The Discourse Behind Textual and Visual Representations of Mindfulness on Twitter
2016 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Our study is a collaborative dissertation paper that combines two different
discourse analyses, textual and visual, based on a common theoretical background.
The introduction guides the reader through the content of the study, at the same time
offering a brief context of research. The aim of the paper is to address a gap that we
identified in the study of mindfulness, namely a critical approach, from a media and
communication perspective, of how this concept is represented in social media. Even
though our research questions are developed separately in the analyses conducted
independently, they can be reduced to three core questions: ‘How is the meaning of
mindfulness constructed on Twitter?’, ‘Are there any power relations in the
construction of discourse and if they exist, how do they shape the discourse?’, ‘How
does the reproduction and circulation of discourse shape its meaning through
intertextuality?’
For answering these questions existing research from psychology,
sociology and business has been reviewed, with the mention that no relevant
media and/or communication studies on mindfulness have been found.
Therefore, our attempt to open a discussion in the field required a theoretical
frame of analysis. For that we chose Michel Foucault’s discourse theory, adding
observations on relations of power, and Stuart Hall’s theories of representation.
The methodologies used for the two analyses are Fairclough’s and Rose’s
approaches of applied discourse analysis. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and
Visual Discourse Analysis (VDA) are two detailed disseminations of qualitative
data, conducted separately. Results show that there is a mainstream discourse
that portrays mindfulness as a positive practice. This type of discourse might be
invested with power, however our conclusions in this sense are restrained by the
limitations of access to Twitter data. High intertextuality and low reliability on
the scientific discourse further suggested in our case that the understandings of
mindfulness are subject to change due to an advanced grade of interpretability
among Twitter users.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö högskola/Kultur och samhälle , 2016. , p. 63
Keywords [en]
mindfulness, communication, twitter, discourse analysis, mindfulness, communication, twitter, discourse analysis
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-24005Local ID: 21048OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-24005DiVA, id: diva2:1483974
Educational program
KS K3 Media and Communication Studies (master)
2020-10-272020-10-272022-06-27Bibliographically approved