Book review: Zappavigna, M., & Ross, A. S., Innovations and Challenges in Social Media Discourse Analysis ZappavignaM.RossA. S. (2025). Innovations and Challenges in Social Media Discourse Analysis. Routledge. xiv + 187 pp. ISBN 978103219057, $244.00 (hbk).

Previous studies show that public discourse and social media discourse around the Covid-19 pandemic heavily use war framing, despite the fact that its misuse and inaptness to elaborate all aspects of the pandemic were already noted. This paper analyses conceptual metaphors in the Croatian (social) media discourse on the pandemic, focusing on the war metaphor. Using a specialized corpus of manually chosen relevant texts in Croatian, compiled for this purpose, we investigate how frequent war framing is in the Croatian media compared to alternative figurative framings. In a qualitative analysis, we outline the conceptual and inferential structure of the Covid-19 pandemic concept and discuss the structure, function, and (in)aptness of the war metaphor in pandemic circumstances. Additionally, by detecting other source frames used in this discourse, we offer other, possibly more apt (or less resisted) framing options – or a so-called metaphor menu – designed specifically for the Croatian language based on corpus data. We show that the Covid-19 pandemic is predominantly framed as combat or war in Croatian media and social media. Even though a ‘war’ on the war metaphor has been declared both by the media and research community, we show that the use of certain other source frames (e.g. the religion frame) may be even more dangerous than the war framing. The paper also discusses the aptness and omnipresence of the war metaphor, as well as its inaptness to refer to all aspects of this pandemic, concluding that it is rarely the type of metaphor that is harmful or inappropriate – it is rather the effect of the context and how it is used.

There have been many studies that discuss the use of social media for disseminating the religious ideology of both conservatism and radicalism. On the contrary, there have only been few studies that deal with how the moderate groups disseminate the discourse of religious moderation, whereas this topic is significant to be discussed in order to view the strength and the weakness as well as the contestation between each group. This article presents the production, distribution, and consumption, and the social practice of the religious moderation discourse throughout the contents delivered by the figure from the groups of moderate Islam, from the Regency of Malang. The article is based on the discourse analysis toward a number of contents that have been produced by the figure and his team over YouTube and Facebook. The study show that the production of religious moderation discourse in social media is carried out in two ways: conveying messages of religious moderation, and countering narratives of conservatism and religious radicalism. The prospect of Islamic moderation discourse holds the opportunity to gain success in countering the narration of religious radicalism. However, the success of discourse contestation is defined by the strength of their distribution.

Використання соціальних медіа в політичному дискурсі стає все більш популярним із кожним роком. Соціальні медіа – канал, здатний досягти кожного члена суспільства безпосередньо й швидко, і такий, що дає змогу взаємодіяти з аудиторією. Стаття спрямована на вивчення особливостей політичного дискурсу в соціальних медіа та розроблен­ня схеми його аналізу. Для цього проведено дослідження природи політичного дискурсу в соціальних медіа. Пояснено, що такий дискурс розвивається в умовах високої конкуренції за увагу громадськості, отже, він зобов’язаний бути інтерактивним (і часто випереджувальним), яке заслуговує на довіру, і бути спрямованим на цільову аудиторію. Виходячи із цієї позиції, надається пояснення наукового методу, придатного для дослідження, тобто критичного аналізу дискурсу. У зв’язку з характером дослідницької сфери цей метод вида­ється обґрунтованим для ідентифікації, інтерпретації та пояснення відносин сили й конкуренції дискурсів. Крім того, стосовно українського суспільства й громадянського протистояння, що відбувається в ньому, критичний аналіз дискурсу надає потрібні відповіді з погляду уникнення негативних наслідків.Ключові слова: критичний аналіз дискурсу, соціальні медіа, м’яка сила, громадянське протистояння.

