Stance,framing,and the construction of reality in Facebook comments about Taiwan’s same-sex marriage bills

Abstract

This study proposes an integrated framework to elucidate the process of socially constructing reality by examining how Facebook commenters argue over two same-sex marriage (SSM) bills in Taiwan. Through stance-taking, which involves evaluating, positioning and aligning with others, some commenters contest while others defend SSM by referencing the referendums and the laws. The analysis shows that (dis)alignments facilitate multiple ‘team performances’, that is, cooperative interactions that project competing definitions of the situation, or ‘frames’, within which events are interpreted differently: one bill is criticized as undemocratic while the other contradictory. This bottom-up approach emphasizes participants’ agentive role in shaping the public discourse. The discourse analysis of online comments illustrates reality as constituted by negotiation over taken-for-granted concepts in the digital age, while highlighting the intersubjectivity in large-scale platforms like Facebook and how online commenting is used to (re)frame issues.

Keywords

Discourse analysis frame stance reality construction Facebook comment social fact Taiwan same-sex marriage referendum social constructionism

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