Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis Research Articles

Cyberfeminism in Egypt: A computer-mediated discourse analysis

Cyberfeminism in Egypt: A computer-mediated discourse analysis

Asserting identity in stifling spaces: multisemioticity in Nigerian queer-positive Instagram

ABSTRACT Queer visibility continues to be a mirage in many African countries. Unsurprisingly, the queer community has continued its appropriation of digital spaces in the propagation of its activism for public acceptance, in view of the democratising affordance which such spaces provide. In this study, I analyse 10 purposively selected queer-positive photos from queer_nigeria, nigerianqueerarchives and queer_ng, all from Instagram. Relying on a multisemiotic viewpoint, I examine how these Nigerian Instagram handles wield photos, captions and hashtags as semiotic resources of self-representation and for the reinforcement of identity formation. I apply the analytical tenets of netnography and Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis to my discussion. In my analyses, I identify these visual representations as performing three critical functions: contesting normative constructs/spaces and asserting queer visibility; documenting Nigerian queer social activism; and asserting the transnationality of queer advocacies. In addition, these representations help to foster a sense of community and group agency – emotive camaraderie relevant to the sustenance and wellbeing of the Nigerian queer community. A significant take-away is that images, and social networking platforms like Instagram, are central to positive self-identification and are used as forms of protest against the stifling space, which the Nigerian physical reality portends to people of queer orientation.

Indigenising Facebook language: Use of local languages in Facebook communication among a selected group of Kenyan internet users

This paper interrogates how Facebook use in Kenya is being localised to serve everyone: Local people and the elite. With approximately three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, Facebook is the most used online social network globally. In the second quarter of 2017, the platform surpassed two billion active users, a feat accomplished in just over 13 years. Facebook (FB) has permeated the lives of millions of people and the way they relate to one another and share information. This article examines how selected Kenyans are indigenising Facebook by using other local languages. The article recognises the utility of FB as a novel tool to examine and interpret linguistic features for a selected group of Kenyan FB users. The article uses Herring’s Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) theoretical framework. The research design used was both qualitative and quantitative. A purposive sampling procedure was used to arrive at eight FB friends in the 22-35 age bracket. This is the age that was found to use FB most in Kenya. The findings showed that Kenyans localised Facebook use in Kiswahili, vernacular, and Sheng.

Sharing peer advice: A case study of Chinese patients’ narratives in an online support group for mental health

Recent health communication studies have begun to look at online illness narratives, showing how narratives are used to report patients’ experience or to offer medical advice in various online contexts. However, few studies have sought to explore the communicative features of these online narratives in the Chinese context. Given the insufficient and uneven distribution of mental health resources and the intense stigma attached, an increasing number of Chinese patients with mental disorders are turning to online support groups (OSGs) for advice. We have limited understanding of Chinese patients’ lived experience or the potential of online illness narratives to be interpersonal tools for sharing advice. Drawing on computer-mediated discourse analysis, this study scrutinises narrative passages from a Chinese OSG to illustrate how individuals with mental illness interact in an online advisory context. The detailed analysis of narrative functions unpacks the potential of OSGs to provide storytelling opportunities for Chinese patients with mental disorders, allowing them to voice their concerns and experiences within the peer-to-peer network of relational understanding and support. This study also identifies a distinct feature of narrative activities in this online advisory context – the illness blog – and illustrates how its occurrence is related to the Chinese sociocultural values. This study can help raise awareness of illness narratives as a communication tool and facilitate culturally sensitive reactions of healthcare professionals towards patients’ narratives.

Are You Emojically a Mom? Age, Social Role, and Emojis in Saudi Mother-daughter WhatsApp Groups

This descriptive linguistic study aims to check the effect of age (old/young) and social role (mother/daughter) on the kind of emojis and their intended meanings that Saudi mothers use while chatting with their daughters. The data has been collected from twenty Saudi mother-daughter WhatsApp groups’ chat interactions. The study is qualitative in its approach and has used computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) of ‘coding and counting’ (Herring 2004) on (58 screenshots) and has revealed (42 emoji types) of Saudi mothers used in different frequencies. A combination of multi-choice and open-ended questionnaires has been tailor-made to arrive at the subjective perspectives of ninety Saudi young females. The findings show that there are variations in the kind of emojis used and their intended meanings, signaling the two generations and social roles apart. The results signaled (7 Saudi mom emoji types) that are never used by Saudi young females at all. These emojis were found to be age-specific and social role specific. The rest of the emojis (35 emoji types) were found to be used by both groups but with differences in usage and intended meanings, marking again the differences in age and social role. Despite variations of emojis and their meanings, there were many factors that helped youngsters to understand the intended meanings of their mother’s emojis: the accompanying text, frequent chatting with their mothers, and the literal representation of the emojis their mothers used. Even though accommodation is the process Saudi young females developed in order to understand their mother’s emojis and their intended meanings, there were minor misunderstandings found. The reason has been attributed to what has been termed in this study as the ‘emoji gap’ that marks the effect of age and social role (Evans 2015, 2017; White 2017; Marko 2022). Saudi mother-daughter WhatsApp conversations revealed that they are approximate to the structure of face-to-face conversation in relation to their back-and-forth quasi-synchronous messages, topics discussed, the informal style, the intimate relation, and the Saudi dialects used accompanied with related emojis that agree with the content of the digital texts. In this study, emojis are proved to be a visual language that mirrors its users in relation to their age and social role in digital text.

Emojis on Board: The Communicative Functions of Emojis in Saudi Females’ WhatsApp Groups’ Interactions

This study examines the communicative functions of emojis as used by Saudi females aged between (35-55) in twenty-five female-only WhatsApp groups’ instant messages. These groups are chosen according to five different social purposes for which the group is created: sisterhood-related, close friendship-related, relatives-related, religion-related, and workplace-related. The data has been collected through screenshots of WhatsApp conversations naturally occurring between the females in these groups. The method used for checking the types of emojis and their frequencies is based on computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) of ‘coding and counting’ (Herring 2004). All the different emojis were coded and counted and then were put to qualitative analysis on theories and methods of interactional sociolinguistics (IS) such as (Gumperz 1982; Dressner and Herring 2010). Results show that emojis have been used to express various kinds of emotions such as happiness, sadness, longing for old days, etc. Furthermore, they have been used to express different communicative functions of what Gumperz (1982) refers to as ‘contextualization cues’ such as congratulation on happy occasions, agreeing on others’ comments, compliments, sharing information with others, gratitude, sending prayers, reminding the members of religious tasks, laughing, arguing, etc. The results also prove that emojis are context-dependent and are used to help users to approximate real daily face-to-face situations to others and to facilitate the different expressed emotions and communicative functions to receivers (Dressner and Herring 2010; Evans 2017).

#EspañaInvadida. Disinformation and hate speech towards refugees on Twitter: A challenge for critical thinking

Disinformation is not a new phenomenon, but it is widespread in our society since social media have become a media loudspeaker. The outbreak of war in Ukraine has produced a social debate, partly reflected on social networks, about the treatment of Ukrainian refugees compared with other refugees from the South. For this reason, this research proposes a study that follows a qualitative interpretative methodology with an exploratory and descriptive scope that analyses in depth the content of the discourse on Twitter about refugees and uses computer-mediated discourse analysis as a technique for obtaining data. Specifically, it compares the content published under the hashtags #NotRefugees and #Refugees, and for this purpose, a data analysis has been carried out using Atlas.ti. The results show a differentiated treatment between refugees from the North and the South, as well as a propagation of misinformation through hate speech, in which a favourable and welcoming treatment of Ukrainian refugees is shown, while various types of hate speech towards the rest of the refugees from the South are evident. Hate towards refugees from the South on Twitter is justified on the grounds that they threaten national security, economy, and identity. This phenomenon reflects the urgent need to develop critical and ethical digital competence in the face of disinformation in social networks and media, where the development of critical and ethical thinking is essential.

