Description
Book SynopsisIn recent years, text and media linguistics have focused on genres in the new media. This is almost always accompanied by the question of the establishment and development of such content. Due to the diversity of genres and their dynamic development one can speak of an almost inexhaustible field of research. The book is located in this field of research. Its goal is to examine the origin and nature of readers’ comments by readers of French and English popular science magazines. Media content is dissected by using text linguistic tools. Transmedial cultures are explored across time, platforms, languages, and editing houses.
Table of Contents1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 11
1.1 Knowledge Transfer via the World Wide Web ......................................... 11
1.2 Cultural Turn in Linguistics ....................................................................... 12
1.3 Research Question ....................................................................................... 12
2. From Text to Text Linguistics .................................................................. 17
3. Genre .................................................................................................................. 21
3.1 Genres as Analytical Categories ................................................................. 21
3.2 The Multiple Layers of Genre ..................................................................... 24
3.3 Contrastive Textology ................................................................................. 24
3.4 Genre Change ............................................................................................... 33
3.5 Intertextuality ............................................................................................... 37
3.6 Genre and Culture ....................................................................................... 39
4. Previous Research ......................................................................................... 43
4.1 Letters to the Editor ..................................................................................... 43
4.2 Readers’ Comments ..................................................................................... 45
4.3 Facebook Comments ................................................................................... 49
4.4 Tweets ............................................................................................................ 52
4.5 Disqus & Livefyre ........................................................................................ 55
5. Conversation Analysis ................................................................................ 59
5.1 Comparing Conversational Patterns ......................................................... 61
5.2 Topic Changes .............................................................................................. 64
5.3 Topic Continuation .................................................................................. 66
5.4 Conflictual vs. Non-Conflictual Conversations ................................... 67
6. Corpus ............................................................................................................ 71
7. Diachronic Development of Letters to the Editor ...................... 77
7.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 77
7.2 Discover ..................................................................................................... 80
7.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................... 87
7.4 GEO ........................................................................................................... 93
8. Diachronic Development of Online Comments ......................... 99
8.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 99
8.2 Discover ................................................................................................... 107
8.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................. 112
8.4 GEO ......................................................................................................... 121
9. Multiple Commenters ........................................................................... 127
9.1 Commenters in Multiple Threads ........................................................ 127
9.2 Commenters on More Than One Platform ........................................ 131
9.3 Long-Term Commenters ...................................................................... 134
10. Layout Comparison ............................................................................... 139
11. Situation ...................................................................................................... 149
12. Topic Management ................................................................................. 155
12.1 Examples of Topic Maintenance ........................................................ 155
12.2 Examples of Topic Change ................................................................. 162
12.3 Topic Changes within Conversations ................................................. 167
12.4 Interim Summary: Topic Maintenance and Topic Changes ............ 176
12.5 Quantitative Analysis of Topical Actions ........................................... 177
13. Qualitative Analysis ................................................................................ 181
13.1 Conflict Conversations ......................................................................... 181
13.2 Complete Support Conversations ....................................................... 198
13.3 Sharing with Friends ............................................................................. 208
13.4 The Use of Links .................................................................................... 210
13.5 The Use of Emoticons ........................................................................... 217
13.6 Hashtags ................................................................................................. 224
13.7 Quote Article ......................................................................................... 226
14. Quantitative Analysis ............................................................................. 233
14.1 Language Comparison .......................................................................... 233
14.2 Platform Comparison ........................................................................... 235
14.3 Comparison of Overall Magazine Websites ...................................... 239
14.4 Discussion of Results ............................................................................ 243
15. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 247
Appendix .............................................................................................................. 251
List of Figures .................................................................................................... 257
List of Tables ....................................................................................................... 259
References ............................................................................................................ 261
Corpus ................................................................................................................... 279
