‘I especially loved the little Nana dancing on the balcony’: The emergence, formation, and circulation of chronotopes in mass-mediated communication

Abstract

In this article I focus on the formation and evaluation of chronotopes in social media. More specifically, I analyze the case of a ‘chronotope of the balcony performance’ that emerged in Italy in 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown. The corpus of the study is constituted by 125 top postings resulting from a Twitter search based on the words Italy, lockdown, and balcony. In line with other scholars (see Goebel 2020), I argue that chronotopes in mass-mediated environments are formed through repetition and recycling of the same or similar semiotic material. I show how in social media expanded participation and the use of trans-semiotic and trans-medial resources ensure wide circulation of images and texts. I also point to the central role of stance taking by users in the constitution of the chronotope as a cultural object, particularly through generalizations and upscaling. (Chronotopes, Covid-19, discourse circulation, stance, scales)*

Across the Cyberwaves: Twitter Campaigns for Gaeilge

“…The campaign name and hashtag, the title of a song meaning "across the waves," could create "ambient affiliation" between social actors collectively enacting a transnational Irish identity, but are otherwise unknown to one another (Zappavigna, 2011). These actors, through the circulation of related and additional semiotic resources, such as other hashtags, emoji, or mentions of "place," contributed to the emergence of the chronotope (De Fina, 2022), which reinforced the aim of the campaign to "connect" those with an interest in Irish (ICUF, 2017).…”

“…Transcending time and space in virtual networks allows them to semiotically signal their identity and belonging in the co-creation of transnational chronotopes (Bakhtin, 1981; Blommaert, 2018; Christiansen, 2017, 2019). Focusing on the content of interactions in social media, De Fina (2022) argues that chronotopic analysis allows for the emergence of different understandings of time and space in the development of communicative practice, and of the configuration and negotiation of identities in these practices. She maintains that identities are projected and performed through the sharing of the same and similar semiotic resources.…”