APPLYING CDA IN SOCIAL MEDIA

ABSTRACT

This research is related the most social media service that are popular in this world. This social media
is very effective and quickly on giving information or entertainment like text, picture or video. The
research purpose is to investigate the interest of people especially teenegers to the trending topics of social
media. Moreover, the research influence media workers in producing news or entertainment and see how it
implicates the research on the study of DA. By using Fairclough’s theory, especially on interests of people.
The researcher attempts to explore how the social problem on interest of social mediaand complete the
approach with the theory.

KEYWORDS

Critical Discourse Analysis, Social Media, Theory Building, Investigated the interest, Theoritical
Frameworks

INTRODUCTION

In this research, we present CDA as a research approach. CDA is a type of discourse analytical
research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted,
reproduced and resisted by text and talk in social and political context. With such dissident research, CDA
take explicit position and thus want to understand, expose and ultimately resist social inequality.

CDA is not much a direction, school or specialization, next to the many other "approaches" in
discourse studies. Rather, the purpose to offer or different "mode" or "perspective" of theory, analysis and
application in the field. We may find a more or less critical perspective in such diverse areas as pragmatics,
stylistics, ethnography, media analysis, among others. Theory description, formation and explanation, also
in discourse analysis are sociopolitically "situated". And then we like or not CDA will ask questions about
the way specific discourse structure are deployed in the reproduction of social dominance, whether they are
part a conversation or a news report or other genres and contexts.Crucial for critical discourse analysts is
the explicit awareness of their role in society. Continuing a tradition that rejects the possibility of a “value-
free” science, they argue that science, and especially scholarly discourse, are inherently part of and
influenced by social structure, and produced in social interaction.

Thus the typical vocabulary of many scholars in CDA will feature such notions as "power",
"dominance", "hegemony", "ideology", "class", "gender", "race", "discrimination", "interest",
"reproduction", "institutions", and "social structure". In according to Fairclough and Wodak 1997: 271-80
the conclusion the main tenets of CDA as follow: CDA addresses social problem power relation are
discursive, ideological work, constitutes society and culture, historical, text and society is mediated and the
social action.
BACKGROUND: STRANDS OF CDA

If controlling discourse is a first major form of power, controlling people’s minds is the other
fundamental way to reproduce dominance and interest. Within a CDA framework, “mind control” involves
even more than just acquiring beliefs about the world through discourse and communication. Suggested
below are ways that power and dominance are involved in mind control. First, recipients tend to accept
beliefs, knowledge, and opinions (unless they are inconsistent with their personal beliefs and experiences)
through discourse from what they see as authoritative, trustworthy, or credible sources, such as scholars,
experts, professionals, or reliable media (Nesler et al. 1993). Second, in some situations participants are
obliged to be recipients of discourse, e.g. in education and in many job situations. Lessons, learning
materials, job instructions, and other discourse types in such cases may need to be attended to, interpreted,
and learned as intended by institutional or organizational authors (Giroux 1981). Third, in many situations
there are no pubic discourses or media that may provide information from which alternative beliefs may be
derived (Downing 1984). Fourth, and closely related to the previous points, recipients may not have the
knowledge and beliefs needed to challenge the discourses or information they are exposed to (Wodak
1987).

While not tied to a single methodology or theory, there are suggested types of approaches that fall
under the umbrella of CDA. A synopsis of theoretical position, methodological objectives, and data types
of these six approaches is provided as summarized from Wodak and Meyer (2008). This summary reveals
the flexibility of CDA. Foci of the approaches range from social actor to discourse structure. The
sociocognitive and social actors’ approaches give focus to the notion of an individual having agency within
social situations. The actions of those individuals influence the social structure and the interplay creates
perceptions that are shared by the social group. On the other hand, dialectical-relational and discourse-
historical approaches give focus to the structure of the social situation and language of which it is
constituted.The idea of using existing data, whether large or small sets, fits with social media research, as
there exists a plethora of data inside social media. In fact, Mautner (2005), to whom Wodak and Meyer
(2008) utilize the web for more studies, this is the kind of the studies:

1. Sociocognitive Approach (Teun van Dijk)

Theoretical position: the link between social systems and individual cognitive systems are
socially sharedperceptions.
Methodological objectives: development of context models/social representations of the
communicativesituation
Data: Existing text

2. Discourse-Historical Approach (Ruth Wodak and Martin Reisigl)

Theoretical position: connections between fields of action, genres, discourses and texts.
Methodological objectives: development of “conceptual tools relevant for specific social
problems”.
Data: Existing text, fieldwork, ethnography

3. Corpus Linguistics Approach (Gerlinde Mautner)

Theoretical position: linguistic extension of CDA
Methodological objectives: improved analysis through additional linguistic devices
Data: Large corpora of text
 4. Social Actors Approach (Theo van Leuuwen)
Theoretical position: individual actors constitute and reproduce social structure
Methodological objectives: detailed linguistic operationalization at the actor level
Data: Existing Text

5. Dialectical-Relational Approach (Norman Fairclough)

Theoretical position: language is “shaped by the social functions it has come to serve”.
Methodological objectives: analyze dialectical relationships between functions of signs
and other elements of social practices
Data: Existing text

The steps involved in the five CDA approaches relate to aspects inherent in social media. The simple
notion ofdiscourse provides a link between the approaches and the communication medium. Social media
is composed of actors,language structures, and meanings at both the local and global level all of which are
addressed within at least one CDAapproach. To better understand the connection between CDA and social
media, we discuss social media’s role as a discursivesystem.

CDA AND SOCIAL MEDIA AS A DISCURSIVE SYSTEM

By definition, discursive systems are comprised of multiple word views, also known as universes
of discourse (Strauss, Schatzman, Bucher, Ehrlich and Sabshin, 1964). These universes of discourse
manifest in communicative acts inside social media. Within those communicative acts, actors negotiate
shared meanings through dialog and interpretation. This is operationalized in social media through
structural features which “seem to foster ongoing discussion between their authors and their readers
making them more dialogic in nature than traditional Web sites” (Dickey and Lewis, 2010). These dialogic
exchanges enable such discourse actions as relationship building, social situation development and power
imbalances that can potentially affect or be catalysts to social issues. Social movements, cyber bullying and
online sexual predation of children are examples of social issues influenced or initiated by the discourse
within and/or structure of social media. The goal of most social movements is empowerment of the weak.

Social media has brought that empowerment to textual discourse among social media participants.
The motivation of empowerment aligns with CDA in that both serve to improve reality for low-power
societal groups. In contrast, cyber bullying and online sexual predation are situations in which vulnerable
populations are victimized through discourse within social media. In these cases, CDA can play a role in
understanding the power imbalances between perpetrators and victims in order to improve social media
environments for those vulnerable populations. A social movement is “a form of collective action that
articulates a social conflict and ultimately aims at transforming a social order; it is a process of action and
interaction involving as a fundamental element the construction of a collective identity” (Thorn 2007). This
definition pulls in the idea of discourse through the concepts of actions and interactions. The notion of
transforming a social order could relate to the ultimate concern of CDA, improving the lives ofordinary
people. One of the most recognized social movements in recent history was the Egyptian revolution.
Through texton Instagram people engaged in discourse, arranged protests and cause the government such
concern that it “shut down theInternet and cell phone networks across the country” (Nelson 2012).

This is a good example of relationship building,social situation development and power

