Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
This study analyzed twitter trolling as a speech act of flaming. Trolling are deliberate disruptive practices of individuals or of particular group to sensationalize, commoditize, or intensify the reaction in online communication. Twitter API account was used to collect the tweets generated in Pakistan in English. The tweets were manually annotated with the help of a framework proposed by the Nitin, et al., 2011. and Lingam in UAM corpus tool. The finding revealed that tweets are trolled to flame by criticizing, name-calling, speculating, defaming, and degrading. The direct or intentional flaming showed derogatory behavior based on assumptions and aimed at inciting degenerative polarized responses. Moreover, this study also implies that there are serious moral and social implications of Twitter trolling.
Strategic manoeuvring of argumentation in Chinese corporate public relations discourses
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
Undertaking chairmen’s letters as data, the article discusses strategic manoeuvring of argumentation in Chinese corporate public relations discourses from the perspectives of topical potential, audience demand and presentational devices. Popular topics chosen were explored, including corporate commerciality, legitimation, entrepreneurship and approachability. Additionally, argumentation move structure and schemes such as symptomatic argument, analogy argument and causal argument were analysed. Inference modes undertaking priori, empirical and evaluative knowledge to respond to audiences’ rational, credibility and affective appeals were investigated. Presentational devices including allusion, metaphor and hypallage were also discussed. These findings were attributed to institutional and social-cultural contexts of the discourse. Hopefully, the study can enhance the explanatory power and applicability of the Pragma-Dialectics in corporate discourse studies and facilitate the research on Chinese corporate communication in general.
Undertaking chairmen’s letters as data, the article discusses strategic manoeuvring of argumentation in Chinese corporate public relations discourses from the perspectives of topical potential, audience demand and presentational devices. Popular topics chosen were explored, including corporate commerciality, legitimation, entrepreneurship and approachability. Additionally, argumentation move structure and schemes such as symptomatic argument, analogy argument and causal argument were analysed. Inference modes undertaking priori, empirical and evaluative knowledge to respond to audiences’ rational, credibility and affective appeals were investigated. Presentational devices including allusion, metaphor and hypallage were also discussed. These findings were attributed to institutional and social-cultural contexts of the discourse. Hopefully, the study can enhance the explanatory power and applicability of the Pragma-Dialectics in corporate discourse studies and facilitate the research on Chinese corporate communication in general.
Can’t read my broker face?—Tracing a motif and metaphor of expert knowledge through audiovisual images of the financial crisis
Abstract
Based on the question of the representability of economy and economics in audiovisual media, developments on the financial markets have often been discussed as a depiction problem. The abstractness and complexity of economic interrelations seem to defy classical modes of storytelling and dramatization. Nevertheless, public opinion about economic changes and dependencies crucially relies on audiovisual media. But how can the public communicate in images, sounds, and words about forces that are out of sight and out of reach, and can supposedly only be adequately grasped by experts? In a case study on audiovisual images of the global financial crisis (2007–), this paper tracks and analyzes a recurring motif: the staging of expert knowledge as close-ups of expressive faces vis-à-vis computer screens in television news, documentaries, as well as feature films. It draws on the use of digital tools for corpus exploration (reverse image search) and the visualization of video annotations. By relating and comparing different staging strategies by which these “broker faces” become embodiments of turbulent market dynamics, the paper proposes to not regard them as repeated instantiations of the same metaphor, but as a developing web of cinematic metaphors. Different perspectives (news of market developments or historical accounts of crisis developments) and affective stances toward the global financial crisis are expressed in these variations of the face-screen constellation. The paper thus presents a selection of different appearances of “broker faces” as a medium for an audiovisual discourse of the global financial crisis. A concluding analysis of a scene from Margin Call focuses on its specific intertwining of expert and screen as an ambivalent movement figuration of staging insight. Between the feeling of discovery (of a potential future threat) and the sense of being haunted (by a menacing force), the film stages the emergence of a “broker face” in an atmospheric tension between suspense and melancholy. We argue that the film thereby reframes the motif and poses questions of agency, temporality, and expert knowledge.
Issue Information
No abstract is available for this article.
To share vulnerability is to show strength: A discursive study of self-disclosure by Chinese cancer patients on short-form video platforms
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
The widely-used social media have offered Chinese cancer patients online sites for self-disclosure. Collecting self-disclosing discourses from 200 Chinese cancer patients on TikTok and SnackVideo, this study systematically analyzes the discursive strategies employed by Chinese cancer patients and their emotions expressed during self-disclosure, with the help of NVivo 12 and LIWC 2015. As a result, it is found that: (1) Chinese cancer patients display self-disclosure oriented toward facts, relationships, desires, and experiences discursively; (2) Chinese cancer patients showed a higher proportion of positive emotions than negative emotions, with female patients being more conservative and stable than their male counterparts when disclosing positive emotions. To some extent, the findings above would shed insights into the provision of psychologically inclusive support for the cancer patients in Chinese culture and beyond.
