Twitter Issue Response Hashtags as Affordances for Momentary Connectedness

Abstract

Framing online collective behavior within theoretical frameworks developed to describe offline phenomena is common in social media studies. This can limit the scope of analysis because the interplay between user capabilities, intentions, and platform architecture makes online exchanges different from offline interaction. We introduce a novel conception of online publicness, momentary connectedness, which is a structure of polymorphic computer-mediated sociality that includes transactive as well as non-transactive phenomenological online activity. We suggest that Twitter issue-response hashtags can be seen as affordances for momentary connectedness where Tweets that display broad and vague audience dimensions, as well as clusters with different interactional orientations, co-exist within the same topical network. We illustrate this polymorphism of momentary connectedness with a case study of an issue-response network.

A Link Communities Analysis of the UK Instagram Covid-19 Searchable Metadiscourse

“…These issue publics form ad hoc, perform and dissolve within a short time period. In a similar vein, Rathnayake and Suthers [4] show how momentary connectedness-temporally bounded connectivity via issue-response hashtags-manifests internal diversity in terms of patterns of interaction and user orientations organized around the Twitter hashtag #NepalEarthquake. These studies' emphasis on specific frames suggests that analysis of utterances made within a given hashtag or several hashtags can offer insight into how collective phenomena form and function.…”

“…From a conceptual perspective, the diversity of the above communities show signs of polymorphismi.e., presence of multiple orientations in issue-response networks [4]. On the other hand, the crucial role played by dominant frames in leading multiple distinct partitions show their ability to unify Instagram metadiscourse by serving as a conduit that connects those communities.…”

“…However, nesting of those communities within the Covid-19 mestadiscourse complicates the concept. Rathnayake and Suthers [4] argue that polymorphism is present when social media user clusters have different orientations and/or structures. However, in the above nested communities, different orientations co-exist.…”

“…Hashtags serve as social metadata as well as parts of linguistic structure and discourse semantics [2]. Different theoretical perspectives, such as issue publics [3], momentary connectedness [4], brand publics [5], and affective publics [6] conceptualise the role hashtags play in enabling collective phenomena. Such work shows how hashtags serve as spaces for mobilising various user groups via affective as well as discursive forms of engagement.…”

Profiling Online Social Network Platforms: Twitter vs. Instagram

“…Monthly, almost 500 million 4 messages are created and redistributed by millions of active users, around 330 million 5 users worldwide. Like Instagram, Twitter is hashtag-driven [19] and has been associated with the proliferation and dissemination of news and events [45]. Twitter holds a prominent position among OSN as it offers: i) real-time update; ii) flexibility, as a user can track someone else's post without being friends; iii) ability to harvest vast amounts of data through its APIs, and; iv) potentiality for the predictions of future situations [28].…”