The Discourse of Conflict in Social Media Networks

Frolence Rutechura

Abstract


Conflict in online discussions has the potential to polarise individuals’ perceptions
of any online political related post, yet political communication scholarship has paid
little attention to systematic study of how verbal attacks play out in online discussions
of political related posts. This paper takes a critical look at some samples of online
readers’ comments to the news post issued by the European Union condemning the
rise of political-related violence in Tanzania on the Tanzania based online
platform−JamiiForums−in order to see how language is used by individuals to
express their view points and opinions on the news event. This study applies van
Dijk's (2006) socio-cognitive approach of positive-self and negative-other
polarisation in the readers' comments on the news event.

Keywords: social media network, conflict discourse, self presentation, other
presentation.


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References


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