The widely-used social media have offered Chinese cancer patients online sites for self-disclosure. Collecting self-disclosing discourses from 200 Chinese cancer patients on TikTok and SnackVideo, this study systematically analyzes the discursive strategies employed by Chinese cancer patients and their emotions expressed during self-disclosure, with the help of NVivo 12 and LIWC 2015. As a result, it is found that: (1) Chinese cancer patients display self-disclosure oriented toward facts, relationships, desires, and experiences discursively; (2) Chinese cancer patients showed a higher proportion of positive emotions than negative emotions, with female patients being more conservative and stable than their male counterparts when disclosing positive emotions. To some extent, the findings above would shed insights into the provision of psychologically inclusive support for the cancer patients in Chinese culture and beyond.
Social media and platform work: Stories, practices, and workers’ organisation
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
This article introduces the special issue, ‘Social Media and Platform Work: Stories, Practices, and Workers’ Organisation’. In recent years, platform labour studies have increasingly focused on how the growing platformisation of labour has changed work activities, labour processes, work organising, identities, and collectivities. The literature has highlighted the role of media, communication, and social media in platform labour, but more research is needed on these interrelationships. Precisely, the analysis of platform work is necessary due to its complexity and interest in political, economic, social, cultural, and health terms. Throughout the special issue, different contributions are presented that analyse how the emergence of these new jobs brings a set of inequalities that complexify the notion of ‘work’ and dilute workers’ rights, leading to a precarious situation. The use of social media plays a crucial role in the platformisation of labour as it enables the creation of social relationships between workers but also opens the door to communicating, disseminating their work, and even learning informally and about their work. However, the use of social media can also lead to a precarious combination of platform work and content creation – or cultural production. In this regard, it is worth noting to analyse and approach the relationship between platform work and social networks precisely by addressing both perspectives, considering possible vulnerabilities derived from these situations and situations of precariousness.
This article introduces the special issue, ‘Social Media and Platform Work: Stories, Practices, and Workers’ Organisation’. In recent years, platform labour studies have increasingly focused on how the growing platformisation of labour has changed work activities, labour processes, work organising, identities, and collectivities. The literature has highlighted the role of media, communication, and social media in platform labour, but more research is needed on these interrelationships. Precisely, the analysis of platform work is necessary due to its complexity and interest in political, economic, social, cultural, and health terms. Throughout the special issue, different contributions are presented that analyse how the emergence of these new jobs brings a set of inequalities that complexify the notion of ‘work’ and dilute workers’ rights, leading to a precarious situation. The use of social media plays a crucial role in the platformisation of labour as it enables the creation of social relationships between workers but also opens the door to communicating, disseminating their work, and even learning informally and about their work. However, the use of social media can also lead to a precarious combination of platform work and content creation – or cultural production. In this regard, it is worth noting to analyse and approach the relationship between platform work and social networks precisely by addressing both perspectives, considering possible vulnerabilities derived from these situations and situations of precariousness.
Book review: Raili Marling and Marko Pajević, Care, Control and COVID-19. Health and Biopolitics in Philosophy and Literature
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
Digital methods for sensory media research: Toolmaking as a critical technical practice
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
‘Digital methods’ turn to medium-specific and online avenues for social and cultural research. While these approaches foster empirical media studies, it has become increasingly challenging to ‘follow the medium’ and ‘repurpose’ its methods. The prominence of sensory media such as ‘smart’ networked devices (e.g. mobile phones) in mundane practices and their infrastructural dependencies confront media scholars with highly contingent objects of study. Yet, studying such sensor-based devices is crucial, for they enable continuous and unnoticed monitoring of everyday (inter)activity. The article suggests that developing digital methods for sensory media can be understood as specific ‘critical technical practice’ (CTP) by engaging with two toolmaking stories. It draws on and emphasises the fundamental similarity between CTP and digital methods which both aim at conjoining technical engagement and understanding with methodological reflection. The toolmaking stories explicate the making of and the limitations to developing digital methods for increasingly obfuscated mobile sensory media, exploring the possibilities of repurposing their functionality and data. They include building tools for app code analysis focused on apps’ capacity to track sensor data, as well as for ‘sensing’ and analysing network traffic of mobile devices in use. The featured toolmaking then unravels distinctive research affordances, that is, action possibilities for ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ modes of analysis grappling with the technicity of mobile sensory media and their data. We argue that toolmaking as CTP for sensory media studies implies engaging with these media as entangled infrastructures, examining not just their social, but also their technical ‘multi-situatedness’. This involves investigating the ‘liveliness’ of their data, or how it is generated, processed and made sense of. In conclusion, we discuss implications for ‘doing digital methods’ in sensory media research. Toolmaking itself becomes an inevitable form of media research and critique, inviting and challenging researchers to deploy the media’s situatedness for their investigations.
