Pub Date : 2025-04-25DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100883
Maeve Eberhardt
The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022 caused a profound shift in the right to abortion across the United States. With the removal of legal protection at the federal level, many individual states swiftly passed legislation banning abortion within their borders. In the current paper, I apply Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and multimodal techniques to a corpus of posts hashtagged with #abortionrights, to interrogate how messages of abortion rights are mobilized on Instagram. Tagging posts with #abortionrights reaches a wide audience through the invocation of a dominant, rights-based understanding of abortion. This transmits the hegemonic positionality of neoliberal feminism, and simultaneously transgresses dominant messaging by bringing intersectional feminism into sharp focus. In this way, I argue, social media bares its potential to contribute to a larger, activist agenda that moves us towards social justice and change.
{"title":"“Does this dick make my rights look bigger?”: Transmittance and transgression of neoliberal feminism on Instagram","authors":"Maeve Eberhardt","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100883","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100883","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022 caused a profound shift in the right to abortion across the United States. With the removal of legal protection at the federal level, many individual states swiftly passed legislation banning abortion within their borders. In the current paper, I apply Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and multimodal techniques to a corpus of posts hashtagged with #abortionrights, to interrogate how messages of abortion rights are mobilized on Instagram. Tagging posts with #abortionrights reaches a wide audience through the invocation of a dominant, rights-based understanding of abortion. This transmits the hegemonic positionality of neoliberal feminism, and simultaneously transgresses dominant messaging by bringing intersectional feminism into sharp focus. In this way, I argue, social media bares its potential to contribute to a larger, activist agenda that moves us towards social justice and change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100883"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-17DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100885
Na Yang
Studies have shown that online opinion sharing represents and helps to rebuild members’ awareness of group belonging. However, there is not yet a consensus on the effect of group membership on the discourse of opinion sharing. In light of this, we built two corpora with data from two popular travel websites—Ctrip and Tripadvisor. By conducting a corpus-based discourse analysis, we compared the two platform users’ discourses of opinion sharing, with a focus on stance. To compare, we controlled for members’ language and their evaluative stances. The results show the following: (1) Tripadvisor users generally utilise far more self-mentions than the remaining stance types, whereas Ctrip members highly prefer hedges in sharing opinion; and (2) as a reviewer’s stance changes from positive to negative, the Ctrip members’ probability of utilising boosters and self-mentions tend to increase, and the chance of hedge deployment decreases sharply, while the opposite is true for Tripadvisor users. These findings suggest that netizens’ discourse of opinion sharing varies in accordance with their self-identification, which could partially be related to their group membership and subjective knowledge of reciprocity.
{"title":"Opinion sharing in online travel communities: A corpus-based comparison of members’ stance expression in Ctrip and Tripadvisor","authors":"Na Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100885","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100885","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Studies have shown that online opinion sharing represents and helps to rebuild members’ awareness of group belonging. However, there is not yet a consensus on the effect of group membership on the discourse of opinion sharing. In light of this, we built two corpora with data from two popular travel websites<em>—</em>Ctrip and Tripadvisor. By conducting a corpus-based discourse analysis, we compared the two platform users’ discourses of opinion sharing, with a focus on stance. To compare, we controlled for members’ language and their evaluative stances. The results show the following: (1) Tripadvisor users generally utilise far more self-mentions than the remaining stance types, whereas Ctrip members highly prefer hedges in sharing opinion; and (2) as a reviewer’s stance changes from positive to negative, the Ctrip members’ probability of utilising boosters and self-mentions tend to increase, and the chance of hedge deployment decreases sharply, while the opposite is true for Tripadvisor users. These findings suggest that netizens’ discourse of opinion sharing varies in accordance with their self-identification, which could partially be related to their group membership and subjective knowledge of reciprocity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100885"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143843104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100886
Alexander Dhoest
Since the early 2020s, “woke” has emerged as a key term in culture war discourse in the U.S. and internationally. A key characteristic of this discourse is the sharp opposition between “us” and “them”, anti-woke actors presenting “the woke movement” as radically other. Drawing on international literature on social and media discourses about woke, this paper analyses the way #woke is used on X in Flanders, Dutch-language Belgium. While analyses of Belgian legacy media disclose balance in reporting on woke, this paper analyses X as a more anonymous setting with less content moderation and a tendency towards incivility. Using a combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis, all Flemish tweets introducing #woke on X in 2023 are analysed (N = 449). The paper explores the overarching tone and dominant actors in these tweets, which actors tweet most negatively about woke, and how “us” and “them” are constructed in anti-woke discourse. The results show that most of the tweets (61.2 %) are negative, and that citizens are the most important actors (83.7 %). While politicians constitute a minority of the users tweeting #woke (11.4 %), right-wing politicians tweet most negatively about woke (97.2 %). The qualitative analysis of anti-woke tweets discloses a chain of equivalence creating a sharp opposition between “us” and “them”, whereby the former is mostly implicitly defined as the opposite of the latter. These tweets address an affective public, an imagined community defending “our freedom” (against cancel culture), “our nation” (against racial and religious others) and “ordinary people” (against elites).
