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Part of
Relationships in Organized Helping: Analyzing interaction in psychotherapy, medical encounters, coaching and in social media
Edited by Claudio Scarvaglieri, Eva-Maria Graf and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 331] 2022
► pp. 287–314

Twitter as a helping medium

Relationship building through German hashtag #depression

| University of Greifswald

This article analyzes the German discourse space #depression on Twitter regarding relationship building. The data basis is a corpus of German #depression tweets as well as follow-up communication. In the German #depression discourse space, users initiate social exchange. This is realized interactively through narration, the formulation of wishes, questions or requests, which evoke further reactions of the community. The basis for the relationship building, which will be demonstrated in a case study, are the technical affordances provided by the medium and the resulting potential for interaction.

Keywords: relationship, interaction, social media, hashtag, #depression, Twitter, German
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and method
  • 3.Twitter-specific interaction potentials
  • 4.Interaction potentials at the level of speech action
  • 5.A case example
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.331.13kab
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