‘Digital methods’ turn to medium-specific and online avenues for social and cultural research. While these approaches foster empirical media studies, it has become increasingly challenging to ‘follow the medium’ and ‘repurpose’ its methods. The prominence of sensory media such as ‘smart’ networked devices (e.g. mobile phones) in mundane practices and their infrastructural dependencies confront media scholars with highly contingent objects of study. Yet, studying such sensor-based devices is crucial, for they enable continuous and unnoticed monitoring of everyday (inter)activity. The article suggests that developing digital methods for sensory media can be understood as specific ‘critical technical practice’ (CTP) by engaging with two toolmaking stories. It draws on and emphasises the fundamental similarity between CTP and digital methods which both aim at conjoining technical engagement and understanding with methodological reflection. The toolmaking stories explicate the making of and the limitations to developing digital methods for increasingly obfuscated mobile sensory media, exploring the possibilities of repurposing their functionality and data. They include building tools for app code analysis focused on apps’ capacity to track sensor data, as well as for ‘sensing’ and analysing network traffic of mobile devices in use. The featured toolmaking then unravels distinctive research affordances, that is, action possibilities for ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ modes of analysis grappling with the technicity of mobile sensory media and their data. We argue that toolmaking as CTP for sensory media studies implies engaging with these media as entangled infrastructures, examining not just their social, but also their technical ‘multi-situatedness’. This involves investigating the ‘liveliness’ of their data, or how it is generated, processed and made sense of. In conclusion, we discuss implications for ‘doing digital methods’ in sensory media research. Toolmaking itself becomes an inevitable form of media research and critique, inviting and challenging researchers to deploy the media’s situatedness for their investigations.
Understanding emotions in hate speech: A methodology for discourse analysis
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
In recent years, emotions have been receiving considerable attention in discourse analysis, identified as a defining feature of contemporary political discourses. However, most of the previous studies in the field have focused on the categorization of emotions and on how these are present in texts. This approach fails if we want to understand the mechanisms that underpin the relevance of emotions in political discourse, because emotion categories do not tell us much about how and why an emotion is constructed as such. The purpose of this article is to propose a new framework for a more comprehensive analysis drawing upon previous studies on emotions from sociocognitive and constructivist perspectives. Taking into account that emotions are constructed by the addressee -and not by the speaker or the discourse itself-, I present a methodological approach that includes all the elements in play when an emotion arises. Example analysis of hate speech messages are provided to show the contributions that can be made to discourse analysis using this method.
In recent years, emotions have been receiving considerable attention in discourse analysis, identified as a defining feature of contemporary political discourses. However, most of the previous studies in the field have focused on the categorization of emotions and on how these are present in texts. This approach fails if we want to understand the mechanisms that underpin the relevance of emotions in political discourse, because emotion categories do not tell us much about how and why an emotion is constructed as such. The purpose of this article is to propose a new framework for a more comprehensive analysis drawing upon previous studies on emotions from sociocognitive and constructivist perspectives. Taking into account that emotions are constructed by the addressee -and not by the speaker or the discourse itself-, I present a methodological approach that includes all the elements in play when an emotion arises. Example analysis of hate speech messages are provided to show the contributions that can be made to discourse analysis using this method.
Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theatre of Trump’s deselection
International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print.
On 7 November 2020, strange things were happening in the comments to @realDonaldTrump's tweet erroneously arguing that he had won the US presidential election, ‘BY A LOT’. Posting quote tweets and replies in Armenian in tandem with ‘cursed images’, memes, and creepypasta, users engaged in a spam-like trollish intervention, even as Twitter kept removing the said content in real time. Exploring this online incident through various analytical techniques, this article first attends to absurdity and ephemerality within the polarized social media event. Second, it makes an argument for the productivity of digital methods in cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand the temporal, contextual, and infrastructural aspects of memetic commenting. Third, by focusing on the social (media) theatre of Armenian curses, we make a case for the analytical importance of studying materials deemed niche and anomalous in networked exchanges.
On 7 November 2020, strange things were happening in the comments to @realDonaldTrump's tweet erroneously arguing that he had won the US presidential election, ‘BY A LOT’. Posting quote tweets and replies in Armenian in tandem with ‘cursed images’, memes, and creepypasta, users engaged in a spam-like trollish intervention, even as Twitter kept removing the said content in real time. Exploring this online incident through various analytical techniques, this article first attends to absurdity and ephemerality within the polarized social media event. Second, it makes an argument for the productivity of digital methods in cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand the temporal, contextual, and infrastructural aspects of memetic commenting. Third, by focusing on the social (media) theatre of Armenian curses, we make a case for the analytical importance of studying materials deemed niche and anomalous in networked exchanges.