This research was conducted in order to study and analyze the online discourse in Japanese. It is a Twitter-specific study on the Japanese linguistic features of computer-mediated communication. A total of 887 tweets from 30 Japanese celebrities between ages 19-31 were divided by age, gender, degree of formality and genre, and a content analysis was conducted on them to compare the use of orthographic and lexical features by using previous studies by Nishimura (2003) and Miyake (2007) as a framework. The results show that Twitter was most commonly used for replies to other Twitter users, to maintain social media presence and for self-promotion. Tweets were most commonly sent via iPhone, written in informal style. The findings also offer further proof on how strongly the graphic signs are part of online communication, and confirm that many technology-inspired slang words and abbreviations are created for different media platforms.

Within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies, this thesis looks at how Hazara peoples’ online activism during the Afghanistan 2009 and 2014 Presidential Elections contributed to promoting civil society and democratic values in Post-2001Afghanistan. The data corpus for this research is a selection of twelve published articles from the four most popular Hazara activists’ affiliated websites: The Republic of Silence, Hazara People International Network, Kabul Press and Hazara Net. Hazara writers applied a critical, but divisive and ethnocentric language to construct a political discourse during the Afghan national elections and polarized Afghan ethnic groups and differentiated between people and politicians. Despite the divisive and polarized discourse strategies in their texts, Hazara writers opened a fresh space for ethnic conversation in the Afghan online public sphere during the elections and enriched Afghan mainstream media discourse. The data corpus unveiled political activism based on historical consciousness, collective adaptability to social changes, and a continuous interest in education and civic activism as main Hazara online themes in post-2001 Afghanistan. These Hazara texts promote one role in particular for Hazaras, and that is to protest yesterday’s oppressive history, correct today's political structures and transform tomorrow's political culture in Afghanistan, so that all activists share something more than race, blood and ethnicity.

The problem exists that there are no education initiatives focused on teaching and taking into practice the skills of effective interprofessional discourse in this online, asynchronous, professional environment. The purpose of this study was to examine whether it is possible for students in the health professions to learn to practice effective interprofesssional online discourse in an electronic health record. This was a mixed methods study that included both quantitative ad qualitative inquiry underpinned by post positivism and used a method triangulation research design model. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed from an educational intervention and simulated electronic health record exercise. The students' perceptions of their practice in an electronic health record did not necessarily match their knowledge and skills in this group of students. Emergent themes from the study pointed in the possible direction of perceived value of the exercise, prior experience in an electronic health record, and logistical barriers to the activity. Perceived time constraints was a particularly strong concern of the students. The emergent themes might be valuable considerations for other interprofessional programs looking to implement similar activities concerning the electronic health record.

The purpose of this study was to analyze Swedish Twitter users participation in Swedish migration politics in an online setting by examining the interactions and discussions between users on the platform the day before the Swedish election of 2018. The potential insight into political views that social media presents gave us an opportunity to explore how Swedish citizens, politicians, or members of other social and professional roles involved themselves politically and how they interacted with others on Twitter. We did this by examining the hashtag “#Migpol” (short for “Migration politics”). We collected and analyzed a total amount of 328 tweets and an additional 400 replies to these tweets where users had included the hashtag. This was done in order to construct our network which consisted of the platform functions @mention and @reply. It was through these we analyzed users interactions with other users and organizations. To perform our study, we chose a mixed method approach of network analysis and a secondary method inspired by discourse analysis. For our analysis, we applied a theoretical framework consisting of Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory and Alessandro Pizzorno’s ideas on political participation. Pizzorno’s ideas from 1970 were reworked and adapted in order to fit for research on social media. The result of the network analysis was displayed as a visualization that revealed how multiple users obtained various values of centrality due to the interaction rate between users, it also revealed that the total number of mutual relationships in the network was low and instead there was a prevalence of clusters of smaller networks inside the much larger network. The tweets containing the hashtags were then analyzed with the method inspired by discourse analysis as we wanted a deeper insight into how the users expressed their opinions. This was also done in order to find dominant topics and whether or not the discourse was affected by the actor’s centrality value. The result of this showed that an anti-immigration party and the party leader public debate on the 7th of September held a great focus while there was a third subject emerging which showed signs of nationalism. The discourse was not affected by centrality value but an indication that some actors were more known inside the hashtag than others. / Syftet med den här studien var att analysera svenska Twitter användares deltagande i svensk migrationspolitik online genom att forska kring interaktioner och diskussioner mellan olika användare på plattformen en dag före Riksdagsvalet 2018. Den potentiella insynen i politisk åskådning som sociala medier kan bistå med gav oss en möjlighet att utforska hur svenska medborgare, politiker, eller medlemmar i andra sociala- samt yrkesroller involverar sig i politisk aktivitet och hur de interagerade med andra på Twitter. Forskningen i detta arbete har skett genom att granska hashtagen “#Migpol” (kort för migrationspolitik). Vi samlade och analyserade totalt 328 tweets samt ytterligare 400 svar på dessa, där användarna inkluderat hashtagen. Det var med dessa vi konstruerade vårt nätverk som består av @replies och @mentions och det var genom dessa plattforms funktioner som vi också analyserade användarnas interaktioner samt diskussioner med andra användare och organisationer. Vi använde oss utav en metod blandning bestående av nätverks analys och en sekundär metod inspirerad av diskurs analys. Som underlag för vår analys, använde vi oss utav ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av Erving Goffmans dramaturgiska teori samt Alessandro Pizzornos idéer om politiskt deltagande. Pizzornos idéer från 1970 var återskapade och anpassade för att de skulle kunna bli applicerbara för forskning på sociala medier. Resultatet av nätverksanalysen visade att många av de svenska användare fick olika värden av centralitet på grund av att dom integrerade i stor utsträckning med varandra, dock visade det sig att ömsesidiga förhållanden i nätverket var väldigt få. Resultatet visade också att det fanns flera mängder av mindre kluster av nätverk inom det större nätverket. Vi analyserade också de tweets som innehöll hashtagen med metoden inspirerad av diskursanalys, detta då ville få en insikt i hur användarna uttryckte sina åsikter i diskussioner som uppstått. Det var också på så vis vi kunde urskilja vilka ämnen som dominerade inom diskussionerna samt huruvida centralitet påverkade diskussionerna. Resultatet av denna analys visade att ett parti med antimigration åsikter och partiledardebatten som ägde rum den 7:e September var i fokus men att det även fanns spår av ett tredje resultat som indikerade en viss nivå av nationalism. Resultatet visade också att centralitet påverkade inte diskussionerna, dock fann vi en indikation på att vissa användare kan vara mer kända inom hashtagen än andra.