We have attempted to analyse the features of communicative strategies of a media discourse. The paper describes the notions of “discourse”, “media discourse”, “social media discourse”, and “communicative strategies”. The research is performed using the social media texts collected by the authors. Up to date no linguistic investigations of communicative strategies used in social media discourse have been conducted. We have focused on news texts from information, news, educational, and entertaining platforms, in social networks. The most important thing is to identify the ways of communicative strategies generation and the methods of their association in a social media discourse. The article shows some typical features of a social media discourse. The subject of the research is a set of communicative strategies used during implementation of the communicative functions of texts. The purpose of the paper is to identify and organise communicative strategies, the characteristics of their use depending on the social text topic, and to review the impact of such a text. The main aim of the research is to study the social media discourse as one type of an institutional media discourse; to identify and describe the factors impacting its formation.

Whilst representations of old age and older people in traditional media have been well documented, examinations of such representations within social media discourse are still scarce. This is an unfortunate omission because of the importance of social media for communication in contemporary society. In this study, we combine content analysis and discourse analysis to explore patterns of representation on Twitter around the terms ageing, old age, older people and elderly with a sample of 1,200 tweets. Our analysis shows that ‘personal concerns/views’ and ‘health and social care’ are the predominant overall topics, although some topics are clearly linked with specific keywords. The language often used in the tweets seems to reinforce negative discourses of age and ageing that locate older adults as a disempowered, vulnerable and homogeneous group; old age is deemed a problem and ageing is considered something that needs to be resisted, slowed or disguised. These topics and discursive patterns are indeed similar to those found in empirical studies of social perceptions and traditional media portrayal of old age, which indicates that social media and Twitter in particular appears to serve as an online platform that reproduces and reinforces existing ageist discourses in traditional media that feed into social perceptions of ageing and older people.

This article investigates social media discussions regarding a hellish work life. Relevant blogs and discussion chains are analysed in light of characteristics captured from theological models and interpretations of hell. Although the term ‘hell’ is used colloquially as a metaphor and swear word, this paper demonstrates that classical theological views on hell can shed new light on different aspects of work life. Identifying the classical meanings and traditional features of hell aids in recognising and analysing relevant features of a hellish work life, including the irreversible, hopeless, penalising and (pre)determined nature of hell. The social media content analysed comes from Finnish-language discussion platforms, electronic journals published online and blogs. All social media content and discussions analysed refer explicitly to work life as a hell, indicating sources of job dissatisfaction and occupational stress. Correspondingly, job satisfaction is approached in this study from the perspective of employees’ attitudesto and feelings about the social reality that they perceive in their workplace. According to the results, the key features making one’s work life hellish are the experiences of being mistreated by a boss or workmate and the related feeling of helplessness.

The designer benzodiazepine (DBZD) market continues to expand whilst evading regulatory controls. The widespread adoption of social media by pro-drug use communities encourages positive discussions around DBZD use/misuse, driving demand. This research addresses the evolution of three popular DBZDs, etizolam (E), flubromazepam (F), and pyrazolam (P), available on the drug market for over a decade, comparing the quantitative chemical analyses of tablet samples, purchased from the internet prior to the implementation of the Psychoactive Substances Act UK 2016, with the thematic netnographic analyses of social media content. Drug samples were purchased from the internet in early 2016. The characterisation of all drug batches were performed using UHPLC-MS and supported with 1H NMR. In addition, netnographic studies across the platforms X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, between 2016-2023, were conducted. The latter was supported by both manual and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven thematic analyses, using numerous.ai and ChatGPT, of social media threads and discussions. UHPLC-MS confirmed the expected drug in every sample, showing remarkable inter/intra batch variability across all batches (E = 13.8 ± 0.6 to 24.7 ± 0.9 mg; F = 4.0 ± 0.2 to 23.5 ± 0.8 mg; P = 5.2 ± 0.2 to 11.5 ± 0.4 mg). 1H NMR could not confirm etizolam as a lone compound in any etizolam batch. Thematic analyses showed etizolam dominated social media discussions (59% of all posts), with 24.2% of posts involving sale/purchase and 17.8% detailing new administration trends/poly-drug use scenarios. Artificial intelligence confirmed three of the top five trends identified manually. Purity variability identified across all tested samples emphasises the increased potential health risks associated with DBZD consumption. We propose the global DBZD market is exacerbated by surface web social media discussions, recorded across X and Reddit. Despite the appearance of newer analogues, these three DBZDs remain prevalent and popularised. Reporting themes on harm/effects and new developments in poly-drug use trends, demand for DBZDs continues to grow, despite their potent nature and potential risk to life. It is proposed that greater controls and constant live monitoring of social media user content is warranted to drive active regulation strategies and targeted, effective, harm reduction strategies.

