BOMBING ON THE NETWORKS: THE DISCURSIVE JOURNEY TO GOING VIRAL
Viralization. Discourse Analysis. Journalistic discourse. Digital discourse.
In an increasingly digital world, “going viral on social networks” has become a goal to be achieved by those seeking visibility, status and, consequently, increased revenue. We are referring to ordinary people, celebrities, companies and also television journalism. When a topic, a video, a meme gains repercussion and reaches many people quickly, at the speed provided by social networks, it is said to have gone viral. Therefore, this research proposes to analyze, discursively, the construction of the effects of meaning in a situation of live journalistic coverage when something unexpected happens and goes viral. Our intention is to investigate which discursive resources are used and which are sil enced during this enunciation process, especially when an unforeseen event occurs and the scene itself receives more attention than the reported news itself. How do you explain something that happens during live coverage going viral? How can we analyze, from a discursive perspective, the meanings constructed through mistakes, the unexpected, the unusual, the surprise? What causes so much identification among viewers that motivates them to replicate television scenes on their social networks, message groups and chat circles? These are questions that we seek to answer in this research, within the theoretical-methodological framework of Discourse Analysis (DA), of French origin, based on the historical determination of meaning processes. When analyzing excerpts from live news coverage, we focus our work on the order and effects of meaning produced by the discourses of viral content, through socio-historical practices materialized in language and image. In this way, this research aims to contribute to expanding the understanding of AD in the context of digital television journalism, since the viralization of content covered in television news not only expands the reach of news, but also transforms power relations between the media and the public. Thus assuming an active role in building the media agenda.