imbalances evidenced through the discursive system of social media. A central notion in most critical work
on discourse is that of power, and more specificallythe social power of groups or institutions. Summarizing
a complex philosophicaland social analysis, we will define social power in terms of control. Thus, groups
have(more or less) power if they are able to (more or less) control the acts and minds of(members of) other
groups. This ability presupposes a power base of privileged accessto scarce social resources, such as force,
money, status, fame, knowledge, information,“culture,” or indeed various forms of public discourse and
communication (ofthe vast literature on power, see, e.g., Lukes 1986; Wrong 1979).Different types of
power may be distinguished according to the various resourcesemployed to exercise such power: the
coercive power of the military and of violentmen will rather be based on force, the rich will have power
because of their money,whereas the more or less persuasive power of parents, professors, or journalists
maybe based on knowledge, information, or authority. Note also that power is seldomabsolute. Groups
may more or less control other groups, or only control them in specificsituations or social domains.
Moreover, dominated groups may more or less resist,accept, condone, comply with, or legitimate such
power, and even find it “natural.”The power of dominant groups may be integrated in laws, rules, norms,
habits,and even a quite general consensus, and thus take the form of what Gramsci called“hegemony”
(Gramsci 1971). Class domination, sexism, and racism are characteristicexamples of such hegemony. Note
also that power is not always exercised in obviouslyabusive acts of dominant group members, but may be
enacted in the myriad oftaken-for-granted actions of everyday life, as is typically the case in the many
formsof everyday sexism or racism (Essed 1991). Similarly, not all members of a powerfulgroup are
always more powerful than all members of dominated groups: power isonly defined here for groups as a
whole.

For our analysis of the relations between discourse and power, thus, we first findthat access to
specific forms of discourse, e.g. those of politics, the media, or science,is itself a power resource. Secondly,
as suggested earlier, action is controlled by ourminds. So, if we are able to influence people’s minds, e.g.
their knowledge or opinions,we indirectly may control (some of) their actions, as we know from
persuasionand manipulation.Closing the discourse–power circle, finally, this means that those groups who
controlmost influential discourse also have more chances to control the minds andactions of
others.Simplifying these very intricate relationships even further for this chapter, we cansplit up the issue
of discursive power into two basic questions for CDA research:
1 How do (more) powerful groups control public discourse?
2 How does such discourse control mind and action of (less) powerful groups, andwhat are the social
consequences of such control, such as social inequality?I address each question below.We have seen that
among many other resources that define the power base of agroup or institution, access to or control over
public discourse and communication isan important “symbolic” resource, as is the case for knowledge and
information (vanDijk 1996). Most people have active control only over everyday talk with familymembers,
friends, or colleagues, and passive control over, e.g. media usage.

In many Teun A. van Dijksituations, ordinary people are more or less passive targets of text or talk,
e.g. of theirbosses or teachers, or of the authorities, such as police officers, judges, welfare bureaucrats,or
tax inspectors, who may simply tell them what (not) to believe or whatto do.On the other hand, members of
more powerful social groups and institutions, andespecially their leaders (the elites), have more or less
exclusive access to, and controlover, one or more types of public discourse. Thus, professors control
scholarly discourseteachers educational discourse, journalists media discourse, lawyers legaldiscourse, and
politicians policy and other public political discourse. Those whohave more control over more – and more
influential – discourse (and more discourseproperties) are by that definition also more powerful. In other
words, we here proposea discursive definition (as well as a practical diagnostic) of one of the
crucialconstituents of social power.

Similarly, argumentation may be persuasive becauseof the social opinions that are “hidden” in its
implicit premises and thus taken forgranted by the recipients, e.g. immigration may thus be restricted if it is
presupposedin a parliamentary debate that all refugees are “illegal” (see the contributions inWodak and van
Dijk 2000) Likewise, at the local level, in order to understand discoursemeaning and coherence, people
may need models featuring beliefs that remainimplicit (presupposed) in discourse.
THEORY BUILDING OF CDA IN SOCIAL MEDIA