{"title":"Them! Ingroup-outgroup dynamics in Flemish anti-woke discourses on X","authors":"Alexander Dhoest","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100886","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100886","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Since the early 2020s, “woke” has emerged as a key term in culture war discourse in the U.S. and internationally. A key characteristic of this discourse is the sharp opposition between “us” and “them”, anti-woke actors presenting “the woke movement” as radically other. Drawing on international literature on social and media discourses about woke, this paper analyses the way #woke is used on X in Flanders, Dutch-language Belgium. While analyses of Belgian legacy media disclose balance in reporting on woke, this paper analyses X as a more anonymous setting with less content moderation and a tendency towards incivility. Using a combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis, all Flemish tweets introducing #woke on X in 2023 are analysed (N = 449). The paper explores the overarching tone and dominant actors in these tweets, which actors tweet most negatively about woke, and how “us” and “them” are constructed in anti-woke discourse. The results show that most of the tweets (61.2 %) are negative, and that citizens are the most important actors (83.7 %). While politicians constitute a minority of the users tweeting #woke (11.4 %), right-wing politicians tweet most negatively about woke (97.2 %). The qualitative analysis of anti-woke tweets discloses a chain of equivalence creating a sharp opposition between “us” and “them”, whereby the former is mostly implicitly defined as the opposite of the latter. These tweets address an affective public, an imagined community defending “our freedom” (against cancel culture), “our nation” (against racial and religious others) and “ordinary people” (against elites).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100886"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143833429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-11DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100884
Kurt Sengul
This paper presents the first scholarly study of the use of X/Twitter Spaces by far-right online communities. Spaces — X/Twitter’s live audio-based platform — has become an increasingly prominent tool in the far-right’s digital communication ecosystem in recent years. The popularity of Spaces with far-right users has increased in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in 2022 which signalled a marked rightward shift in the platform’s governance, particularly its techno-libertarian, ‘free speech absolutist’ approach to content moderation. Through a netnography and critical discourse analysis of (n = 41) Spaces sessions from January to July 2024, this paper critically examines how online far-right communities are using the voice-mediated affordance. In particular, this research explores the discursive practices and sharing strategies employed by individuals to propagate extreme and radical ideas, as well as to cultivate group membership, collective identity, and intersubjectivity. The findings demonstrate that Spaces are being used by a diverse range of far-right online communities and subcultures to promulgate conspiracy theories and radical and extreme ideological content. However, the findings also revealed a high degree of apolitical, non-ideological, and more everyday sharing practices. This paper broadens our empirical understanding of how Spaces are being instrumentalised by reactionary communities, and the role of voice-mediated affordances in the amplification, socialisation, recruitment, and radicalisation of far-right ideas globally.
