What is a discourse approach to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media: connecting with other academic fields?

Abstract

The wider field of discourse studies is still only beginning to turn its attention to social media despite a number of notable scholarly works. But as yet there has been little that has dealt specifically with issues of multicultural discourse -how language, identity, cross-cultural social relations and power play out in the rapidly evolving landscape of social media. In this paper, I show why discourse studies must engage with theories and empirical work on social media across academic fields beyond discourse studies and linguistics, at how these can help best frame the kinds of research that needs to be done, how to best formulate some of the basic questions of critical discourse analysis for this new communicative environment. I use this as a platform to point to the areas where multicultural discourse studies can work -where all the ambiguities of former studies of 'identity' and 'culture' are present, but realised in new ways. Yet these new forms of communication are fused into wider patterns of changing cultural values about forms of social structure, knowledge itself and the kinds of issues that tend to form our individually civic spheres.

Polarization and Ideological Weaving in Twitter Discourse of Politicians

“…The importance of Twitter discourse in the domain of politics cannot be ignored. The previous researches exploring the use of Twitter (and other such platforms) from "critical" perspective for the construction of ideology and power have emphasized upon the need for further researches in this domain (such as Bouvier, 2015;Bouvier & Machin, 2018;Kreis, 2017). There are multitudes of power relations and power structures working at different levels in the discourse of political tweets.…”

Imagined Affordances of Instagram and the Fantastical Authenticity of Female Gulf-Arab Social Media Influencers

“…Social media, as a technological as well as a social phenomenon, remains a conflated term requiring sharper definitions of what is meant by "social" and "media," and how and why they come together to exercise degrees of control in ways that are often highly gendered and increasingly commercialized (Bouvier, 2015). The author of this study locates a lack of precision in theorizing social media that partly results from the confusion surrounding "affordances."…”

Critical Discourse Analysis and the challenges and opportunities of social media

“…Here news organisations will need to ensure that they are favoured by the kinds of algorithms used at any time by dominant social media platforms, such as Facebook. Even here it has been argued that algorithms themselves become the shapers of discourse, or social relations (Bouvier, 2015). In other words, the discourses presented to any individual through news, entertainment, and other things 'you may also like', are patterned in ways aligned to your previous online activities, which include consumer behaviour (Doctor, 2010).…”

“…In CDA, analysis has tended to target texts produced by elites and powerful institutions, such as news and political speeches, with a view to revealing the kinds of discourses used to maintain power and sustain existing social relations. However, since the internet and social media have come to define much of the way that we communicate and run our lives (Thurlow, 2011), there have been obvious calls that CDA engage more with language and discourse in this context (Bouvier, 2015). Social media have also become integrated with the way that official institutions and organizations now operate, since it is also here that social and political issues are represented and debated (Mautner, 2005).…”