Cover not available

In:Conspiracy Theory Discourses
Edited by Massimiliano Demata, Virginia Zorzi and Angela Zottola
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 98] 2022
► pp. 319–342

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 14
Expressing stance towards COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Macedonian online forum discussions

 | AUE-FON University
 | Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje
Published online: 1 December 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.98.14mit
Abstract
This chapter examines how stancetaking strategies aid advocacy and refutation of prevalent COVID-19 related conspiracy theories on two Macedonian internet discussion fora. The socio-political background and the content of detected conspiracy theories debated in the forum threads are briefly discussed. The authors explore affective, epistemic and interpersonal positioning in posts by three groups of social actors: conspiracy theory proponents, conspiracy theory opponents and a group of undecided. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of selected discussion sequences the chapter draws attention to dominant patterns of stancetaking in conspiracy theory argumentation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Related work
  • 3.Socio-cultural background
  • 4.Data and research procedure
  • 5.Stance dimensions analysis
    • 5.1Affect
      • 5.1.1Results
      • 5.1.2Discussion
    • 5.2Investment
      • 5.2.1Results
      • 5.2.2Discussion
    • 5.3Alignment
      • 5.3.1Results
      • 5.3.2Discussion
  • 6.Summary and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (23)
References
Aupers, Stef. 2020. “Decoding Mass Media/Encoding Conspiracy Theory.” In Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories, ed. by Michael Butter and Peter Knight, 469–482. Oxford and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barton, David, and Carmen Lee. 2013. Language Online. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baym, Nancy K. 1996. “Agreements and Disagreements in a Computer-Mediated Discussion.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 29 (4): 315–345. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, and Edward Finegan. 1989. “Styles of Stance in English: Lexical and Grammatical Marking of Evidentiality and Affect.” Text 9 (1): 93–124.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bieber, Florian, Tena Prelec, Dejan Jović, and Zoran Nechev. 2020. The Suspicious Virus: Conspiracies and COVID-19 in the Balkans. Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group – BiEPAG.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blanuša, Nebojša. 2020. “Conspiracy Theories in and about the Balkans.” In Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories, ed. by Michael Butter and Peter Knight, 596–609. Oxford and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breeze, Ruth. 2020. “Angry Tweets: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Anger in Populist Political Discourse.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8 (1): 118–145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crystal, David. 2001. Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W., and Elise Kärkkäinen. 2012. “Taking a Stance on Emotion: Affect, Sequence, and Intersubjectivity in Dialogic Interaction.” Text and Talk 32 (4): 433–451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2007. “The Stance Triangle.” In Stance Taking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ehrhardt, Claus. 2014. “Politeness and Face Work in German Forum Communication.” In Face Work and Social Media, ed. by Kristina Bedijs, Gudrun Held, and Christiane Maaß, 84–107. Münster: Lit-Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1967. “On Face-Work: An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction.” In Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, ed. by Erving Goffman, 213–231. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Christian, and Wolfram Bublitz (eds.). 2017. Pragmatics of Social Media. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra (ed.). 2009. Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford Scholarship Online. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott F., Umashanthi Pavalanathan, Jim Fitzpatrick, Xiaochuang Han, and Jacob Eisenstein. 2018. “Interactional Stancetaking in Online Fora.” Computational Linguistics 44 (4): 683–718. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A. (ed.). 2010. “Special issue: Politeness and Impoliteness in Computer-Mediated Communication.” Journal of Politeness Research 6 (1): 1–5. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A., Brook Bolander, and Nicol Höhn. 2015. “Introducing Relational Work in Facebook and Discussion Boards.” Pragmatics 25 (1): 1–21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luzón, María José. 2013. “‘This is an Erroneous Argument’: Conflict in Academic Blog Discussions.” Discourse, Context and Media 2 (2): 111–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marcoccia, Michel. 2004. “On-line Polylogues: Conversation Structure and Participation Framework in Internet Newsgroups.” Journal of Pragmatics 36 (1): 115–145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, James R. and Peter R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myers, Greg. 2010. The Discourse of Blogs and Wikis. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue