Community and authority in ROAR Magazine

Jan Buts

doi:10.1057/s41599-020-0392-9

Abstract

This article responds to a common critique of corpus-based studies as decontextualized exercises in linguistic analysis by illustrating how, in the case of internet-based data, the concordance line can reveal rather than obscure aspects of a textual body’s cultural constitution. The data for the study consists of 100 articles of the online political journal ROAR (Reflections on a Revolution) Magazine, which has reported on global instances of public unrest and dissent since 2011. After sketching the relation between the financial crisis commencing in 2007 and the global protests that followed in its wake, the article investigates textual patterns within ROAR’s varied output. These patterns, ranging from the collocational profile of the keyword democracy to quotation practices, are shown to be constitutive of a virtual sense of community. This process of identity formation is then shown to have a mythopoetic effect, which ultimately impacts the emplotment of the various events covered and considered by the magazine. Additional attention is paid to ROAR as a cross-platform enterprise. In this respect, the fragmentary nature of the Internet is shown to both facilitate and frustrate the creation of a symbolic sense of community.

Highlights

Corpus-based studies are rooted in the translation of magical formulae
In this respect, are central elements of a community’s communicative repertoire, yet, as the analysis has shown with reference to democracy, they do not circulate freely but depend on validation by an individual’s authority
This observation was followed by an analysis of frequently mentioned names in ROAR Magazine, focusing on instances of quotation and paraphrase

Summary

Introduction

Corpus-based studies are rooted in the translation of magical formulae. During his excursions in the Pacific in the early twentieth century, the anthropologist Malinowski was confronted with the difficulty of explaining to his readers words and phrases that, on first impression, seemed “meaningless” or “untranslatable” (Malinowski, 2002, p. 213). An initial investigation of the centrality of the keyword democracy to the publication’s self-presentation suggests that the magazine’s symbolic universe is governed by a number of individual authorities whose status is expressed through reference strategies such as paraphrase and quotation.

Results

Conclusion