Cover not available
Article published In:
Networked Practices of Emotion and Stancetaking in Reactions to Mediatized Events and Crises
Edited by Korina Giaxoglou and Marjut Johansson
[Pragmatics 30:2] 2020
► pp. 201–221

Any #JesuisIraq planned? [*] *

Claiming affective displays for forgotten places

ORCID logo | Université catholique de Louvain
| Université catholique de Louvain

The stem #jesuis followed by a toponym (e.g. #jesuisParis) has proved to be very productive in the gathering of affective publics (Papacharissi 2015) around causes of mourning, after terrorist attacks and other disasters. However, not all attacks have given rise to such massive affective use of #jesuis hashtags. Our goal is to examine how Twitter users claim similar displays of affect for these “other” places. We analyze 297 tweets in which the Twitter user utters a condolence speech act while simultaneously contesting the unbalanced affective reactions expressed concerning some places, e.g. “Any #JesuisIraq planned?”. We observe the geographical granularity of the referred place, the structural complexity of the tweet and, if present, the underlying motives for unbalanced reactions suggested by the Twitter users. By doing so, we show how Twitter is used to claim attention for places that are deemed underrepresented, thus confirming the importance of Twitter for expressing solidarity.

Keywords: hashtag, toponym, demonym, affective public, solidarity, Twitter
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research questions
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Method
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Geographical granularity
    • 5.2Structural complexity of the tweets
    • 5.3Defining underlying motives
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 6 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18059.dec
References
An, Jisun, Haewoon Kwak, Yelena Mejova, Sonia Alonso Saenz De Oger, and Braulio Gomez Fortes
2016 “Are You Charlie or Ahmed? Cultural Pluralism in Charlie Hebdo Response on Twitter.” In Proceedings of the 10th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM). Cologne. [URL]
AoIR: Association of Internet Researchers
2012 Ethical Decision-making and Internet Research 2.0: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. [URL] (accessed: 07/09/2018).
Badouard, Romain
2015 ““Je ne suis pas Charlie”. Pluralité des prises de parole sur le web et les réseaux sociaux.” In Le défi Charlie. Les médias à l’épreuve des attentats, ed. by Pierre Lefébure, and Claire Sécail, 187–220. Paris: Lemieux.Google Scholar
Bazin, Maëlle
2015 “L’énonciation d’un deuil national. Usages de “Je suis Charlie” dans les écritures urbaines.” In Le défi Charlie. Les médias à l’épreuve des attentats, ed. by Pierre Lefébure, and Claire Sécail, 153–186. Paris: Lemieux.Google Scholar
Beech, Richard
2015 “The First Person to Tweet #JeSuisCharlie – How It Became a Symbol of Defiance and Solidarity.” Mirror Online (9 Jan. 2015) Available at: [URL] (accessed: 04/07/2017).
Benski, Tova, and Eran Fischer
(eds) 2014 Internet and Emotions. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
boyd, danah
2010 “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications.” In A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, ed. by Zizi Papacharissi, 39–58. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bruns, Axel, and Jean Burgess
2015 “Twitter Hashtags from Ad Hoc to Calculated Publics.” In Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks, ed. by Nathan Rambukkana, 13–28. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
De Cock, Barbara, and Andrea Pizarro Pedraza
2018 “From Expressing Solidarity to Mocking on Twitter: Pragmatic Functions of Hashtags Starting with #jesuis across Languages” Language in Society 471: 197–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Lucena Ito, Liliane
2015 “CharlieHebdo. A repercussão ampliada em memes e hashtags.” In Anais do XIV congresso Ibero-Americano de comunicação IBERCOM 2015: Comunicação, cultura e mídias sociais, ed. by Ricardo Romancini, and Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes, 3321–3331. São Paulo: ECA-USP.Google Scholar
Dresner, Eli, and Susan C. Herring
2010 “Functions of the Nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and Illocutionary Force.” Communication Theory 201: 249–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulo, Alexandra
2015 “Introduction: Communicating Time and Place on Digital Media – Multi-layered Temporalities & (Re)localizations”. Discourse, Context and Media 91: 1–4. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giaxoglou, Korina
