Susanne Kopf | Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (original) (raw)

Journal Article by Susanne Kopf

New Media & Society, 26(4), 2024

This article deals with YouTube's advertiser-friendly content guidelines-the content rules dedica... more This article deals with YouTube's advertiser-friendly content guidelines-the content rules dedicated to defining what YouTube deems advertiser (un)friendly and that YouTube creators seeking to monetise their content through advertising have to follow. Specifically, this study addresses the textual composition of YouTube's regulations with a focus on occurrences of vagueness. Regarding methods of data analysis, I take a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach to YouTube's texts on advertiser-friendliness. That is, I take a wide-angle view on all concordance lines of 'content' and identify occurrences of different forms of vagueness. Findings suggest that at least 26% of the lines of 'content' detailing

Critical Discourse Studies, 2020

This paper focuses on the potential societal function of Wikipedia beyond serving as an encyclope... more This paper focuses on the potential societal function of Wikipedia beyond serving as an encyclopedia. That is, it assesses both theoretically and empirically whether talk pages (TP)-Wikipedia discussion sites that accompany the encyclopedic entries and provide spaces for debates among Wikipedia editors-may function as transnational public spheres. Despite the increasing number of studies on citizen engagement and participation in the age of social media, Wikipedia as an example of the participatory internet has received little research attention in this regard. This study redresses this research gap in two steps. Drawing on Habermas' concept of the public sphere and Fraser's and Eriksen's modifications thereof, Wikipedia's-specifically the TPs'-modus operandi is explored to evaluate whether TPs may serve as spaces for transnational political opinion formation. This theoretical exploration is complemented with an empirical assessment of a TP dedicated to the EU. The case study addresses if/to what degree Wikipedia editors have appropriated the TP to function as a transnational public sphere. Findings indicate that Wikipedia TPs can-and do-serve as general transnational public spheres.

Social Media + Society, 2020

This discourse analytical article deals with the power relations between social media corporation... more This discourse analytical article deals with the power relations between social media corporations and content creators in the context of monetization schemes of social media businesses, i.e., schemes that allow creators to monetize their social media content. Specifically, this study presents an analysis of discourse material pertaining to YouTube’s monetization scheme (the YouTube Partner Program [YPP]) to shed light on the broader point of how social media corporations position themselves in relation to creators who (seek to) earn money on social media. While some research on social media has focused on their potential to empower users/content creators, less optimistic scholars have addressed social media corporations generating massive profits by exploiting creators, for example, in the form of free digital labor. By comparison, there is a lack of research, especially empirical discourse analytical research, on creators’ paid digital labor and on how social media corporations conceptualize paid creators. This study redresses this gap regarding one of the oldest monetization schemes—the YPP. Using corpus linguistic tools to explore textual data from 46 YouTube sites detailing the YPP, this study homes in on references to content creators, YouTube, and how these players are connected to one another. The findings show that although the name YPP elicits the impression of cooperation on equal terms, YouTube represents itself as legislator, judge, and executive authority. This indicates that despite the ability of partnered content creators to share in the social media businesses’ profits, they do not inhabit a particularly empowered position.

Discourse & Society, 2020

This paper addresses how the Wikipedia community has grappled with controversial elements of the ... more This paper addresses how the Wikipedia community has grappled with controversial elements of the EU’s history from 2001 to 2019. It also examines what perspective on the EU the Wikipedia editors develop in debates about the institution’s history and if/how the community has (de)legitimised the EU’s existence today in the context of discussions about the EU’s predecessors. The data examined consist of Wikipedia contributors’ debates that took place on a Wikipedia discussion site (‘Talk Page’). Taking a corpus-assisted approach combined with argumentation analysis and aspects of Systemic Functional Linguistics, I found that Wikipedia editors repeatedly propose that Nazi Germany might have been a precursor of the EU today. However, the Wikipedia community ultimately rejects this notion and emphasises the voluntary nature guiding the EU’s creation process. Thus, while the EU’s legitimacy is indeed contested in the course of the debates, the Wikipedia community eventually rejects this challenge.

