“New Sincerity” in Social Media Texts: Intentions, Effects and Speech Features

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study on the phenomenon of “new sincerity” examined on the material of posts on social networks (about 2 thousand contexts in total). It has been noticed that while in registered media the phenomenon mainly exists as initiated by the journalist (in the genres of interviews with famous people), in social media it acts as an initiative of the author. The object of the study was the intentions of the authors of the posts, manifested in their speech, as well as the feedback that the authors received in response to their confession. The discursive approach used in the study has demonstrated the correlation between the topics of confessional posts and the general tasks of public social networks, between author’s intentions and word usage. Thus, feminist public accounts are created specifically to demonstrate those aspects of women’s life in society that have not been publicly discussed before. Borrowed vocabulary is widely used in such cases, as well as words that belong to the field of psychotherapy. Confessional posts on the authors’ personal accounts are much rarer, more varied in topic, most often aimed at creative self-expression and focused on a circle of familiar people. The types of addressees’ reactions to confessional posts are characterized: from distrust of what has been said to support with a demonstration of their similar experience and advice. The research contributes to the development of communication studies in general and media text linguistics in particular.

Keywords

• new sincerity
• social networks
• feminist media discourse
• vkontakte
• author’s intention