Encountering death on Facebook: A digital ethnography of pandemic deaths and online mourning

Referred to as digital mourning (Babis, 2020), the use of social networking sites to mourn seems to have become more prevalent amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing observers to describe their Facebook timelines as resembling “virtual obituaries” (Cruz, 2021, para. 3). Using digital ethnography and computer-mediated discourse analysis, this paper illustrates the discourses on COVID-19 deaths as well as the digital mourning practices of Filipino Facebook users. The study found that Filipinos primarily tended to stick to their pre-digital cultural script and virtues when reacting to and mourning deaths on the social networking site (Wierzbicka, 1985). The discourses and reactions of Filipino FB users reflected and mimicked “offline” responses and reactions to death, thereby effectively mediatizing traditional death and mourning rituals. At the same time, newer mourning practices are also emerging in the digital sphere. Tied to the responses and comments regarding death were discourses on COVID-19 denial and folk medicine, as well as emotionally-laden articulations of alignment and disalignment with other Facebook users. These findings make apparent how Facebook news posts on COVID-19 deaths cultivate emotional exchanges and generate pockets of culture-specific networks of mourners and commiserators by circulating news of death, mediating discourses on death, and facilitating various expressions of mourning and commiseration. Through these networks, Facebook actively contributes to the reconfiguring and extending of offline mourning rituals in the digital sphere.

Managing Virtual Rapport on TripAdvisor: Discourse in Hotel Responses to Negative Online Reviews

Digital technology has immensely transformed communication, and social media facilitates online feedback mechanisms, empowering consumers’ voices via online reviews. This has led to the pervasively growing influence of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on customers’ purchase intentions, as negative online reviews can be detrimental to business performance. Therefore, digital business engagement on online platforms is essential to ensure customer satisfaction and manage online reputation. Building on Spencer-Oatey’s (2008) Rapport Management Model (RMM), this qualitative study explores the rapport management strategies used by eighteen Malaysian five-, four- and three-star hotels to respond to negative online reviews, from the perspective of the RMM discourse domain. The hotel responses were collected from TripAdvisor, using purposeful sampling and analysed with Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis. The findings show that the five- and four-star hotels employed higher frequencies of moves in their responses to complaints in negative reviews. Some four- and three-star hotels took a more confrontational approach by using the sub-move ‘denying problems’. In terms of RMM rapport orientation, this sub-move can be rapport-challenging in customer relationships. This study highlights that managing negative reviews more efficiently for service recovery on online platforms is essential to maintain customer relationships and establish a positive online corporate reputation. More generally, the findings provide insights on cultural rapport management strategies used in one Southeast Asian country—Malaysia. Keywords: online reviews; responses; discourse moves; eWOM; virtual rapport

On the "Dark Side"

This study examines the use of online humour in a subversive local community Facebook group set up in 2017 by disgruntled members banned from a similar group “in opposition to [the original group’s] arbitrarily-applied rules, [its] enforced happiness, and [its] suppression of any post that isn't about giving away lemons or asking to borrow small appliances”. The dissatisfaction with the guidelines and the administration of the original Facebook group provides rich material for humorous posts in the new group, many with varying degrees of aggression directed at the founder and certain members of the “Dark Side”, as the original group is frequently referred to. This article will demonstrate how the use of humour in this new rival Facebook group is used for the purposes of inclusion and exclusion, and how it contributes to a sense of belonging in this online community of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991) created by a small group of self-declared dissidents. It will be shown how the humour shapes the identity of the group through the members’ shared ideologies and beliefs (Tanskanen 2018), and how the humorous messages intended to denigrate and belittle the “Dark Side” reinforce unity among the group members, since the feeling of superiority over those being ridiculed coexists with a feeling of belonging (Billig 2005). Fifteen single comments or multi-post threads were chosen for analysis. These appeared during the first twenty months of this rival group’s existence, and included primarily affiliative and/or aggressive humour (Meyer 2015) directed at the original group. The analysis was carried out using elements of computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring 2004), and an insider participant-observer online ethnographic approach. The examples chosen illustrate how the humour is used to unite the members of this subversive group by dividing them from the original one, to create the joking culture (Fine and de Soucey 2005) of the new group, and in so doing, creates and sustains the members’ shared identity as irreverent breakaway troublemakers.