Diskurse - digital, 2019

Dieser Artikel behandelt die Verbindung der Kritischen Diskursstudien (KDS) und der Korpuslinguis... more Dieser Artikel behandelt die Verbindung der Kritischen Diskursstudien (KDS) und der Korpuslinguistik im Zuge eines Forschungsprojektes zu Repräsentation der EU auf den Diskussionsseiten der englischen Wikipedia. Hinsichtlich dieses Brückenschlags werden Synergieeffekte, aber auch potentielle Schwächen und damit verbundene Lösungsansätze aufgezeigt. Dabei wird u. a. dargelegt, wie korpuslinguistische Ansätze der Gefahr des cherry-picking entgegenwirken und die Kritischen Diskursstudien
wiederum kritische Reflexion der traditionell quantitativen Korpuslinguistik fördern.

CADAAD Journal, 2019

This paper complements theoretical and methodological considerations regarding social media in cr... more This paper complements theoretical and methodological considerations regarding social media in critical discourse studies as it addresses social media content policies as a key contextual element. Specifically, this paper argues that-and why-the exploration of content policies and their enforcement is indispensable when approaching social media platforms and social media data in particular from a critical perspective. A number of researchers have already begun to identify contextual elements that require particular attention when viewing social media and social media data through a CDS lens. However, social media sites' content policies, as pervasive contextual element, have not received adequate research attention yet. Drawing on Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) and recent developments in Social Media CDS (SM-CDS), this paper first demonstrates the existing gap in research. Then, it contends that social media sites' content policies deserve more detailed attention in SM-CDS, argues why this is the case and elaborates on the different aspects of content policies and policy enforcement that require examination. After detailed theoretical discussion of this, empirical evidence to support this argument is presented in the form of a case study of Wikipedia and Wikipedia data.

CfP Special Journal Issue

This special journal issue deals with how the Brexit phenomenon is recontextualised outside of th... more This special journal issue deals with how the Brexit phenomenon is recontextualised outside of the United Kingdom. We are interested in how the post-referendum withdrawal process has been discursively represented in different political, socio-cultural and economic settings as well as in how specific historical factors influence those representations. To complement previous research (Koller et al., 2019, Zappettini & Krzyżanowski, 2019), the focus of the special issue will be on non-UK discourses. The scope for articles is broad, encompassing various stakeholders, discourse domains and (supra-)national contexts. We welcome contributions that address, but are not limited to, any of the following:
- reactions by business organisations and economists
- fictional accounts (e.g. novels, films, comedy) - responses by national and supranational institutions and individuals
- citizens’ perspectives in online and offline forums
- representations of Brexit in news media
To reflect the interdisciplinary editorial team, we aim for this special issue to feature contributions from diverse fields of study and therefore invite researchers working in linguistics, discourse analysis, political science and international relations, communication and media studies, sociology and possibly others. The same broad approach applies to data and methodologies, including spoken, written or multimodal data, and quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods. Please send your abstract of up to 350 words (excl. references) to brexit.SJI@gmail.com by 31 July 2019.

Diskurse - digital, 2019

This paper focuses on the theoretical-methodological approach I take in my PhD project. First, a ... more This paper focuses on the theoretical-methodological approach I take in my PhD project. First, a brief introduction to my project is given, followed by a discussion of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) as a theoretical framework and Corpus Linguistics (CL) as a method of linguistic inves-tigation. In a next step, the integration of CDS and CL into Corpus-Assisted (Critical) Dis-course Studies (CADS) is presented, that is, an overview of what CADS is and the different realisations of CADS are provided. Subsequently, advantages of corpus-investigation in the field of (critical) discourse studies are discussed e.g. the opportunity to integrate quantitative and qualitative data examination. Apart from this, this talk also outlines some problematic as-pects and limitations with regard to CADS, for instance, data’s potential lack of contextual information considered paramount in CDS. Lastly, the question of how the advantages benefit and how the drawbacks are resolved in my project is addressed.

Discourse, Context & Media, 2017

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims at levelling the commercial playin... more The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims at levelling the commercial playing field between the European Union and the United States of America by, e.g., lowering tariffs to promote trade between the two economies. However, since early 2014, that is, even before the treaty negotiations could lead to concrete output, the free trade agreement has been faced with protests from both sides of the Atlantic and from individuals/groups from various ideological backgrounds. This paper draws on a corpus-assisted approach to examine how the TTIP is reported on in the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung (Krone). Among other reasons, the newspaper was chosen as a source of data due to its clout as “the most widely read paper in the advanced industrialized world” “[i]n terms of readership per capita […] (Art, 2006). Indeed, the newspaper’s influence has remained steady at a readership of 40 to 47% (Meyer & Rosenberger, 2015). The corpus examination has found that the newspaper predominantly employs a nationalist discourse in order to elicit its readership’s rejection of the TTIP. Apart from cultivating resistance against this trade agreement, the newspaper’s reporting on the TTIP might affect its readership in (further) honing and normalising nationalist attitudes and general opposition against international cooperation. Moreover, the Krone might attract hitherto unreached segments of the Austrian population who, opposing the TTIP, are willing to join the Krone’s counter-TTIP campaign and are then vulnerable to subscribing to the newspaper’s more general discursive choices.

