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In:Social Media and Society: Integrating the digital with the social in digital discourse
Edited by Majid KhosraviNik
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 100] 2023
► pp. 38–59

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Digital practice as discriminatory discourse

Technological meaningmaking, affect, and representation of Henan people on Chinese news portals

 | University of Warwick, UK
Published online: 14 April 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.100.03pen
Abstract
This chapter incorporates and draws on the concept of affect to examine how users’ discursive practices are reshaped by the design of interactive digital platforms. An affective critical discourse analysis approach is developed to analyse the affective-discursive loop by using Internet users’ practice of regional discriminatory discourses against Henan people as a case study. Through a comparison between users’ differing practices on two major Chinese news portals – Tencent and NetEase – this chapter reveals the extent to which regional discrimination is amplified by the locative IP-address function of NetEase news portal’s user commentary system. This chapter makes a methodological contribution in response to the CDS notion of discursive power in the digital realm.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Contextualising regional discrimination against Henan people
    • Participatory culture and digital communication
    • Media discourse and regional discrimination
  • Affective CDA
    • Affect-technology dynamics on Chinese news portals
  • Approach and the case
  • Analysis and discussion
    • Contextualised by media discourses
    • Encouraged in peer-to-peer interactions
    • Locative IP-address function as a discursive reinforcer
  • Conclusion: The digital affective-discursive loop and regional discriminatory discourses
  • Notes
  • References
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