Construction of Solidarity through Language Mode: Sociocultural Approach to Internet Discussion Forum

The situation of social  inclusion  could be considered  as situation of 'entering'  into community  that  brings the sense of individual/collective solidarity. The virtual community and internet forums could serve as example to follow and investigate  that mechanism as the Internet provides a social space in which people can construct participation in different types of social groups (Mann and Steward, 2000). These groups could construct sub-cultures (Williams, 2006) or small cultures (Holliday, 2004).  The culture of each community is based on members' lived experiences in various communities. Digital community has some specifics: in forms of participation, social status of participants,   modes of identity and behavior, etc. (Mann and Steward, 2000).  Researcher do not have any cultural markers beyond language reveals. Nevertheless these disembodied forum participants pass their subjective meanings and solidarity moods by digital texts as cultural markers and construct different forms of social (virtual) solidarity.  So the mechanism of forum solidarity could serve as a source for analyzing the nature of solidarity through  linguistic approach.

This empirical research was based on the discourse features of messages posted to several Internet discussion forums (mainly 'knowledge of practice' forums – medical, tourism forums and political solidarity forums in Russian-language blogs). The message texts were classified into three types (Morrow, 2006) : problem messages, advice messages and thanks messages, and salient discourse features of each message type were described and analyzed in terms of discourse function.  “Thanks messages” in this case  were interpreted as the first  linguistic sign of virtual solidarity.

That result turned author to the discussion of the notion of 'emotional climate' in new social media  as the 'intermediary between social structure and agency' and as  'a deeper structural reaction on political and social inequality' (Alice Baker, 2013).