The Discourse of Social Media

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This is a course in the discourse analysis of everyday digital conversational interaction. We will examine the structure and use of language in electronic social media such as texting, Facebook, e-mail, Instagram, gChat, Snapchat, Twitter, online discussion boards, personal blogging, and so on. The class will survey prior research on this topic, and students will conduct original research by gathering and analyzing naturally-occurring discourse in one or more of these media. Students will present the findings of their research in small groups and to the entire class. The goals of the course are 1) to examine and analyze the structure and use of digital social media discourse in everyday interaction and 2) to investigate the ways that communicating via these media accomplishes and affects fundamental social activities such as creating joint understanding, building relationships, and displaying identities. The first half of each class will be devoted to lecture and discussion of the readings. The second half will be devoted to analysis and discussion of student-gathered discourse.