本文通過考察《南方週末》，中國1990年代銷量最高的週報，對農民與農民工這一邊緣群體的再現，驗證了在報紙的政治話語中折射出的新聞從業者及其修辭作為傳媒越軌的合法化工具。本案例研究在對1984到2002年期間該報對農民與農民工的所有報導的內容分析的基礎上，結合對記者的深度訪談兩種方法，發現傳媒如何將「隱蔽的腳本」滲透進入「公開話語」中。與傳統的社會學分析大相徑庭的是，本研究試圖以一套替代性的分析框架來探討隱含在非民主社會中，存在政治壓力下核心意識形態出現稀釋或衰退的情形下傳媒越軌的問題。

This paper examines representation of peasants and urban migrant workers as a marginalized social group in Southern Weekend, China’s top-selling metropolitan weekly. It examines media deviance as reflected in the journalistic and rhetorical devices of legitimization in the weekly’s political discourse. Using content analysis and in-depth interviews with journalists, this case study serves to identify the media strategies that bring “hidden transcripts” into “public discourse”. It departs from traditional sociological analysis of media deviance by adopting an alternative framework to analyze this process embedded in political tension in a non-democracy with a dying, or at least diluted, core ideology.