Memes as reasonably hostile laments: A discourse analysis of political dissent in Oman

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 573-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Najma Al Zidjaly
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
Repetition Code ◽  
Code Choice ◽  
Communicative Strategies ◽  
Saving Face ◽  
Cultural Tools ◽  
Participation Frameworks ◽  
Do So

In this article, I investigate how political dissent is linguistically constructed and mitigated in memes that are circulated nationally on WhatsApp in Oman. I do so by drawing upon insights from relational approaches to face, the theorization of communicative strategies as polysemous and ambiguous, and research pertaining to the Islamic practice of lamenting. The data consist of a representative set of memes collected in the summer and fall of 2015 as part of an ethnographic project on social media and Arab identity. I theorize memes as cultural tools that take the form of ‘reasonably hostile’ lament-narratives, which enable citizens in Oman to engage in democracy while saving face. To create lament-memes that voice dissent while mitigating face-attacks, Omanis draw upon various communicative strategies: They use repetition, code choice, hashtags, and different genres; they juxtapose emojis with text; and they manipulate the production and participation frameworks of texts. Collectively, these strategies, which function via intertextuality, allow the concerns to be aired, but indirectly and playfully. The article demonstrates how political dissent is negotiated and mitigated through memes, the agency of social media users, and the validity of conceptualizing memes as cultural tools.

“Stay with me. Talk to me”: reader interaction strategies in modern poetry

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-436
Author(s):  
Olga Igorevna Severskaya
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Communication Plan ◽  
Communicative Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Communicative Context

The article is devoted to the consideration of a poetic text as a communicative phenomenon with a high impact potential. The author defines the features of poetic communication, which is both mass and interpersonal, and its main goal, which is the poet’s desire to communicate author’s vision of the world and thereby change the picture of the reader’s world, achieving empathy from it. Based on the understanding of the speech strategy as a cognitive communication plan, a program for generating and perceiving speech, the author talks about the fundamental reversibility of text-generating and interpretative strategies and offers own classification of strategies and tactics that are most often used in modern poetry. In this classification, the main communicative strategies of self-presentation and rapprochement with the reader are associated with auxiliary discursive strategies of actualizing, dramatizing and dialogizing the text and programming interpretations by tactics for highlighting objects and situations using sound “gestures”, pointing to the referent, framing, directly introducing the reader into the communicative context, attracting the recipient’s attention through appeals and pragmatic instructions, interrogation, and some others. Particular attention is paid to the multimodality of interactions and its specific manifestations in poetic discourse. The study is based on the material of Russian poetry of the 1980- 2000s using the methods of intent and discourse analysis.

scholarly journals Where have all the followers gone?

Leadership ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 174271502098322
Author(s):  
Steve Kempster ◽  
Doris Schedlitzki ◽  
Gareth Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Mba Students ◽  
Executive Mba ◽  
Leadership Research ◽  
Do So

In this short article, we explore and problematise the axiomatic assumption of follower in the field of leadership studies notably the leader–follower axiom as the essential foundation of much leadership theorising. We do so, firstly by drawing on our experiences of exploring followership conceptually, and secondly, by reviewing conversations with executive MBA students. From these sources, we argue that the absence of identifications with followership offers a challenge to leadership assumptions around the socio-materiality of followers and their relations with leaders within organisational contexts. This leads us to questions like: what if follower identifications do not typically exist or are rejected in everyday organisational working contexts – despite discursive labelling of individuals as followers or following practices? Would or should leadership research and its examination of leader–follower dynamics fundamentally change and in what ways? We explore these questions and suggest very different orientations that might appear with regards to notions of the leadership relationship, leading and following dynamics, practice-based attention to leadership and perhaps very different approaches to leadership development. Such a (re)appraisal of the leadership lexicon may move notions of follower identification out of social constructions of organisational leadership and towards social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) – where the phenomenon of being a follower is ever present, but is redefined as a phenomenon of vicarious fantasy associated with interest, curiosity and entertainment.

Fun with Dick and Dick: Homosociality on r/MassiveCock

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072096130
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Bury ◽  
Lee Easton
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Content Sharing ◽  
And Function ◽  
Selection Of

Social media and content-sharing platforms provide new opportunities for the circulation of not only professional and amateur porn productions but also “pornographic self-representation”. This study examines the interactions that occur when male pornographic self-representation is shared in an inclusive space that welcomes both straight and gay men to post dick pics and gaze/comment on them. Focusing on the Reddit forum, Massive Cock, we conducted a discourse analysis of a selection of posts, comments and account profiles collected over a seven-month period. Based on our findings, we contend that Massive is a homosocial space where homoerotic dick gazing reaffirms and disrupts the heterosexual–homosexual binary. Our findings point to an uneven dynamic in which the majority of the posters perform a straight identity, whereas the majority of commenters perform a gay identity. Their comments serve to disrupt hegemonic masculinity and, in turn, create a space that welcomes mostly straight and bi-curious performances of masculinity. Such performances are possible due to recent cultural shift away from homo-hysteria and towards a more inclusive heteromasculinity. Collectively these performances produce an inclusive “fraternity of the cock”, but it is one which maintains a heterocentric focus and function.