Books Chapter by Susanne Kopf

Germanistik - digital, 2018

Discursivity, performativity and mediation in political discourse, 2018

This work deals with the recent “JeSuisCharlie” slogan and the political upheaval connected to it... more This work deals with the recent “JeSuisCharlie” slogan and the political upheaval connected to it. It examines the evolution of the English Wikipedia article on “JeSuisCharlie”.

The “JeSuisCharlie” logo was disseminated rapidly on various social media in response to the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and was then used on various organisations’/individuals’ websites. Besides massive public support, the slogan has also elicited counter-reactions. Wikipedia, as an almost real-time online encyclopaedia, allowed for the creation of an entry about the “JeSuisCharlie” phenomenon shortly after the logo went public. As a collaboratively-created website Wikipedia affords the unique opportunity of observing how this entry has evolved and how the (Wikipedia-) community is negotiating the representation of the controversial “JeSuisCharlie”.

A comparison of article versions from different points in time and an examination of the talk pages underlying the article, with focus on argumentation strategies and processes of re-contextualisation concerning the slogan, sheds light on Wikipedia contributors' evolving perspective of the “political slogan” (Wikipedia, 2015). Taking a critical discourse approach, different ideological stances are exposed through the above mentioned examination. This analysis of Wikipedia texts found that, while the intense usage of the logo online and offline seems to imply public consensus with regard to its meaning, actually, the signified of “JeSuisCharlie” appears to still be in flux. The existing conceptual imprecision allows room for the slogan to be manipulated and adapted to match various interests, social contexts and purposes. This means that each use of the logo is situated and cannot be read as identical in intention of expression with other instances of usage.

Wikipedia, (2015). Je suis Charlie. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Je_suis_Charlie&oldid=641460980 [Accessed 1 Feb. 2015].

Talks by Susanne Kopf

This ongoing project deals with representation(s)/constructions(s) of the European Union (EU) neg... more This ongoing project deals with representation(s)/constructions(s) of the European Union (EU) negotiated among contributors to the English Wikipedia between year 2001 and 2015. The study focuses on the Talk Page (TP) that accompanies the Wikipedia article on the European Union. This TP provides a space for Wikipedia contributors to discuss controversial editing and/or content issues regarding the article.
The EU has received considerable attention in applied linguistics, e.g. questions regarding language policy and discourses surrounding topics relevant to the EU have been researched in-depth. However, private individuals’ attempts to make sense of this sui generis when faced with the task of defining the EU have hardly been touched upon . Additionally, Wikipedia as a relatively new medium and a collaboratively-created online encyclopaedia has hitherto received comparatively little attention in applied linguistics.
Wikipedia allowed for the creation of an entry about the “EU” shortly after the inception of the website in 2001. From then on, contributors’ have engaged in discussions on what to include and exclude in the article on the EU and for which reasons to do so. Thus, Wikipedia affords the unique opportunity of investigating how the Wikipedia community has debated and grappled with its understanding of the EU since 2001.
This study presents a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis aiming to give a “rich and detailed perspective” on “delicate variations” in the data in order to arrive at conclusions with respect to the Wikipedia community’s view(s) on the EU. The corpus consists of the 28 archives and the current TP accompanying the Wikipedia article on the EU (appr. 600 000 tokens).
One finding is that while various topics connected to the EU led to discussions on Wikipedia at some point since the article-creation in 2001, some issues have been subject to heated debate throughout the Talk Page discussion. Among these are the question of whether to define the institution as a country-like entity or as a different form of institution altogether.

This paper is part of a larger research project dealing with how various language Wikipedias depi... more This paper is part of a larger research project dealing with how various language Wikipedias depict the “Je Suis Charlie" slogan connected to the recent Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris (France) and how these representations change over time. This work specifically presents findings with regard to the English, German and Italian Wikipedia.

