E-mpoliteness – creative impoliteness as an expression of digital social capital

Abstract This paper investigates the formal, conceptual, and functional characteristics of impoliteness in social media interactions, arguing that face-threatening acts can be viewed as an effective manifestation of social capital if delivered in a way that has potential to grant the user distinction in cyberspace – the process contingent on recognition by some groups and elimination of others. As argued in the following, social capital manifests itself through a distinct habitus that exploits relevant cultural resources specific to social media interactions for the purpose of successful differentiation between spaces and participants in this context. In order to account for the complex, richly intertextual nature of creative impoliteness on social media, the study introduces the concept of “e-mpoliteness,” which refers not only to the surface form of the examined instances but also to the plethora of other resources and references that instantiate the habitus of meaning-making in online discourse.