Doing identity on Facebook: A discourse analytic study of posts shared among older Greek-Cypriot users

Tilliridou, Stephanie 2023. Doing identity on Facebook: A discourse analytic study of posts shared among older Greek-Cypriot users. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

While older adult users of the internet account for a significant and steadily increasing proportion of Facebook’s user base, our understanding of how these users communicate on their Facebook timelines and construct identities online remains limited. The broader objective of this thesis is to advance our knowledge on this topic and, in doing so, to contribute to the growing body of research on digital media and identity performance, which has so far focused predominantly on younger adult users. More specifically, this thesis aims to examine: (i) what identity aspects older users project through their Facebook wall posts, and (ii) how such identities are projected through a range of linguistic and other semiotic resources. The data collection and analysis of the posts follows the broader framework of digital discourse analysis (Vásquez, 2022). For the purposes of this study, 2845 Facebook posts from 13 Greek-Cypriot Facebook users aged over 45 were collected over a six-month period in 2018. Drawing on content analysis, this study initially analyses the posts in terms of the communicative functions they fulfil and their potential for identity construction in the context of Facebook timelines. This analysis has revealed that the majority of the posts were used by the participants either to express humour or to communicate an opinion, highlighting the significance of humour and opinion-giving in identity construction by older users on Facebook. For this reason, the study undertakes a more detailed qualitative discourse analysis of posts expressing humour and opinion, with an emphasis on the linguistic and other semiotic strategies deployed by the participants in these messages. The findings of the study foreground the use of several discursive, linguistic and other semiotic tools for identity purposes, especially the strategic use of language and script choice, (in)directness, pronouns, storytelling, polyphony, non-standard punctuation markers and emoticons. With respect to the range of identities identified, hetero-normative gender identities and place identities are particularly prevalent in the sample and discussed in more detail and in relation to the concept of ‘age’. The study also contributes to the wider volume of research that argues that the online sphere and any practices developed there are not separate from offline discourses, practices and communication.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 May 2024
Last Modified:	20 May 2024 13:08
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/120921

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