This study explores the construction of environmental discourse in social media among the youth in Tangerang City, Banten Province, Indonesia, based on the perspective of environmental communication concept and social media perspective. The method incorporated was a case study by interviewing key informants, ten youths from Tangerang City, with qualitative descriptive analysis. The research found that almost all key informants have a common culture of environmental discourse in social media. Also, the research found that the youth socialize with others on social media who feel the need to grow and participate. In addition, the youth think that the discourse on a green environment refers to the desire to create an environment that is clean from garbage and has lots of trees and more plants, creating a peaceful, quiet, spacious environment with and preserving lots of green plants and animals.

Bots (automated accounts) in social media have gained more attention from social scientists in recent years. The former are employed by both governments and civil society groups in order to manipulate online political discussion in social media. Nevertheless, there is no conclusive evidence on their effectiveness as a tool to bolster (mobilize) or suppress (demobilize) political discussion in social media. This paper presents a novel agent-based model, capable of simulating bot deployment as both mobilization and demobilization tool. Results of the simulations reveal three major effects of bot deployment. First, bots are more effective at demobilizing opponents than mobilizing supporters. Second, transmitting radical opinions via bots may backfire, demobilizing a certain group rather than mobilizing it. Third, the effectiveness of social bots is dependent on homophily: more homophilous networks are less susceptible to bots’ influence. Results of modeling may both advance our estimations of bots’ effectiveness and serve as a tool to generate potential hypotheses for future empirical research.

The shift of society toward sustainable food culture requires collectively challenging meat and dairy-based diets and their role in current practices of eating. This study focuses on how discussions in social media can facilitate reconfiguration in eating. Three practice-theoretical perspectives – practices constituting of elements, eating as a compound practice, and communities of practice – afford us with analytical tools to investigate eating and how the constituting elements are negotiated and recrafted in social media discussions across the compound practice. As empirical data, we use altogether 14,250 social media messages on the Finnish Vegan Challenge campaign. By combining qualitative content analysis with topic modeling, we capture the various themes occurring in these discussions and their relation to changes in eating practices. The results show that within these discussions, social learning among peers covered the whole sphere of eating-related practices from production and distribution to purchasing and cooking vegan food, and to sharing stories and experiences of veganism. Our findings illustrate how these discussions can be seen as forming a reconfigurative community of practice, which can potentially support and facilitate social change of eating toward sustainability also outside the Vegan Challenge community.

In this paper we present the proposal for a research study that aims at explaining the consequences of social media use on mass media content and public discourse. Social media is defined as a set of networked communication platforms that enable generation, distribution and consumption of user generated content. Technology features of the social media platforms are at the center of our analysis. The use of social media features is conceptualized using technology affordance theory. Borrowing from mass communication literature, we argue that media content is produced as a result of a dialectical relationship between media discourse and public opinion. The consequences of social media use on public discourse are conceptualized in terms of the changes in the dialectics between media discourse and public opinion resulting from the use of social media. Two types of public discourses are identified. We develop theory from extant literature to arrive at proposition on consequences of use of specific social media features on the media content and public discourse. Propositions are presented both for the general public discourse case and the context of particular type of discourses. We conclude this proposal by discussing the potential contributions of our study.