{"title":"How are far-right online communities using X/Twitter Spaces? Discourse, communication, sharing","authors":"Kurt Sengul","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100884","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100884","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper presents the first scholarly study of the use of <em>X/Twitter Spaces</em> by far-right online communities. <em>Spaces</em> — <em>X/Twitter’s</em> live audio-based platform — has become an increasingly prominent tool in the far-right’s digital communication ecosystem in recent years. The popularity of <em>Spaces</em> with far-right users has increased in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of <em>Twitter</em> in 2022 which signalled a marked rightward shift in the platform’s governance, particularly its techno-libertarian, ‘free speech absolutist’ approach to content moderation. Through a netnography and critical discourse analysis of (n = 41) <em>Spaces</em> sessions from January to July 2024, this paper critically examines how online far-right communities are using the voice-mediated affordance. In particular, this research explores the discursive practices and sharing strategies employed by individuals to propagate extreme and radical ideas, as well as to cultivate group membership, collective identity, and intersubjectivity. The findings demonstrate that <em>Spaces</em> are being used by a diverse range of far-right online communities and subcultures to promulgate conspiracy theories and radical and extreme ideological content. However, the findings also revealed a high degree of apolitical, non-ideological, and more everyday sharing practices. This paper broadens our empirical understanding of how <em>Spaces</em> are being instrumentalised by reactionary communities, and the role of voice-mediated affordances in the amplification, socialisation, recruitment, and radicalisation of far-right ideas globally.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100884"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143815174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-21DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100881
Jasmine Banks , Mel Monier , Ariana Samuel
This study applies intersectionality and Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) to examine Black women’s experiences with online dating apps and the socio-technical structures that shape their romantic possibilities. While dating apps claim to expand access to romantic connections, their algorithmic systems and user engagement metrics systematically structure desirability hierarchies, reinforcing racial bias and exclusion. Through in-depth interviews with 20 Black women between ages 18 and 30, we explore how Black women define, seek, and experience Black love in digital spaces, revealing the tensions between cultural aspirations for Black partnership and the technological infrastructures that undermine them. Findings show that Black love is not just a personal or cultural ideal but a site of ideological negotiation where algorithmic bias, platform affordances, and broader social hierarchies dictate who is seen, desired, and chosen. Participants describe the emotional labor of self-surveillance, strategic self-presentation, and adaptation, yet many also express doubts about whether Black love is truly possible in spaces designed to marginalize them. Still, they challenge and reimagine Black love, resisting the structures that seek to limit their romantic possibilities. This study contributes to broader conversations on race, technology, and intimacy, urging a critical reassessment of dating apps, especially for Black users.
{"title":"What’s algorithms got to do with it? Exploring Black Women’s pursuit of Black love on dating apps","authors":"Jasmine Banks , Mel Monier , Ariana Samuel","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100881","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100881","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study applies intersectionality and Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) to examine Black women’s experiences with online dating apps and the socio-technical structures that shape their romantic possibilities. While dating apps claim to expand access to romantic connections, their algorithmic systems and user engagement metrics systematically structure desirability hierarchies, reinforcing racial bias and exclusion. Through in-depth interviews with 20 Black women between ages 18 and 30, we explore how Black women define, seek, and experience Black love in digital spaces, revealing the tensions between cultural aspirations for Black partnership and the technological infrastructures that undermine them. Findings show that Black love is not just a personal or cultural ideal but a site of ideological negotiation where algorithmic bias, platform affordances, and broader social hierarchies dictate who is seen, desired, and chosen. Participants describe the emotional labor of self-surveillance, strategic self-presentation, and adaptation, yet many also express doubts about whether Black love is truly possible in spaces designed to marginalize them. Still, they challenge and reimagine Black love, resisting the structures that seek to limit their romantic possibilities. This study contributes to broader conversations on race, technology, and intimacy, urging a critical reassessment of dating apps, especially for Black users.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100881"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143682219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-12DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100869
Chunyan Huang , Haiyan Wang
By analyzing the metaphors used in Weibo discussions about the giant panda Ya Ya’s travails in the United States in 2023, this study illuminates how Chinese netizens construct nationalist discourse on social media platforms. Employing the method of Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), we explore how nationalism is articulated through both personification and de-personification discourse strategies in the shape of metaphor. We find that the giant panda, as China’s national symbol, is personified to evoke empathy and to unite Chinese netizens in opposition to the United States. This personification also serves to map China’s humiliating historical experiences with its powerful present, reinforcing national dignity. The binary personification of a positive in-group (China) versus a negative out-group (the United States) strengthens Chinese netizens' national identity. Meanwhile, the United States and its citizens are degraded as negatively connotated animals such as dogs and pigs, objects such as rubbish and mildew, and even evil, through dehumanizing metaphors. Mediated by Weibo mechanisms, dichotomous discourse amplifies the spread of nationalism and mobilizes netizens to engage in petitions. Overall, this study contributes to understanding digital nationalism and Sino-US relations from a micro-discursive perspective.