2015 “Entextualising Mourning on Facebook: Stories of Grief as Acts of Sharing.” New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 211: 1–2, 87–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giaxoglou, Korina, Katrin Döveling, and Stacey Pitsillides
2017 “Networked Emotions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Sharing Loss Online.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 61(1): 1–10. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giaxoglou, Korina
2018 “#JeSuisCharlie? Hashtags as Narrative Resources in Contexts of Ecstatic Sharing.” Discourse, Context & Media 221: 13–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giglietto, Fabio, and Yenn Lee
2017 “A Hashtag Worth a Thousand Words: Discursive Strategies around #JeNeSuisPasCharlie after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Shooting.” Social Media + Society January-March: 1–15.Google Scholar
Heyd, Theresa, and Mirka Honkanen, Mirka
2015 “From Naija to Chitown. The New African Diaspora and Digital Representations of Place.” Discourse, Context and Media 91: 14–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heyd, Theresa, and Cornelius Puschmann
2017 “Hashtagging and Functional Shift: Adaptation and Appropriation of the #.” Journal of Pragmatics 1161: 51–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hillis, Ken, Paasonen, Susanna, and Michael Petit
(eds.) 2015 Networked Affect. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hutchby, Ian
2001 Conversation and Technology. From the Telephone to the Internet. Cambridge: Wiley.Google Scholar
2014 “Communicative Affordances and Participation Frameworks in Mediated Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 721: 86–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Marjut, Sonja Kleinke, and Lotta Lehti
2017 “The Digital Agora of Social Media. Introduction.” Discourse, Context & Media 191 (October): 1–4. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Marjut, Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen, Filip Ginter, Lotta Lehti, Attila Krizsán, and Veronika Laippala
2018 “Opening Up #jesuisCharlie Anatomy of a Twitter Discussion with Mixed Methods.” Journal of Pragmatics 1291: 90–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mancera, Ana, and Ana Pano
2013 El discurso político en Twitter: Análisis de mensajes que “trinan”. Barcelona: Anthropos.Google Scholar
Naets, Hubert
2018 “Techniques de collecte et d’archivage des tweets: Partage de pratiques et d’outils.” In Pérenniser l’éphémère. Archivage et médias sociaux. coll. Publications des archives de l’UCL, ed. by Aurore François, Anne Roekens, Véronique Fillieux and Caroline Derauw, 215–237. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia Eds.Google Scholar
Papacharissi, Zizi
2015 Affective Publics. Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pizarro Pedraza, Andrea, and Barbara De Cock
2018 “Non-conforming Uses of #jesuisCharlie and Derived Hashtags on Twitter”. In Language and the new (instant) media ( Cahiers du Cental 9), ed. by Louise-Amélie Cougnon, Barbara De Cock, and Cédrick Fairon, 99–106. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Smyrnaios, Nikos, and Pierre Ratinaud
2017 “The Charlie Hebdo Attacks on Twitter: A Comparative Analysis of a Political Controversy in English and French.” Social Media + Society, January-March: 1–13.Google Scholar
Stark, Luke, and Kate Crawford
2015 “The Conservatism of Emoji: Work, Affect and Communication”. Social Media + Society July-December: 1–11.Google Scholar
Sumiala, Johanna, Minttu Tikka, Jukka Huhtamäki, and Katja Valaskivi
2016 “#JeSuisCharlie: Towards a Multi-method Study of Hybrid Media Events.” Media and Communication 4(4): 97–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wikström, Peter
2014 “#srynotfunny: Communicative Functions of Hashtags on Twitter.” SKY Journal of Linguistics 271: 127–152.Google Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele
2012 Discourse of Twitter and Social Media: How We Use Language to Create Affiliation on the Web. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
2014 “Ambient Affiliation in Microblogging. Bonding Around the Quotidian.” Media International Australia 1511: 97–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Searchable Talk: The Linguistic Functions of Hashtags.” Social Semiotics 25(3): 274–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Zappavigna, Michele & Lorenzo Logi
2021. Emoji in social media discourse about working from home . Discourse, Context & Media 44 ► pp. 100543 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.