The “Je Suis Charlie” image was developed and posted on twitter by Joachim Roncin in reaction to the attack on the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015. Having been tweeted shortly after the shooting, the slogan immediately spread across various social media platforms. Within a few days even various organisations, in particular media outlets, used the “Je Suis Charlie" logo on their websites. Since then though, the slogan has also elicited criticism and triggered the development of slogans either complementing or opposing the original “Je Suis Charlie” slogan (e.g. “Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie”). Wikipedia, as an online encyclopaedia that allows the creation of entries almost simultaneous to events occurring, allowed for the generation of an entry about the “Je Suis Charlie” phenomenon immediately after its inception on Twitter. Since then, the Wikipedia articles on the topic have received considerable traffic in the above mentioned languages. Furthermore, Wikipedia, as a collaboratively-created website, presents the opportunity of observing which representation of the slogan the contributor communities agree on. Besides this, it allows conclusions concerning how these representations might differ from one another in terms of content, contextualisation and ideological colouring.
Content and contextualisation analyses of the Wikipedia articles on "Je Suis Charlie" in the aforementioned languages reveals that the representations of the slogan and the events surrounding it differ in major points. Hence, while used internationally by people and organisations from various linguistic backgrounds, "Je Suis Charlie" actually does not yet have stable meaning across languages. Consequently, the fact that the sign has been used by people from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds does not seem to indicate transnational consensus enabled by social media with respect to the slogan's associated meaning(s).

This work is part of a research project that deals with the “Je Suis Charlie" concept on Wikipedi... more This work is part of a research project that deals with the “Je Suis Charlie" concept on Wikipedia, connecting to the Charlie Hebdo shooting that took place in Paris (France) in January 2015. This work specifically presents findings with regard to the English page and the underlying discussion by Wikipedia contributors.

The “Je Suis Charlie” hashtag was created and first released on Twitter by Joachim Roncin immediately after the incident at the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. The motto was instantly disseminated on various social media platforms. Since the rapid spread of it, the motto has also been subject to criticism and controversy, leading to the inception of counter and alternative slogans (e.g. “Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie”).
Wikipedia, as an online encyclopaedia that encourages the creation of entries almost simultaneously to events occurring allowed instantaneous reaction in the form of an entry regarding “Je Suis Charlie”. Since then, the Wikipedia article on this topic has received considerable attention and has constituted the centre of an extensive “talk” by Wikipedians. As a collaboratively-created website, this platform offers the opportunity of observing which representation of the slogan the majority of the contributors reach an agreement on. Besides this, it allows conclusions concerning how this view might evolve depending on the nature of the debate.
To summarize, content-analysis of the Wikipedia piece on “Je Suis Charlie” is here supplemented with an examination of the underlying talk page of the article. This investigation highlights that various ideologies and opinions transpare and are negotiated on the talk page, in spite of the website policy commitment to strive for the so-called “Neutral Point of View” (reference).

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims at levelling the commercial playin... more The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims at levelling the commercial playing field between the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA) in terms of, for example, promoting the import and export of goods and services between these two economies (Ec.europa.eu). However, since early 2014, this planned treaty has received considerable and increasingly critical attention and even before treaty negotiations could lead to any significant output, the TTIP was faced with massive protests from both sides of the Atlantic. Particularly striking with respect to action against the TTIP have been campaigns by news media, that is, institutions originally designed to inform rather than to explicitly direct readers’ opinions and motivate activity.
This paper presents a corpus study of reporting on the TTIP by the Austrian newspaper Neue Kronen Zeitung in 2014. The aim is to examine how this newspaper, which heads a campaign against the TTIP, represents the treaty and surrounding issues in order to mobilise its readership to take action against this planned partnership between the US and the EU. The newspaper Neue Kronen Zeitung was chosen due to its clout as “the most widely read paper in the advanced industrialized world” “[i]n terms of readership per capita […] (Art 2006), viz. the newspaper with a most noteworthy degree of impact on a nation’s population by international comparison. A specialised corpus (McEnery, Xiao & Tono 2006) that consists of 26,623 tokens and focuses on the newspaper’s reporting on the TTIP in 2014 was compiled specifically for this study.
Detailed qualitative analysis of the corpus with respect to collocations and concordances reveals that, besides pursuing other strategies, the newspaper employs a nationalist discourse in order to evoke the readership’s passive or even active support of the Neue Kronen Zeitung’s campaign against the TTIP.

Art, D. (2006). The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ec.europa.eu (2015). Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - Trade – European
Commission. [online] Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/about-ttip/
[Accessed 9 Feb. 2015].
McEnery, T., Xiao, R., & Tono, Y. (2006). Corpus-based Language Studies (1st ed.). London:
Routledge.