{"title":"Digital panda nationalism: Constructing nationalist discourse through metaphors in Chinese social media","authors":"Chunyan Huang , Haiyan Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100869","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100869","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>By analyzing the metaphors used in Weibo discussions about the giant panda Ya Ya’s travails in the United States in 2023, this study illuminates how Chinese netizens construct nationalist discourse on social media platforms. Employing the method of Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), we explore how nationalism is articulated through both personification and de-personification discourse strategies in the shape of metaphor. We find that the giant panda, as China’s national symbol, is personified to evoke empathy and to unite Chinese netizens in opposition to the United States. This personification also serves to map China’s humiliating historical experiences with its powerful present, reinforcing national dignity. The binary personification of a positive in-group (China) versus a negative out-group (the United States) strengthens Chinese netizens' national identity. Meanwhile, the United States and its citizens are degraded as negatively connotated animals such as dogs and pigs, objects such as rubbish and mildew, and even evil, through dehumanizing metaphors. Mediated by Weibo mechanisms, dichotomous discourse amplifies the spread of nationalism and mobilizes netizens to engage in petitions. Overall, this study contributes to understanding digital nationalism and Sino-US relations from a micro-discursive perspective.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100869"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143601697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-04DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100876
Kurt Sengul
This paper critically analyses the so-called “anti-woke” conservative dating app, The Right Stuff. Launched in September 2022, The Right Stuff was co-founded by former Trump aide and Project 2025 staffer, John McEntee, and financially supported by rightwing billionaire investor Peter Thiel. The app was created for conservatives to connect in “authentic and meaningful ways”, given that other dating apps have allegedly “gone woke”. The invitation only dating app is designed exclusively for heterosexual users, and boasts of only offering binary she/he pronouns. Indeed, The Right Stuff’s advertising campaign mocks the inclusive and diverse affordances of other dating apps, including Tinder and Bumble. However, the app has struggled to gain traction with conservative users with media reports noting a substantial drop-off in downloads since September 2022, despite being promoted by prominent right-wing influencers such as Kyle Rittenhouse. Moreover, the app has been criticised by users for a lack of women using the platform. Drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of The Right Stuff’s website, TikTok promotional materials, and YouTube channel, this paper explores how exclusion is built into the app’s promotion and claims about its digital architecture, and the associated implications for online dating in the future. This paper argues that The Right Stuff is a manifestation of the broader political polarisation of politics in the United States, and the intersection of politics and intimacy. Moreover, despite The Right Stuff’s apparent failure, it is clear that politically based dating apps will proliferate in the future. This paper aims to contribute to our growing understanding of the role of politics in digitally mediated dating.
