social media discoursediscourse

D i s c o u r s e A n a l y s i s •••• 8 t h S e m e s t e r •••• S p r i n g 2 0 1 6

D e p a r t m e n t o f L a n g u a g e a n d L i n g u i s t i c s , F a c u l t y o f E n g l i s h L a n g u a g e a n d L i t e r a t u r e N a t i o n a l a n d K a p o d i s t r i a n U n i v e r s i t y o f A t h e n s

D r M a r i z a G e o r g a l o u

· Discourse analysis

· Social media discourse

analysis–Text

– Context

OVERVIEW

– Context

– Actions + interactions

– Power

· Why study social

media

· Examples from

Facebook

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

� Texts: written texts but also conversations (written, spoken), videos,

photographs, drawings, paintings, street signs, websites, software

interfaces, video games – any aggregate of semiotic elements that can

function as a tool for people to take social action.

Contexts: social + material situations in which texts are constructed, � Contexts: social + material situations in which texts are constructed,

consumed, exchanged and appropriated.

� Actions and interactions: what people do with texts + what they

do with and to each other.

� Power and ideology: how people use texts to dominate + control

others + to create certain ‘versions of reality’.

(Jones, Chik & Hafner 2015)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media are internet-

based sites + services which

promote social interaction between

participants through the exchange participants through the exchange

+ sharing of user-produced content.

Examples: blogs, microblogging (Twitter), social network sites (Facebook),content-sharing sites (YouTube, Instagram), wikis, podcasting, discussion forums, chatrooms, virtual worlds (World of Warcraft), livecasting (Skype)

© wersm

HOW DO SOC I A L M ED I A MAKE US R ETH INK

( 1 ) T EXT, ( 2 ) CONT EXT, ( 3 ) ACT ION , ( 3 ) ACT ION ,

( 4 ) I N T ERACT ION & ( 5 ) POWER?

a . T e x t u r eb . I n t e r t e x t u a l i t y

1 . Q U A L I T I E S O F D I G I TA L LY M E D I AT E D T E X T S

b . I n t e r t e x t u a l i t yc . D i a l o g i c c h a r a c t e rd . M u l t i m o d a l i t ye . M a t e r i a l i t y

(Jones, Chik & Hafner 2015: 1-17)

Textureproperty of

connectedness

Cohesionhow different parts of text are held together using syntactic + semantic resources

Coherencehow different parts of text are ordered

sequentially � logical + meaningful

LOOSE TEXTURE

Connections

between parts are

less explicit,

depending more

on readers’ active

efforts to hold

them together.

Data from Flickr (Barton 2015))

TIGHT TEXTURE

· Little choice in how

elements are connected /

sequenced.

· Choices by computer

programmes –programmes –

‘algorithmically

imposed’ textures

· Constraints on how to

take action + interact.

· Confusion in reading texts.Data from Withings Health Mate app (Jones 2015)

INTERTEXTUALITY

∙ Traces of preceding

texts (e.g. alluding,

quoting, echoing,

paraphrasing or linking)

∙ Digital technology

blog (Myers 2010)

∙ Digital technology

allows hypertextual

linking, embedding,

copying-pasting,

combining, curating.

∙ Easier to connect, mix

+ mash texts.Data from 101 Cookbooks blog (Myers 2010)

INTER-TEXTUALITY II

· Purely linguistic

resources

to create

Context: Underneath a picture depicting Gabriel (Greek, 22 years old, student) preparing a seminar with another friend, two female FB friends started writing comments relating to hotel rooms during their pending trip abroad for a conference.

Gabriel

intertextuality

in digitally

mediated texts.

· References to

popular culture

Greek ice-cream commercial

Data from Facebook (Georgalou 2014)

DIALOGIC CHARACTER

· Reading and writing

like a conversation.

· Readers ‘write back’

to writers and

Data from 101 Cookbooks blog (Myers 2010)

to writers and

writers shape their

texts in anticipation

of immediate

response from

readers.

