Pandemijos retorika: argumentavimo strategijos socialinio tinklo „Facebook“ komentaruose

Abstract

An analysis of the public COVID-19 discourse reveals how the public responds to the crisis and what kind of communication is actualized during a pandemic. The object of this research is the argumentation strategies in the comments of the articles about coronavirus on social media “Facebook”. The aim of the research is to expand the argumentative level of discourse: to analyze rhetorical and eristic arguments. The comments were collected from the accounts of the most popular Lithuanian news portals on “Facebook” (alfa.lt, Delfi, 15min, lrytas.lt). The analyzed comments were published during the first and second pandemic waves (from March 2020 to January 2021). The research material was analyzed by means of the rhetorical discourse analysis method to isolate and define the categories of rhetoric characteristic to rhetorical appeals models. The chosen method of rhetorical analysis was combined with content analysis. During the research, the respective rhetorical categories of the researched phenomenon were identified and classified, and the content of these categories was expanded – a rhetorical content analysis was performed. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented situation in which the rhetorical analysis of the communication element is a whole new area of research. The identified dominant models of rhetorical and eristic reasoning not only reveal the regularities of media “consumption” but also help to understand the tendencies of choosing communication strategies in critical situations.