PhD Thesis by Susanne Kopf

This thesis deals with the construction of the European Union (EU) as negotiated among contributo... more This thesis deals with the construction of the European Union (EU) as negotiated among contributors to the English Wikipedia between 2001 and 2015. It focuses on the Talk Page (TP) which accompanies the Wikipedia article on the EU and provides a space for Wikipedia contributors to discuss controversial issues regarding the article.
The EU has received considerable attention in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), addressing e.g. questions regarding language policy and discourses surrounding topics connected to the EU (e.g. Muntigl, Weiss, & Wodak, 2000; Unger, Krzyżanowski, & Wodak, 2014; Wodak, 2007a). However, private individuals’ attempts to make sense of the EU when facing the task of defining it have hardly been touched upon. In this context, Wikipedia constitutes an ideal repository of data as it has recorded debates on the institution since 2001. Taking a corpus-assisted approach (cf. Baker, 2006), I examine how contributors from various backgrounds have grappled with their understanding of the EU.
Additionally, this study explores aspects of Wikipedia since this collaboratively created encyclopaedia has received little research attention. Taking the EU on Wikipedia as a starting point, this thesis presents a foray into how Wikipedia can be approached from a CDS perspective. That is, on the one hand, it identifies central aspects of this website’s structure and addresses policies that guide Wikipedia operations and thus shape Wikipedia data. On the other hand, it examines the site’s societal impact/relevance and evaluates to what extent it can function as a transnational public sphere.
Findings suggest that a substantial part of discussions amongst Wikipedians addresses the classification of the EU along the continuum between confederation and unified country, depending on different views concerning member states’ sovereignty. Wikipedia’s policies and the nature of the debates further suggest that the TP can, to some extent, serve as a transnational public sphere.

Books by Susanne Kopf

Discourses of Brexit provides a kaleidoscope of insights into how discourse influenced the outcom... more Discourses of Brexit provides a kaleidoscope of insights into how discourse influenced the outcome of the EU referendum and what discourses have sprung up as a result of it. Working with a wide variety of data, from political speeches to Twitter, and a wide range of methods, Discourses of Brexit presents the most thorough examination of the discourses around the British EU referendum and related events. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the discursive treatment of Brexit, while also providing detailed investigations of how Brexit has been negotiated in different contexts. Discourses of Brexit is key reading for all students and researchers in language and politics, discourse analysis and related areas, as well as anyone interested in developing their understanding of the referendum.

Papers by Susanne Kopf

Routledge eBooks, Nov 6, 2023

New Media & Society, 26(4), 2024

Critical Discourse Studies, 2020

Social Media + Society, 2020

Discourse & Society, 2020

Diskurse - digital, 2019

CADAAD Journal, 2019

CfP Special Journal Issue

Diskurse - digital, 2019

Discourse, Context & Media, 2017

Germanistik - digital, 2018

Discursivity, performativity and mediation in political discourse, 2018

Wikipedia, (2015). Je suis Charlie. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Je_suis_Charlie&oldid=641460980 [Accessed 1 Feb. 2015].

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims at levelling the commercial playin... more The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims at levelling the commercial playing field between the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA) in terms of, for example, promoting the import and export of goods and services between these two economies (Ec.europa.eu). However, since early 2014, this planned treaty has received considerable and increasingly critical attention and even before treaty negotiations could lead to any significant output, the TTIP was faced with massive protests from both sides of the Atlantic. Particularly striking with respect to action against the TTIP have been campaigns by news media, that is, institutions originally designed to inform rather than to explicitly direct readers’ opinions and motivate activity.
This paper presents a corpus study of reporting on the TTIP by the Austrian newspaper Neue Kronen Zeitung in 2014. The aim is to examine how this newspaper, which heads a campaign against the TTIP, represents the treaty and surrounding issues in order to mobilise its readership to take action against this planned partnership between the US and the EU. The newspaper Neue Kronen Zeitung was chosen due to its clout as “the most widely read paper in the advanced industrialized world” “[i]n terms of readership per capita […] (Art 2006), viz. the newspaper with a most noteworthy degree of impact on a nation’s population by international comparison. A specialised corpus (McEnery, Xiao & Tono 2006) that consists of 26,623 tokens and focuses on the newspaper’s reporting on the TTIP in 2014 was compiled specifically for this study.
Detailed qualitative analysis of the corpus with respect to collocations and concordances reveals that, besides pursuing other strategies, the newspaper employs a nationalist discourse in order to evoke the readership’s passive or even active support of the Neue Kronen Zeitung’s campaign against the TTIP.

