate professor in Social Entrepreneurship) look at news articles related to the Wirecard fraud scandal. Their paper highlights how the media can direct attention through specific frames and use of rhetoric. They show how this may be used to shape public opinion about the responsibilities of selected corporate and institutional stakeholders as well as related calls for reforms.

The paper is available open access here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2024.102755