Communicative Guanxi: Making Online Discussion Forums Come Alive

The present study contributed to understanding the interactive language strategies that highlighted interactivity that leads to online Guanxi that facilitates interactivity in online discussion forums. Online discussion forums were selected for this study because this is where forum members come to seek and share information collaboratively. By using the analytical framework of Herring’s Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA), the study carried out a qualitative analysis of the naturally occurring data that was gathered from several online discussion forums discussing academic topics; the study investigated the language strategies that emerged from the data that seem to encourage interactivity in the online discussion forum. Interactivity was highlighted because it was observed that this variable was essential to keep the online discussion forum interaction on-going by encouraging the members to post. This study found that interactivity does not simply occur but must be intentionally built or worked upon in online discussion forums. Therefore, to increase interactivity in online discussion forums, forum members actively post to have discussions on-going. The study found that online Guanxi was necessary to increase interactivity in online discussion forums. Online Guanxi was formed when forum members felt the presence of others, and they trusted that the forum members would be able to share information that would be helpful. The whole process of seeking, sharing, and exchanging information was done by respecting one another’s “face”.

Gender Differences in the Use of Lexical Features in Text Messaging of Pakistani Students

This research intends to discover gender differences in the usage of linguistic features in text messages by Pakistani students. Herring's approach to Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis is used as the backbone of this research. In this qualitative research, a sample of 100 university students was selected. The sample provided a corpus of 300 text messages. Content analysis was used for coding and classification of the data, whereas descriptive statistics were used to find out percentages and frequencies. The data was classified as the messages sent by the males and those by females. Lexical features are classified as contraction, letter and number homophones, and initialism. Male students use more contractions, initial-isms and clippings while female students use letter and number homophones more than the male students do. This study is important in terms of genderlects and their differences.

Women’s online advocacy campaigns for political participation in Nigeria and Ghana

ABSTRACT This study examines online advocacy campaigns by five women action groups in Nigeria and Ghana. Based on modern social movement theories, the study utilizes computer-mediated discourse analysis to qualitatively analyze the content of the websites and social media platforms of these groups. Findings show that social media provide women advocacy groups a voice that tend to defy intimidation and the traditional patriarchal stereotypes to demand the rights of women to political leadership. Discourse structures of protest discourses include imperative statements or direct acts that demand change by all means. Through online activism, the advocacy groups extend their voices, and activities to reach national and international audiences and communities of people – also reaching out to the most vulnerable rural women and the underprivileged. However, only a small percentage of women in rural areas have access to the Internet, thereby limiting participation in online activism in cities and urban centers.

The search for national identity in the discourse analysis of YouTube comments

YouTube is a popular social media site that provides the users a space to view, upload video clips or log in and write comments. Even though many of the YouTube users remain anonymous when commenting, their language use in the comments can reflect the identity of a particular community. Therefore, a variety of computer-mediated discourse can be obtained from YouTube in deciphering a specific community or a country’s identity. This qualitative study is keen to investigate the representation of the Malaysian identity in the YouTube comments. Analysis were performed on the YouTube comments of Malaysian-related YouTube videos uploaded by famous Malaysian YouTubers. Textual analysis and coding of the YouTube comments were carried out using the NVivo software based on Herring’s (2004) Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) and Braun & Clarke’s (2006) Thematic Analysis framework. Findings showed that there were various themes that were repeated in the YouTube comments discourse which is a representation of the Malaysian identities, namely feelings of love towards the country, Malaysian cuisine, language mix, being multiracial, Malaysian behaviours or stereotypes, and the birth country Malaysia. These results provide insights into the discourse that are associated with Malaysian identities and contributed knowledge to fill in the gap in literature regarding national identity in social media, particularly Malaysia.