The undeniable power of the media has inspired many critical studies in many
disciplines:linguistics, semiotics, pragmatics, and discourse studies. Traditional, oftencontent analytical
approaches in critical media studies have revealed biased, stereotypical,sexist or racist images in texts,
illustrations, and photos. Early studies of media language similarly focused on easily observable surface
structures, such as thebiased or partisan use of words in the description of Us and Them (and
Our/Theiractions and characteristics), especially along sociopolitical lines in the representationof
communists. The critical tone was set by a series of “Bad News” studies by theGlasgow University Media
Group (1976, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1993) on features of TVreporting, such as in the coverage of various
issues (e.g. industrial disputes (strikes),the Falklands (Malvinas) war, the media coverage of
AIDS.)Perhaps best known outside of discourse studies is the media research carried outby Stuart Hall and
his associates within the framework of the cultural studies paradigm(See, e.g., Hall et al. 1980; for
introduction to the critical work of culturalstudies, see Agger 1992a; see also Collins et al. 1986; for earlier
critical approaches tothe analysis of media images, see also Davis and Walton 1983; and for a later
CDAapproach to media studies that is related to the critical approach of cultural studies,see Fairclough
1995b. See also Cotter, this volume.)
An early collection of work of Roger Fowler and his associates (Fowler et al. 1979)also focused on
the media. As with many other English and Australian studies in thisparadigm, the theoretical framework
of Halliday’s functional systemic grammar isused in a study of the “transitivity” of syntactic patterns of
sentences (see Martin, thisvolume). The point of such research is that events and actions may be described
withsyntactic variations that are a function of the underlying involvement of actors (e.g.their agency,
responsibility, and perspective). Thus, in an analysis of the media accountsof the “riots” during a minority
festival, the responsibility of the authoritiesand especially of the police in such violence may be
systematically de-emphasized bydefocusing, e.g. by passive constructions and nominalizations; that is, by
leavingagency and responsibility implicit. Fowler’s later critical studies of the media continuethis tradition,
but also pay tribute to the British cultural studies paradigm thatdefines news not as a reflection of reality,
but as a product shaped by political,economic, and cultural forces (Fowler 1991). More than in much other
critical workon the media, he also focuses on the linguistic “tools” for such a critical study, such asthe
analysis of transitivity in syntax, lexical structure, modality, and speech acts. We are employing
Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach to the phenomena of predatory coercion of childrenwithin
social media. The corpus for the study is a subset of the Perverted Justice transcripts which included
“23,237 lines ofchat comprised of an estimated 112,455 words” (Albert and Salam, 2012). The constructs
from theory include coercion,alternate social realities, reactance, learned helplessness and social control.
Within this example, coercion is the use of power,activity control and intention alteration by a predator to
control the discourse of the social situation (Anderson, 2011).
Alternate social realities are the textual frames in which predators create the picture of a reality
which the child believeshe/she wants, but which is really in alignment with the predator’s desires (Entman,
1993). Reactance is a child’s engagementin behaviors/activities which authority figures attempt to restrict
(Thacker, 1992). Learned helplessness is a child’sresignation to a reality that will not change no matter
his/her actions (Thacker, 1992). Social control is a child’s engagementin behaviors/activities that he/she
feels will bring happiness, fairness and/or satisfaction (Selymes, 2011). Utilizing theseconstructs, a
proposed theoretical model was developed and then evaluated using the dialectical-relational
approach.Dialectical-relational approach (DRA) entails three steps; the first of which is discourse. This is
an evaluation of thetext between predators and children for choices and patterns in vocabulary, grammar,
cohesion, and text structure. From thisstep, instances of the proposed theoretical model revealed variation
in the application of coercion through the communicativeacts of discourse within social media. In the
second step of DRA, discourse as practice, the text was evaluated for speechacts, coherence, intertextuality
and institution process (Cukier et al., 2009; Sheyholislami, 2001). From this step, the effectsof the
relationships between the writer and reader of the discourse, structural effects of the discourse and
attributes of socialmedia on the discourse were revealed. In the final step of DRA, sociocultural practice,
the notion of online sexual predatorspropagating their ideology within social media, as well as the
reception of that ideology was addressed. Together, thisapproach and the theoretical constructs provide
insight into a theory of predatory coercion in social media from which changecan be envisioned to improve
the lives of ordinary people within society – specifically the vulnerable population of childrenwho are
using social media.Through this example online sexual predation of children is recognized as the social
issue. Social media isacknowledged as a discursive system with institutional attributes which effect
discourse. Contains a comparison ofAlbert, et al. Critical Discourse Analysis: Toward Theories in Social
MediaProceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois,
August 15-17, 2013. 5the principles for conducting critical research (Myers and Klein, 2011) with DRA
and extended to the predatory coercion insocial media example. While Myers and Klein assert that the
principles they put forth are not concrete instructions forconducting critical research, each principle is met
through the dialectical-relational approach of CDA. This alignment withcritical research principles adds
strength to the viability of CDA as an approach toward building social media theories.Element of Critique
Dialectical-Relational Approach Predatory Coercion in SocialMedia Example:

1. Principle of using core concepts from critical social theorists

Allows for use of constructs from pertinent domain theories utilizes constructs of coercion,
alternate social realities, reactance, learned helplessness and social control
2. Principle of taking a value position
Rooted in discourse, promotes the use of a discursive lens, employs lens of social media as a
discursive system
3. Principle of revealing and challenging.
Prevailing beliefs and social practicesIncludes evaluation of ideology and hegemony,
potentially challenging what is ‘known’ or accepted challenges the idea of online sex offenders
having weak ideological power
4. Principle of individual
Emancipation provides mechanism for revealinghuman needs, potential and self reflection
through discourse shows how sexual predators areable to fulfill their ideological desires
through social media
5. Principle of improvements in Society
Includes step for evaluating and recommend improvements to society and culture impacted by
context of study recommends further research ofonline sexual predator communicative acts
towardimproved protection for children online.
6. Principle of improvements in social theories
Allows for theoretical enhancements through use of domain theories and recommendations for
society improvements.

Proposes theoretical model forstudy of predatory coercioninside social media Execution of CDA
through a Principles of Critical Research Lens Adapted from (Myers & Klein, 2011)As previously
mentioned, there are also recommended principles for utilizing a critical realist (CR) paradigm withcase
studies in IS research. It contains a comparison of the principles of a critical realist approach put forth by
Wynnand Williams (2012) with the dialectical-relational CDA approach. Similarities exist between critical
realism and dialecticalrelationalCDA. Both paradigms study events which are comprised of social
structures, physical structures and contextualenvironments. Additionally, both employ the idea of power
and the notion that the social and physical structures can impactthe contextual environment and thus the
event. A strength shared by these paradigms is the method of revealing causality. CRdescribes causality
through details regarding “the means or processes by which events are generated by structures, actions,and
contextual conditions involved in a particular setting” (Wynn and Williams 2012). CDA widens the scope
tospecifically include “social and cultural structures, relations and processes” (Sheyholislami, 2001 ).There
is a difference between CDA and CR that is important for social media theorists. That differentiating
aspect ofCDA is the initial step of discourse analysis. In a very literal sense this step utilizes linguistic
techniques to examine thestructure and content of the text to identify the manifestation of theoretical
constructs within the discourse. Researchers canthen examine how the textual discourse is related to the
social structure and if there is reciprocity of effect between them.This is important for social media theory
development due to the fact that within social media, text is the driving event. In theaforementioned study
regarding online sexual predation of children that text is the mechanism employed by predators tocoerce
children toward victimization. Understanding how that text is created and transformed is a necessary step
inunderstanding the power imbalance between predators and children and how those discourses secure
power for the predators.

CONCLUSION

Critical Discourse Analysis offers one theoretical framework to address the deficit of social media
theories in IS. The current paper presents the six approaches of CDA, outlining its use in the study of social
issues. Social media is described as a discursive system that embodies social issues. Then, the dialectical-
relational approach of CDA is compared to the principles of critical research in IS, resulting in an
alignment. An example of the dialectical-relational approach applied within social media in order to
examine the online predation of children is provided as evidence. Additionally, CDA is compared to the
principles for critical realist research in IS. The result of this comparison reveals similarities between the
two, although CDA is noted as differing in its foundation on linguistic techniques. So, while CDA fits the
profile for critical research in IS and brings to the field a linguistic analysis technique for examination of
social phenomena, it is curious that researchers who specialize in CDA, a field which views discourse as
social practice, are not seizing “every opportunity to look at discourse in a medium which is now such a
key space for enacting social practice, and for reflecting and shaping social processes and problems. Future
steps in the study of online sexual predation of children using CDA will include testing of the developed
theoretical framework, application of grounded theory to the data through CDA for the purpose of
exploration to ensure all pertinent constructs are represented in the theoretical framework and follow up
testing if this step results in changes to that model. Critical Discourse Analysis offers a theoretical
framework for the study of social issues through analysis of discourse. Social media is a discursive system
in which social issues are enacted through textual discourse.

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