A cross-cultural analysis of celebrity practice in microblogging
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.33060Keywords:
celbrity discourse, rapport managment, twitter, weibo, speech actAbstract
This study attempts to explore how celebrities manage rapport with followers through an array of speech acts in microblogging – the essential building blocks of virtual identity on social media. Six months of postings of eight of the most-followed Twitter and Weibo celebrities from USA and China were retrieved and analysed. A taxonomy of nine speech acts for rapport management was identified to give a categorised descriptive snapshot of celebrities’ microblogging discourse. The results revealed that the celebrities from both countries employ self-disclosing speech acts extensively to report events, anecdotes, or initiate small talk with fans for solidarity building. In addition, the attention fostered by the personalised, affective, and eye-catching self-disclosure posts is frequently directed to the posts promoting their professional activities or products to commercialise the solidarity as much needed for maintaining a strong fan base. In general, the celebrity practices in USA and China display a converging trend as the prevalent speech acts are largely overlapping across cultures, while culture-specific microblogging behaviours were also identified from the less frequently performed speech acts.
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Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615184
Wikström, P. (2014). #srynotfunny: Communicative functions of hashtags on Twitter. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 27, 127–152.
Wu, D., & Lin, M. (2017). Speech acts and facework by Chinese celebrities on Weibo. In X. Chen (Ed.), Politeness phenomena across Chinese genres (pp. 119–134). Sheffield: Equinox.
Zappavigna, M. (2012). Discourse of Twitter and social media: How we use language to create affiliation on the web. London: Continuum.
Zappavigna, M. (2014). Enacting identity in microblogging through ambient affiliation. Discourse & Communication, 8(2), 209–228. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481313510816
Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1816–1836.
Arundale, R. B. (2010). Constituting face in conversation: Face, facework, and interactional achievement. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(8), 2078–2105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.12.021
Baird, C. H., & Parasnis, G. (2011). From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy and Leadership, 39(5), 30–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878571111161507
Benwell, B., & Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813085
Chambers, D. (2013). Social media and personal relationships: Online intimacies and networked friendship. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137314444
Crystal, D. (2010). Internet language. In L. Cummings (Ed.), The pragmatics encyclopedia (pp. 234–236). London: Routledge.
Dayter, D. (2014). Self-praise in microblogging. Journal of Pragmatics, 61, 91–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.11.021
Dayter, D. (2016). Discursive self in microblogging: Speech acts, stories and self-praise. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.260
Goffman, E. (1955). On facework: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. Psychiatry, 18, 213–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1955.11023008
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual. Chicago: Aldine Publishing.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Honeycutt, C., & Herring, S. C. (2009). Beyond microblogging: Conversation and collaboration via Twitter. Proceedings of the 42th Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences, Los Alamitos.
Herring, S. C., Das, A., & Penumarthy, S. (2005). CMC act Taxonomy. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/cmc.acts.html
Ilyas, S., & Khushi, Q. (2012). Facebook status updates: A speech act analysis. Academic Research International, 3(2), 500–507.
Kádár, D., & Pan, Y. (2013).Chinese discourse and interaction. Sheffield: Equinox.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2012). The Britney Spears universe: Social media and viral marketing at its best. Business Horizons, 55(1), 27–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.08.009
Kim, S., Zhang, X. A., & Zhang, B. W. (2016). Self-mocking crisis strategy on social media: Focusing on Alibaba chairman Jack Ma in China. Public Relations Review, 42(5), 903–912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.10.004
Lee, C. K. M. (2011). Micro-blogging and status updates on Facebook: Texts and practices. In C. Thurlow & K. Mroczek (Eds.), Digital discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 110–128). New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0006
Marter, D. (2013). Variation in language: Faces of Facebook English. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511910
Marwick, A., & boyd, d. (2011). To see and be seen: Celebrity practice on Twitter. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 17(2), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856510394539
Nemer, D. (2016). Celebrities acting up: A speech act analysis in Tweets of famous people. Social Networking, 5(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.4236/sn.2016.51001
Page, R. (2010). Re-examining narrativity: Small stories in status updates. Text & Talk, 30(4), 423–444. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2010.021
Page, R. (2012a). Stories and social media: Identities and interaction. New York: Routledge.
Page, R. (2012b). The linguistic self-branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter: The role of hashtags. Discourse & Communication, 6(2), 181–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481312437441
Pan, Y., & Kádár, D. Z. (2011) Historical vs. contemporary Chinese linguistic politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1525–1539.
Rockwell, D., & Giles, D. C. (2009). Being a celebrity: A phenomenology of fame. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 40(2),178–210. https://doi.org/10.1163/004726609X12482630041889
Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and meaning: Studies in the theory of speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511609213
Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls, community and celebrity in the age of social networks. New York: Peter Lang.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000). Rapport management in talk: a framework for analysis. In H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally speaking: managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp.11–46). London: Continuum.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2005). (Im)politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: Unpackaging their bases and interrelationships. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 95–119. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.95
Spencer-Oatey, H., & Kádár, D. (2016). The bases of (im)politeness evaluations: Culture, the moral order and the East–West debate. East Asian Pragmatics, 1(1), 73–106.
Tiago, T., Tiago, F., Faria, S. D., & Couto, J. P. (2016). Who is the better player? Offfield battle on Facebook and Twitter. Business Horizons, 59(2), 175–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2015.11.003
Thurlow, C. (2013). Fakebook: Synthetic media, pseudo-sociality and the rhetoric of Web 2.0. Discourse, 2(0), 225–248.
Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615184
Wikström, P. (2014). #srynotfunny: Communicative functions of hashtags on Twitter. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 27, 127–152.
Wu, D., & Lin, M. (2017). Speech acts and facework by Chinese celebrities on Weibo. In X. Chen (Ed.), Politeness phenomena across Chinese genres (pp. 119–134). Sheffield: Equinox.
Zappavigna, M. (2012). Discourse of Twitter and social media: How we use language to create affiliation on the web. London: Continuum.
Zappavigna, M. (2014). Enacting identity in microblogging through ambient affiliation. Discourse & Communication, 8(2), 209–228. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481313510816
Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1816–1836.
Published
2018-08-31
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Zhang, M., & Wu, D. D. (2018). A cross-cultural analysis of celebrity practice in microblogging. East Asian Pragmatics, 3(2), 179-200. https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.33060