“Itsyourownfault”: Space omission in a Russian women's support group

Russian online discourse includes phrases in which spaces are omitted deliberately. This phenomenon is a Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) cue: it adds meaning to the verbal message and participates in identity and relationship building in online communities (Herring, 2004). In order to determine the meaning dimension of space omission as a CMC cue and the role of community in its use, an online community with a clearly defined group identity has been chosen as the source of data. Using posts from the women's support group #ščastʹebytʹženoj (happiness of being a wife), this study applies the tools of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (Herring, 2004; Androutsopoulos, 2014) to examine the discourse functions of this cue. The analysis of space omission and its context suggests that, similarly to paralinguistic cues in oral reported speech, this CMC cue contributes to multimodal role-shift (Stec et al., 2016). Moreover, the study concludes that the participants of the group tend to use space omission to report speech that they heard multiple times. This CMC cue can position the original speaker as being a member of the out-group and it demonstrates the typically negative behavior, as viewed by the community.

What consumers really feel about corporate apologies. A discourse analysis of reactions to apologies on economic and financial scandals in tweets

The economic, financial and environmental crises that have involved many international companies over the past twenty years have been the concern of various disciplines, e.g. Genre Studies (Rutherford 2005; Zanola 2010), Critical Discourse Analysis (Howcroft 2012) and Crisis Communication (Coombs and Holladay 2012). Interestingly, the number of studies carried out in these academic areas have paid attention to the linguistic and discursive strategies adopted by managers to persuade their audience to trust them. In particular, they have focused on apologia and apology as activities of trust-building, while neglecting the audience’s actual reactions to corporations’ suasive attempts. These responses are remarkable in blogs, social networks, and other forms of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) genres (Puschmann 2010). Adopting an approach which integrates Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (Herring 2001; Androutsopoulos, Beiswenger 2008), Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 2003; van Dijk 2006) and Pragmatics (Austin 1962; Searle 1975), the paper focuses on the perlocutionary acts enacted in blogs, tweets and user-generated articles that respond to corporate apologies. In particular, it investigates how corporate scandals and wrongdoings are experienced by readers. To achieve this goal, the paper is carried out on a corpus consisting of tweets disputing the Volkswagen (VW) diesel scandal over the period 2015 to 2017. Findings show that customers tend to react with anger, disappointment and irony to the crisis communicative stances enacted by the VW management.

Forms and Functions of Graphicons in Facebook Private Conversations Among Young Filipino Users

Understanding the functions of graphicons such as emojis, images, memes, videos, GIFs, emoticons, and stickers has become increasingly relevant as they have become extensively integrated into textual messages on Facebook, especially in group chats. This study aimed to investigate the forms and functions of graphicons used by young Filipino users (ages 18-31) on Facebook group chats. The datasets were extracted from the corpora, ten Facebook group chats, each lasting for three months, and analyzed using or computer-mediated discourse analysis or language-focused content analysis. According to the findings of this study, emoji was the most widely used graphicon by young Filipino users on Facebook, while sticker was the least. Adopting Herring and Dainas’ six functions of graphicons (2017), the researcher discovered additional five functions on Facebook group chats. These functions are identified as mention, reaction, riff, tone modification, action, narrative sequence, response, sharing, replacement, complement, and attention. It was also discovered that a graphicon could serve more than one function in a conversation. Tone modification was the most commonly used function, while the narrative sequence was the least. It was found out that in both emojis and emoticons, ‘tone modification’ was the most used function while ‘sharing’ in both images and videos. Meanwhile, ‘action’ was the most used function in GIFs, ‘attention’ in memes, and ‘mention’ in stickers. Because of the significantly increased use of online communication, this study may provide insight on how people may use these graphicons in their everyday conversations.