EXPRESS: Befriending the Enemy: The Effects of Observing Brand-to-Brand Praise on Consumer Evaluations and Choices

2021 ◽  
pp. 002224292110530
Author(s):  
Lingrui Zhou ◽  
Katherine M. Du ◽  
Keisha M. Cutright
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Brand Choice ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Purchase Behavior ◽  
Brand Attitudes ◽  
Consumer Evaluations ◽  
Brand Evaluations ◽  
Brand Perception ◽  
Do So

Consumers have grown increasingly skeptical of brands, leaving managers in a dire search for novel ways to connect. The authors suggest that focusing on one’s relationships with competitors is a valuable, albeit unexpected, way for brands to do so. More specifically, the present research demonstrates that praising one’s competitor—via “brand-to-brand praise”— often heightens preference for the praiser more so than other common forms of communication, such as self-promotion or benevolent information. This is because brand-to-brand praise increases perceptions of brand warmth, which leads to enhanced brand evaluations and choice. The authors support this theory with seven studies conducted in the lab, online, and in the field that feature multiple managerially-relevant outcomes, including brand attitudes, social media and advertising engagement, brand choice, and purchase behavior, in a variety of product and service contexts. The authors also identify key boundary conditions and rule alternative explanations, further elucidating the underlying mechanism and important implementation insights. This work contributes to our understanding of brand perception and warmth, providing a novel way for brands to connect to consumers by connecting with each other.

scholarly journals Moral hypocrisy and the hedonic shift: A goal-framing approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siegwart Lindenberg ◽  
Linda Steg ◽  
Marko Milovanovic ◽  
Anita Schipper
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Situational Cues ◽  
Moral Hypocrisy ◽  
Goal Framing ◽  
Normative Consensus ◽  
Moral Stance ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

The most investigated form of moral hypocrisy is pragmatic hypocrisy in which people fake moral commitment for their own advantage. Yet there is also a different form of hypocrisy in which people take a moral stance with regard to norms they endorse without thereby also expressing a commitment to act morally. Rather they do it in order to feel good. We call this hedonic moral hypocrisy. In our research, we posit that this kind of hypocrisy comes about when people’s overarching goals are shifted in a hedonic direction, that is, in the direction of focusing on the way one feels, rather than on moral obligation. Hedonic shifts come about by cues in the environment. People are sometimes sincere when expressing a moral stance (i.e. they mean it and also act on it), and sometimes, when they are subject to a hedonic shift, they express a moral stance just to make them feel good. This also implies that they then decline to do things that make them feel bad, such as behaving morally when it takes unrewarded effort to do so. In two experimental studies, we find that there is such a thing as hedonic moral hypocrisy and that it is indeed brought about by hedonic shifts from cues in the environment. This seriously undermines the meaning of a normative consensus for norm conformity. Seemingly, for norm conformity without close social control, it is not enough that people endorse the same norms, they also have to be exposed to situational cues that counteract hedonic shifts. In the discussion, it is suggested that societal arrangements that foster the focus on the way one feels and nurture a chronic wish to make oneself feel better (for example, in the fun direction through advertisements and entertainment opportunities, or in the fear direction by populist politicians, social media, economic uncertainties, crises, or wars and displacements) are likely to increase hedonic hypocrisy in society.

scholarly journals “Pedagogical” Agression in Russian Everyday Communication

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 975-993
Author(s):  
Natalia Georgievna Bragina ◽  
Igor Alekseevich Sharonov
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Short Review ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Question ◽  
Communicative Behavior ◽  
Communicative Strategies ◽  
Everyday Communication ◽  
National Corpus

The article is devoted to speakers’ responses to inappropriate communicative behavior in Russian everyday communication. The analytic part of the article presents a short review of both classical and modern works on (im)politeness theories, which show that communicative strategies in response to the wrong communicative behavior in a particular context have not been investigated and described sufficiently in modern Politeness theories, investigating face-aggravating communication. The aim of this work is to describe a strategy that we define as “pedagogical aggression”, which manifests itself in a variation of impolite answers whose purpose is to “punish” the interlocutor for a communicative error. This strategy is in contrast to what we call “empathy” strategy since - instead of trying to neutralize the interlocutor’s error - “pedagogical aggression” emphasizes it by “teaching” the addressee to be more considerate in adhering to norms. The material for the research was collected in the Russian National Corpus and analysed by drawing on discourse analysis, pragmatics and (im)politeness theories. The study showed that “pedagogical aggression” is realized in three face-aggravating communicative tactics: (1) a pseudo-question (rhetorical question or a question to the assumptions of an interlocutor), 2) mocking citations from interlocutor’s speech, 3) rhymed pseudo-answers. The last tactic was given special attention in the study. We grouped the pseudo-answers in four types corresponding to typical discourse situation. This tactic is based on an unspoken rule, according to which it is permissible to point out in a playful way a communicative error made by the interlocutor. In response to an inappropriate question with this or that interrogative pronoun (where, who, why, etc.), the speaker can allow himself or herself to “punish” the interlocutor with a pseudo-answer, so that he or she will be more careful, more attentive and will not repeat such mistakes. The considered tactic of rhymed pseudo-response is rooted in language with the help of formulaic phrases. The research contributes to (im)politeness theory and the study of communicative interaction.

scholarly journals THE RELEVANCE OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FOR TRANSLATION STUDIES

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-152
Author(s):  
Alexandre Szeremeta ◽  
Iliane Tecchio ◽  
Roseni Silva
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Do So

The present study aims at promoting a reflection on the relevance of the Discourse Analysis for the Translation Studies based on the theories of the main researchers for both areas. To do so, this paper is divided into three sections. In the first section, we deal with Discourse Analysis theories based on Brown and Yule (1983); Fairclough (1992) and Hatim and Mason (1990). In the second section, we present some aspects of the theories related to Translation Studies. In the following section, we raise some reflections regarding the interface Discourse Analysis and Translation Studies according to the theories presented previously. Finally, we present the conclusions concerning the research carried out in this paper.

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