This paper will analyse women representation in social media discourse by applying Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis and will investigate how women are represented linguistically and visually on social media platforms like Instagram, Sanpchat, X and Utube. The data has been gathered from verified and unverified social media accounts with the help of convenient random sampling. The material is in the form of photos, written texts, and videos for a thorough examination. The chosen accounts include X handles like Richard Cooper, the Instagram accounts parity_colorism and thesolidaritysisters. The select Snapchat handles include DRESS CODE, Girls Only. Care has been taken that these posts represent both male and female worlds and the researcher will make the case that the social media content is fundamentally ideological, and that regular events, actions, and issues posted on social media articulate dominant (and occasionally alternative) ideological discourses about the prejudiced nature of our society. It shall be argued that gender politics is present in all types of social media comments and platforms, not so much in terms of formal politics but a more banal and everyday kind. The marketing of these accounts is the hidden motivation behind posting such posts and they do not support the idea that these technologies are democratic or impartial by nature. This paper will also investigate the social contexts within which symbolic forms are employed and deployed to determine whether such forms establish or sustain relations of domination and whether ideological analysis of all elements of the social media content come together to tell the same story that is, patriarchal capitalism. Considering the insights that social media discourse is structured by male dominance; that every discourse is historically produced and interpreted and that dominance structures are legitimated by ideologies of powerful groups(male), this paper will specifically consider gender and social media discourses in the broadest sense, to testify overt relations of gender bias and social inequality. It will also dissect sexism and female objectification by using the Dialectical Relational Approach and suggest ways to reduce gender bias through social media.

The subject of research in this article is the social media discourse. The purpose of the work is to theoretically interpret the social media discourse in the context of modern science and practice of media communications. The study of social media discourse considers the features of the platforms, its production and storage, as well as its representation. Social media users can change their roles from being a consumer to a creator. The work uses a set of methods: comparative analysis, systematization, and interpretative analysis. The research found that the social media discourse is a functionally conditioned type of discourse (integration of personal and institutional types of discourse) that exists in the framework of online communication, and has the synthesis of oral and written speech. The social media discourse consists of media texts that include heterogeneous elements, depending on the combination of which creolized, polycode and multimodal texts are constructed. Such texts differ in the process of creation, organization and features of presentation in social media, communication in which, unlike electronic communication in general, is based on the principle of participation. Taking into account the specific features of distribution platforms used by social media, the authors emphasize that all Internet services related to social media have special characteristics that make it possible to distinguish them from other Internet services, resources that exist in the global network. The definition of the social media discourse allows us to expand the understanding of this category in modern media communications.

ABSTRACTThis study is focus on the construction of sporting female discourse through social media platform, which is exclusive for women’s basketball, and to explore the meaning and practices of resisting or reproducing the gendered discourse through this social media platform. The media texts include ‘Double Pump’ posts from March 2014 to December 2016, and the interviewees were the four operators of ‘Double Pump’. The posts mostly emphasized on athletic performance and the training process the players had been through. Moreover, it was found the content of posts rarely contained terms with gender stereotype, but demonstrate the aggressive and masculine of female players. In conclusion, DP utilizes the social media and personal gender ideologies to produce reports without gender stereotype and practice the resistance towards gendered discourse that pervasive in media and sport cultural.

Preterm infants are usually breastfed less than full-term infants, and successful breastfeeding requires a supportive environment and special efforts from their mothers. A breastfeeding peer-support group, utilising social media, was developed for these mothers in order to support them in this challenge. Mothers were able to discuss breastfeeding and share experiences. The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of breastfeeding mothers of preterm infants based on the postings in peer-support group discussions in social media. The actively participating mothers (n = 22) had given birth <35 gestational weeks. They were recruited from one university hospital in Finland. The social media postings (n = 305) were analysed using thematic analysis. A description of the process of breastfeeding a preterm infant from the point of view of a mother was created. The process consisted of three main themes: the breastfeeding paradox in hospital, the 'reality check' of breastfeeding at home and the breastfeeding experience as part of being a mother. The mothers encountered paradoxical elements in the support received in hospital; discharge was promoted at the expense of breastfeeding and pumping breast milk was emphasised over breastfeeding. After the infant's discharge, the over-optimistic expectations of mothers often met with reality - mothers did not have the knowledge or skills to manage breastfeeding at home. Successful breastfeeding was an empowering experience for the mothers, whereas unsuccessful breastfeeding induced feelings of disappointment. Therefore, the mothers of preterm infants need evidence-based breastfeeding counselling and systematic support in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and at home.