Stories and Social Media: Identities and Interaction

257 Pages·2011·2.89 MB·English

by  Ruth E. Page

Stories and Social Media
Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics
1 Emergent Lingua Francas and
World Orders
The Politics and Place of English
as a World Language
Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew
2 The Economics of the
Multilingual Workplace
François Grin, Claudio Sfreddo and
François Vaillancourt
3 Stories and Social Media
Identities and Interaction
Ruth E. Page
Stories and Social Media
Identities and Interaction
Ruth E. Page
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of Ruth E. Page to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global.
Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper by
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Page, Ruth E., 1972–
Stories and social media : identities and interaction / Ruth E. Page.
p. cm. — (Routledge studies in sociolinguistics ; 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social media. 2. Narration (Rhetoric)—Social aspects. 3. Discourse
analysis, Narrative. 4. Storytelling—Social aspects. 5. Online social
networks. 6. Online authorship. 7. Online identities. 8. Identity
(Psychology) I. Title.
P96.N35P34 2012
302.23'1—dc23
2011024740
ISBN: 978-0-415-88981-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-14861-7 (ebk)
For my family

Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Permissions xiii
Preface xv
1 Introduction: Stories and Social Media in Context 1
2 Second Stories Told in Discussion Forums 24
3 Narratives of Illness and Personal Blogs 49
4 Storytelling Styles in Facebook Updates 66
5 Celebrity Practice: Stories Told in Twitter 93
6 Narrative and Commentary in Collaborative Storytelling 117
7 Space and Identity in Stories on the Move 140
8 Fakes, Fictions, and Facebook “Rape”: Narrative Authenticity 163
9 Familiar, Reconfi gured, and Emergent Dimensions of Narrative 186
Notes 211
Glossary 217
References 221
Index 237

Figures
1.1 Timeline of web genres and terms. 6
1.2 Narrative dimensions and possibilities. 11
4.1 Comparison of Attitudinal APPRAISAL subtypes in 2008
and 2010 updates (as a percentage of all APPRAISAL). 76
4.2 Authorship of updates with APPRAISAL according to
gender (as a percentage of all updates). 76
4.3 Comparison of the number of updates containing at least
one nonverbal display of affection in 2008 and 2010,
according to the gender of the update author. 78
4.4 Total nonverbal displays of affection according the gender
of the update author (as a percentage) for 2008. 79
4.5 Total nonverbal displays of affection according the gender
of the update author (as a percentage) for 2010. 79
4.6 Comparison of the number of updates containing at least
one intensifi cation device. 80
4.7 Comparison of intensifi cation devices in 2008 and 2010
according to the gender of the updater (as a percentage). 81
4.8 Comparison of intensifi cation resources (as a percentage of
all intensifi cation) according to the age and gender of the
updater in the 2008 dataset. 82
4.9 Comparison of intensifi cation resources (as a percentage of
all intensifi cation) according to the age and gender of the
updater in the 2010 dataset. 82
4.10 Distribution of comments according to the gender of the
commenter (as a percentage of all comments). 87
4.11 Percentage of comments appended to updates, according to
the age and gender of the updater. 87
4.12 Percentage of “likes” appended to updates, according to the
age and gender of the updater. 88
4.13 Distribution of all affective style devices compared with
distribution of all interaction (comments and likes) across
updates in 2010. 89