Digital Representation of the Coffee Culture and Cultural Heritage by Chinese Indonesian and Malaysian Coffee Brands

Objective - The existing literature contains no studies examining the issue of coffee culture and cultural heritage in the context of coffee brands’ websites evaluations. There are some well-known local coffee manufacturer brands in Indonesia and Malaysia respectively, and some of them are actually created by immigrated Chinese businessmen many decades ago. This study aims to delineate an understanding on digital representation of coffee culture and cultural heritage of Chinese Indonesian and Malaysian coffee brands through discourse methods associated with the analysis of intertextuality, and/or content which refers to content in other presentation forms and texts. Methodology/Technique - These coffee brands’ websites reinforce local identities, through the creation and diffusion of a discourse of identification. Computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) was carried out by focusing on one coffee brand in Malaysia and Indonesia respectively whose owners are Chinese diasporas. This study follows the basic methodological orientation of CMDA which is language-focused content analysis. Findings – The results indicate that the Malaysian coffee brand accommodates Malaysia Chinese culture and heritage while the Chinese Indonesian coffee brand does not illustrate its own ethnic roots in all digital branding and marketing activities. Both brands in this study prioritise the coffee process technology on their websites. Novelty - The existing literatures primarily discusses food culture from sociohistorical perspective. Coffee cultures have been increasingly transnational in both Indonesia and Malaysia. Some earlier studies talked about the dynamics of coffee production in these regions, however, this study specifically examines the discourse of coffee culture represented by the most representative coffee brands in these two countries where little attention is given to their websites and relevant content patterns. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: L2, L23 Keywords: Corporate Websites, Coffee Brands, Cultural Heritage, Indonesia, Malaysia. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Changsong, W; Rahman, T; Sadat, A.A; Amalia, A; Sudiwijaya, E. (2021). Digital Representation of the Coffee Culture and Cultural Heritage by Chinese Indonesian and Malaysian Coffee Brands, Journal of Management and Marketing Review, 6(2), 137 – 145. https://doi.org/10.35609/jmmr.2021.6.2(5)

Moments of sharing, language style and resources for solidarity on social media: A comparative analysis

This research draws on Androutsopoulos (2014) to analyse the language, language mixing phenomena and participation in online exchanges among members of a transnational community: colleagues in a project team who have been working together for over four years. Informed by sociolinguistics and Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis theory (Herring, 2004), this contribution compares the colleagues’ usual moments of sharing on WhatsApp with their interactions using the same medium during three extraordinary online moments of sharing, which are also significant off-line moments for the group. These three special moments of sharing took place after the terrorist attacks in Manchester in May 2017 and in Turku in August 2017, and the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Europe in March 2020. An examination of the messages exchanged during these extraordinary moments provides considerable evidence that moment, style and audience engagement are closely intertwined. While graphical elements, such as emoji, as well as textese language, are pragmatically unmarked in the typical practices of the community, their absence is the marked choice during the three special moments of sharing analysed. Importantly, the study also shows that code-switching is a key strategy to demonstrate group solidarity during moments of sharing that are special and highly significant for the participants.

A Forensic Interpretation of Hateful Micro-Speech Acts and Performative Modality in Facebook and Twitter during 2017 Election-Kenya

The increasing shift of human activities to online spaces in Kenya has resulted in the new behaviours among internet consumers. One such behaviour is the growing online public journalism phenomenon amid legal and regulatory gaps permeating expression of online hate speech rhetoric disguised as ‘politically correct talk’ which often goes unquestioned despite its injurious force and the potential to precipitate physical violence in the long run. To judge content as hateful, Kenya’s judicial processes rely the establishment of speech intention to hurt a legally protected entity. However, hate speech law enforcers lack skill and capacity to accurately determine the pragmatic force of hateful language. This article, which is a part of broad study that examined the discursive construction of online hate rhetoric, examines the injurious potential of online micro-speech acts and performative modality of selected Facebook posts and tweets constituting the day-to-day communicative practices online during the 2017 general election in Kenya. Working within forensic-based Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) framework, we analyse a purposive sample of 160 posts; FB (120) and Twitter (40) collected through online observation of Facebook groups and hashtags trending in Kenya between July and November 2017. The findings show how micro-speech acts and performative modality worked in service of aggressive ideology in the form of overt and covert appeals for collective prejudice against marked ethno-political out-groups. These insights are relevant for policy makers such as NCIC, KHR and CAK as well as the hate speech law enforcers especially National Police Service and prosecutors in understanding how certain commonsensical day to day online communicative practices yield pragmatic potential to propagate ideologically rooted culture of hate and violence in multi-ethnic cultural contexts such as Kenya.