Truan N.A.L. & Fischer F. (2023), Die digitale Hashtag-Kampagne rund um #CoronaEltern und #CoronaElternRechnenAb: Twitter-Positionierungspraktiken in der Pandemie
Article / Journal
Author(s):
Friederike Fischer
,
Naomi Truan
Year: 2023
Journal für Medienlinguistik 5(1): 1-33.
Keywords: Twitter, hashtags, COVID-19, pandemic, digital activism, community, protest, positioningLanguage(s): German
Abstract:
As kindergartens and schools closed down during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, two hashtags emerged on Twitter: #CoronaEltern (#CoronaParents) and #CoronaElternRechnenAb (#CoronaParentsDocumentTheCosts). In this paper, we examine the positioning practices around both hashtags as expressions of “digital activism” (Joyce 2010: VIII). One characteristic of the hashtag campaign is that political demands are hardly ever made directly. Rather, the participants resort to five main linguistic patterns: (1) they address different target groups; (2) they refer to different protagonists; (3) in the subcorpus #CoronaEltern specifically, they constitute themselves as a collective through (4) the recurring use of first-person narratives; (5) and generalization and typification. Our findings show that #CoronaParents are not just parents in times of a pandemic: #CoronaParents are only those who see themselves as such, participating in an evolving, at times misunderstood community.
https://doi.org/doi:10.21248/jfml.2023.48
Post created by: Lymor Wolf Goldstein