{"title":"“View profiles without pronouns”: The politics and discourse of ‘anti-woke’ right-wing dating app, The Right Stuff","authors":"Kurt Sengul","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100876","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100876","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper critically analyses the so-called “anti-woke” conservative dating app, The Right Stuff. Launched in September 2022, The Right Stuff was co-founded by former Trump aide and Project 2025 staffer, John McEntee, and financially supported by rightwing billionaire investor Peter Thiel. The app was created for conservatives to connect in “authentic and meaningful ways”, given that other dating apps have allegedly “gone woke”. The invitation only dating app is designed exclusively for heterosexual users, and boasts of only offering binary she/he pronouns. Indeed, The Right Stuff’s advertising campaign mocks the inclusive and diverse affordances of other dating apps, including Tinder and Bumble. However, the app has struggled to gain traction with conservative users with media reports noting a substantial drop-off in downloads since September 2022, despite being promoted by prominent right-wing influencers such as Kyle Rittenhouse. Moreover, the app has been criticised by users for a lack of women using the platform. Drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of The Right Stuff’s website, TikTok promotional materials, and YouTube channel, this paper explores how exclusion is built into the app’s promotion and claims about its digital architecture, and the associated implications for online dating in the future. This paper argues that The Right Stuff is a manifestation of the broader political polarisation of politics in the United States, and the intersection of politics and intimacy. Moreover, despite The Right Stuff’s apparent failure, it is clear that politically based dating apps will proliferate in the future. This paper aims to contribute to our growing understanding of the role of politics in digitally mediated dating.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"65 ","pages":"Article 100876"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143550561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-22DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100868
Wenjuan Xu , Xingsong Shi
This study aims to examine how multimodal interactional metadiscourse are used for CSR communication on Chinese companies’ websites. The corpus consists of 153 CSR webpages presented by 30 leading Chinese energy, metal, equipment, and chemistry companies on their English websites. The results indicate that the CSR webpages are rich in interactional metadiscourse devices, with engagement markers and attitude markers being the most salient ones. A variety of non-textual markers, such as pictures, videos, company logos, icons, facial expressions, interaction-initiating resources, are deployed along with textual markers to achieve the promotional and persuasive purposes of the genre. The results reveal the characteristics of employing digital media for business communication, adding more interactivity, visibility, and creativity in the construction of CSR discourse. The study may enrich business discourse literature by introducing a multimodal framework to explore interpersonal resources used in digital business genres.
{"title":"The use of multimodal interactional metadiscourse for CSR communication on Chinese companies’ corporate websites","authors":"Wenjuan Xu , Xingsong Shi","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100868","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100868","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study aims to examine how multimodal interactional metadiscourse are used for CSR communication on Chinese companies’ websites. The corpus consists of 153 CSR webpages presented by 30 leading Chinese energy, metal, equipment, and chemistry companies on their English websites. The results indicate that the CSR webpages are rich in interactional metadiscourse devices, with engagement markers and attitude markers being the most salient ones. A variety of non-textual markers, such as pictures, videos, company logos, icons, facial expressions, interaction-initiating resources, are deployed along with textual markers to achieve the promotional and persuasive purposes of the genre. The results reveal the characteristics of employing digital media for business communication, adding more interactivity, visibility, and creativity in the construction of CSR discourse. The study may enrich business discourse literature by introducing a multimodal framework to explore interpersonal resources used in digital business genres.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"64 ","pages":"Article 100868"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143464653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-21DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100866
David Machin , Per Ledin , Wenting Zhao
Using the case of nutrition influencers on Chinese Weibo, this paper considers how social media platforms shape knowledge production and the representation of expertise. It is known that members of the public now mainly obtain information about health, illness on social media, chiefly through social media influencers. This creates concern for health professionals, given that such information tends to be highly misleading. Here we use multimodal critical discourse analysis, to analyse a sample of Weibo hashtags, to learn more about, not so much how this knowledge is incorrect, but how social media platforms themselves foster forms of knowledge where accuracy and clarity of knowledge in relation to details of issues, objectives and causalities is not favoured. We find a form of faux-expertise, which is legitimized through vaguer small stories about everyday life where the solutions presented are absent of clear problem-identification and of causal connections. We ask what this means as social media platforms become colonized ways of sharing and engaging with all forms of knowledge in our societies.
{"title":"How the nature of social media platforms supports faulty knowledge production by influencers: The case of nutrition guidance for mothers on Chinese social media","authors":"David Machin , Per Ledin , Wenting Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100866","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100866","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using the case of nutrition influencers on Chinese Weibo, this paper considers how social media platforms shape knowledge production and the representation of expertise. It is known that members of the public now mainly obtain information about health, illness on social media, chiefly through social media influencers. This creates concern for health professionals, given that such information tends to be highly misleading. Here we use multimodal critical discourse analysis, to analyse a sample of Weibo hashtags, to learn more about, not so much how this knowledge is incorrect, but how social media platforms themselves foster forms of knowledge where accuracy and clarity of knowledge in relation to details of issues, objectives and causalities is not favoured. We find a form of faux-expertise, which is legitimized through vaguer small stories about everyday life where the solutions presented are absent of clear problem-identification and of causal connections. We ask what this means as social media platforms become colonized ways of sharing and engaging with all forms of knowledge in our societies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":"64 ","pages":"Article 100866"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143454073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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