Data from Facebook(Georgalou 2014)

MULTIMODALITY

· Rich combinations

of semiotic modes

(writing, visuals, sound)

· Meanings travel across

Data from Instagram(Zappavigna forthcoming)

· Meanings travel across

modes + combinations

of modes in ways that

alter them:

resemiotisation(Leppänen et al. 2014;

Georgakopoulou 2015)

Data from Facebook(Georgalou 2014; forthcoming)

MATERIALITY

· Web pages different

from newspapers

textually + physically.

· Tablets vs books

· Access to texts,

contexts, ways we

physically manipulate

texts (e.g. clicking,

tapping, dragging,

swiping, pinching).

© GETTY/HPMG, Huffpost

2. CONTEXT

• people who take part in the interaction and their relationship to others in the group.

participants

imagined context

(Page et al. 2014: 33)

• projected contexts created cognitively by participants on the basis of their world knowledge and the cues provided in CMC.

imagined context

• participants’ offline social practices, cultural values, demographics (age, gender, ethnic or national identity), values related to their involvement in particular communities (e.g. friendship/educational cohorts, hobby or interest groups, colleagues, fan communities).

extra-situational context

2. CONTEXT II

• physical situation in which participants interact via social media (e.g. place and time of interaction, devices).

behavioural context

textual context (co-text)

(Page et al. 2014: 33)

• surrounding interactions (text published in preceding / subsequent posts or comments); semi-automated info (e.g. timestamps), location-based info (e.g. ‘check ins’); screen layout and resources.

textual context (co-text)

• social media site in which communication takes place, site’s stated purpose, rules and norms for conduct (netiquette).

generic context

3. ACTIONS

Affordances: the particular

ways social media make certain

kinds of action possible.

� Interactivity� Synchronicity – asynchronicity� Replicability� Storage capacity� Persistence of content / durability

kinds of action possible.� Persistence of content / durability � Searchability� Mobility� Reach� Social cues (visual, vocal)� Private/public nature

(boyd 2010; Madianou & Miller 2013)

NB: Technology does not determine uses.

4. INTERACTIONSDigital technologies have challenged the ways discourse analysts approach the analysis of interaction.

turn-taking, adjacency, topic management

(Jones, Chik & Hafner 2015)

monitoring + contextualisation; new forms of phatic communication (e.g. ‘liking’)

new participation frameworks

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN INTERACTION IN SOCIAL MEDIA?

1. how technologies interact with humanshumans

2. how technologies facilitate human-to-human interaction

(Rafaeli & Ariel 2007)

5. IDEOLOGY & POWER

� Digital technologies affect

· how people understand the world + treat one another

· how this affects how social goods (material + symbolic) get distributed

� Creating, learning, and self-improvement vs commercial practices +

(Jones, Chik & Hafner 2015)

� Creating, learning, and self-improvement vs commercial practices +

promotion of dominant values of competition and consumption

as in ‘old media’.

� Not so much expressed in texts but in the more subtle ways

software + web interfaces channel users into certain (inter)actions

(i.e. what kind of info we have access to, what kind of behaviour is

rewarded + reinforced, what sort of people are considered normal)

CELEBRITY PROMOTION

· Social media provide

users opportunities

to produce + share

their own creative

Context: In December 2015, AB Βασιλόπουλος

supermarket organised the photo competition #LoveBakeShare. Participants had to bake a Christmas dessert, take a photo of it and post it on Instagram and/or Twitter. Five photos would be balloted for €300 each.

their own creative

products.

· But: often serve to

reproduce old media

values of celebrity.

