Polémique de la vape et discours d’autorité entre influenceurs et discours institutionnels sur le WEB 2.0

Abstract

On July 26, 2019 the WHO affirms in its annual report that the electronic cigarette is "unquestionably harmful" to health. The reactions in platforms 2.0 are immediate: institutional actors, scientists and consumers speak for or against the position of WHO and the debates soon turns into a real 2.0 polemical debate, involving different authorities who express an opinion on the issue. In this study, I will focus on the construction of the discourse of authority of the vape influencers and on the analysis of the debate that was triggered following the WHO's decision in different Web 2.0 platforms (Twitter, Facebook and the comment space of online newspapers) in order to show some specificities of the circulation of authority in these digital spaces and, in particular, that this polemic is based on conflicts of authority and the variety of technodiscursive tools used by Internet users to construct or deconstruct authority in discourse.

Keywords

• authority
• digital discourse analysis
• e-cigarette
• influencers
• polemic