<p>This study uses Incivility Spirals and Uses and Gratifications frameworks to explore how people discuss scientific topics on the social media site Reddit. Specifically, the goals of this project were to develop a new typology of online messages, examine how different factors influence online discourse, and determine whether uses and gratifications vary between Subreddits. The dataset consisted of comments on the top ten posts of 2019 from r/EverythingScience and r/Science. These Subreddits were examined because, although they both focus on science, they differ in terms of group rules and moderator style. Human coders and the text analysis software Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count were used to evaluate the comments on a series of dichotomous and continuous variables. These variables were used in a two-step cluster analysis to identify message typologies. Results indicate that there were three types of messages in the dataset: Polite Participation, Emotional Interrogation, and On Topic Information. Further analysis demonstrated that group norms and the first comment in a conversation impact the quality of discourse that takes place. Conversations on r/Science (the more strict Subreddit) that begin with an On Topic Information comment are more likely to be extremely deliberative, while conversation on r/EverythingScience that begin with an Emotional Interrogation comment are more likely to result in incivility spirals. Results also suggest differences in gratifications between Subreddits, with Redditors using r/Science for productive discussion and r/EverythingScience for heated debate. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, along with avenues for future research. </p>

Social media has become a safe place where users can discuss taboo topics, like mental health, with the purpose of creating awareness and de-stigmatization. However, online discussions on mental health have caused psy discourse to seep into the popular vernacular. This study aims to analyze how psychiatric terms (specifically bipolar, narcissist, sociopath, OCD and trauma) are used by TikTok users, the meanings they attribute to them and the contexts in which they occur. I aim to look at how recontextualization has affected the meaning, comparing it to the clinical sense. I also look at the social implications that these online interactions have and how social media communication practices work. A corpus was created from transcriptions of 150 TikTok videos that were analyzed with AntConc, looking for collocates and patterns in context. These videos were classified into three general categories: educational, evaluative and humorous. The results were then compared to the definitions found in the DSM-V (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) to find changes in meaning. The interpretation of the results is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis and tied to concepts like representation, identity and affiliation. Results show that almost half of the users apply these terms in a clinical sense while the other half do not. The context in which they are used varies among each of the terms. Although all of them are stigmatized concepts, each tends to show different levels of recontextualization and transformation of sense. Some are used in positive contexts like educating the public on the condition and sharing their own experiences to create visibility. However, others still carry connotations of stigmatization and negativity. The findings reflect the complexity of social media communication. Posts on social media act as tools to construct our identity, affiliate to certain groups, broadcast and learn new (mis)information. This study informs us on how recontextualization and social media users play a role in the transformation of meanings. It complements previous research on psychiatric terms use in social media, providing information about the interactions occurring on TikTok and contributing to document change on language use.