(Marsh 2015)

COMMERCIAL INTERESTS

· More benefits

when paying for

a ‘premium a ‘premium

membership’

· Third-party ads

· Ads based on

users’ searches

10 R EASONS WHY STUDY ING SOC IA L MED IA I S CRUC IA L

FOR UNDERSTAND ING MED IA I S CRUC IA L

FOR UNDERSTAND ING L ANGUAGE

Ad ap t e d f r om B a r t o n & L e e ( 2 0 1 3 : 1 5 - 2 2 )

①①①① The world is increasingly textually mediated and social media are an essential part of this textual mediation.

②②②② Basic linguistic concepts are changing in meaning – new set of concepts is needed.

③③③③ New multilingual encounters online shift the relations between languages.

④④④④ Linguistic resources are drawn upon to assert identities and to represent the self in social media.

⑤⑤⑤⑤ People combine semiotic resources in new ways and they invent new relations ⑤⑤⑤⑤ People combine semiotic resources in new ways and they invent new relations between language and other modes of meaning making.

⑥⑥⑥⑥ Social media provide spaces for reflection upon language and communication.

⑦⑦⑦⑦ Language is central to the constant learning in social media.

⑧⑧⑧⑧ Vernacular language practices are becoming more public and circulated more widely.

⑨⑨⑨⑨ Language is central to new forms of knowledge creation and enquiry.

⑩⑩⑩⑩ New methods for researching language are made possible.

WHAT L I NGU IST IC AND S EM IOT IC

R ESOURCES ARE USED TO PRESENT USED TO PRESENT

THE S E L F I N SOC IA L MED IA?

Examp l e s f rom Facebook

( G e o r g a l o u 2 0 1 4 )

� Intertextuality

� Entextualisation

Context: Helen (Greek, 33 years old, linguist) is going to Budapest to meet her significant other who lives there and then she is visiting Berlin to participate in a conference.

Helen

EXAMPLE 1

(Leppänen et al. 2014)

� Cultural capital(Bourdieu 1984)

Song lyric: First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

Romanos

Context: Romanos (Greek, 23 years old, IT support)

� Futurama meme

� Slang

� Indirectness

EXAMPLE 2

� Indirectness

� Humour

� Relatedness to

profession,

interests (geek)

� Compliments

� Greek-Alphabet

English / EngreekCarlaFacebook friend

Carla[τίτλος βιβλίου που έχει

μεταφράσει η Carla]

Context: Carla (Greek, 35 years old, translator) has 2 profiles on FB: personal + professional. One of Carla’s FB friends (female, Greek, translator) writes on Carla’s FB Wall (professional profile) to congratulate her on her work.

EXAMPLE 3

� Blending

� Language-related

jobs

� Other-construction

of identity

Carla μεταφράσει η Carla]

FB friend to Carla: Carla, I read [title of book Carla has translated] (better late...). Warm congratulations. I was waiting in the corner for any mistake+DIM (due to professional perversion) but I was bored with waiting and left. Well done to you! Keepathegoodwerk!

Alkis

Context: Alkis (Greek, 31 years old, MSc student in Services Management, Athens University of Economics & Business) and his fellow students are finishing off writing their MA dissertations.

� Nickname

coinage

MSc in Services

EXAMPLE 4

Alkis: Dedicated to msmwrecks!Because we are all running like this these days... ;-)

MSc in Services

Management +

παρτάλι (wreck)

� We-inclusive

� Co-constructing

identity

Alkis

� Smiley

� Affective stance

EXAMPLE 5

Helen

� Affective stance

� Irony

� Expressing

mood

Context: Gabriel (Greek, 22 years old, student in International & European Studies, University of Piraeus) thanks his FB friends for their birthday wishes.

Me very happy after so many wishes!

Gabriel

� Selfie

� Complement

EXAMPLE 6

visually force

of verbal message

� Expressing mood

‘ s o c i a l m e d i a p r o v i d e a n e w m e a n s o f

u n d e r s t a n d i n g w h o w e a r e a n d h o w w e a r e a n d h o w

w e c o n n e c t t h r o u g h l a n g u a g e ’( Ta n n e n & Tr e s t e r 2 0 1 3 : i x )