25.3249, Confs: Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis/Belgium

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-25-3249. Mon Aug 11 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.3249, Confs: Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis/Belgium

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Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 10:57:55
From: Marjut Johansson [marjut.johansson at utu.fi]
Subject: The Digital Agora of Social Media

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The Digital Agora of Social Media 

Date: 26-Jul-2015 - 31-Jul-2015 
Location: Antwerp, Belgium 
Contact: Marjut Johansson 
Contact Email: marjut.johansson at utu.fi 

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics 

Meeting Description: 

The present day participative Internet, Web 2.0, is often conceived as a space for the public exposure of one’s private life. This panel aims to adopt another perspective on Web 2.0. The focus is on how users contribute to public discussions, i.e., take part in the mediated public sphere.  The internet and social media consist of spaces of digital agora where social actors cross and blur the boundaries between the public and private spheres, institutions, and everyday life.

The spaces in which these socio-political digital discussions take place are, for instance, the blogosphere, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and Google groups), content sharing sites (e.g., YouTube and Instagram), microblogging sites (e.g., Twitter), various discussion forums, and comment sections on news sites. The objective of this panel is to study various types of online discussions and how they construct meaning in these digital spaces. For example, comments on a politician’s blog may aim at expressing support for the blog’s author while comment sections on news sites may contain posts mainly expressing the opinions of participants. Moreover, societal topics on Facebook or Twitter make users engage in knowledge-constructing debates. Overall, these discussions often contain disagreements or conflicts; they may be moralistic or sarcastic; yet they are also spaces for supporting a cause or idolizing an individual. 

The panel is open to various studies on the language use and discourse of socio-political online discussions. Possible objects of study include the following:

- How do these discussions emerge, evolve, and end?
- How interactive are they? 
- Which basic language activities take place in these discussions? Are they, for, instance, constructing or sharing knowledge, supporting or expressing ideas?
- How do they mix public and private matters? How do they contribute to the public sphere?
- How do these discussions circulate, recompose, or remix themes, discussions, and texts from other public spaces? 
- How do the participants express stance?
- What kinds of arguments are used?
- Is “socio-political online discussion” a genre? What is the role of super and sub-genres, and how is the embedding and mixing of genres manifested?
- How are multimodal and hypertextual features used in these discussions? 









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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-3249	
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