Routledge eBooks, Nov 6, 2023

Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture, Sep 14, 2023

Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture, Aug 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Jan 5, 2023

This paper focuses on the potential societal function of Wikipedia beyond serving as an encyclope... more This paper focuses on the potential societal function of Wikipedia beyond serving as an encyclopedia. That is, it assesses both theoretically and empirically whether talk pages (TP)-Wikipedia discussion sites that accompany the encyclopedic entries and provide spaces for debates among Wikipedia editorsmay function as transnational public spheres. Despite the increasing number of studies on citizen engagement and participation in the age of social media, Wikipedia as an example of the participatory internet has received little research attention in this regard. This study redresses this research gap in two steps. Drawing on Habermas' concept of the public sphere and Fraser's and Eriksen's modifications thereof, Wikipedia'sspecifically the TPs'modus operandi is explored to evaluate whether TPs may serve as spaces for transnational political opinion formation. This theoretical exploration is complemented with an empirical assessment of a TP dedicated to the EU. The case study addresses if/to what degree Wikipedia editors have appropriated the TP to function as a transnational public sphere. Findings indicate that Wikipedia TPs canand doserve as general transnational public spheres.

A Discursive Perspective on Wikipedia, 2022

A Discursive Perspective on Wikipedia

New Media & Society, 2022

This article deals with YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines – the content rules dedi... more This article deals with YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines – the content rules dedicated to defining what YouTube deems advertiser (un)friendly and that YouTube creators seeking to monetise their content through advertising have to follow. Specifically, this study addresses the textual composition of YouTube’s regulations with a focus on occurrences of vagueness. Regarding methods of data analysis, I take a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach to YouTube’s texts on advertiser-friendliness. That is, I take a wide-angle view on all concordance lines of ‘content’ and identify occurrences of different forms of vagueness. Findings suggest that at least 26% of the lines of ‘content’ detailing YouTube’s ad-friendly content guidelines exhibit at least one of eight forms of vagueness. Consequently, content creators – left unsure about the monetisability of particular content – may choose not to push any boundaries but to produce noncontroversial content, which, in turn...

This chapter examines the representation of the slogan "Je Suis Charlie" (JSC) on Wikip... more This chapter examines the representation of the slogan "Je Suis Charlie" (JSC) on Wikipedia. Drawing on corpus tools in addition to purely qualitative analytical tools led to the identification of several themes that recur throughout Wikipedia's article on JSC as well as on the associated discussion pages. The Wikipedia article represents JSC as a globally-used symbol of freedom of speech and solidarity with victims of specific violent events. On the discussion pages, JSC receives a markedly different treatment, e.g. the debates focus on whether JSC - rather than symbolising freedom of speech - symbolises the freedom to discriminate against groups of people. Furthermore, the discussions focus on JSC as uniting the "West" only and not on JSC as a global phenomenon.

Discourse & Society, 2020

This article addresses how the Wikipedia community has grappled with controversial elements of th... more This article addresses how the Wikipedia community has grappled with controversial elements of the European Union’s (EU) history from 2001 to 2019. It also examines what perspective on the EU the Wikipedia editors develop in debates about the institution’s history and if/how the community has (de)legitimised the EU’s existence today in the context of discussions about the EU’s predecessors. The data examined consist of Wikipedia contributors’ debates that took place on a Wikipedia discussion site (‘talk page’). Taking a corpus-assisted approach combined with argumentation analysis and aspects of systemic functional linguistics, I found that Wikipedia editors repeatedly propose that Nazi Germany might have been a precursor of the EU today. However, the Wikipedia community ultimately rejects this notion and emphasises the voluntary nature guiding the EU’s creation process. Thus, while the EU’s legitimacy is indeed contested in the course of the debates, the Wikipedia community eventua...

Social Media + Society, 2020

International Journal of Management and Economics, 2014

Expectations run high about the cornucopia of riches which are supposed to fow from the Transatla... more Expectations run high about the cornucopia of riches which are supposed to fow from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). TTIP is a proposed free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union. It aims to build upon the already sweeping scope of the North American Free Trade Agreement concluded two decades earlier and the 2013 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which removes 99 % of tariffs between the EU and Canada.1 Te TTIP negotiations were launched in July 2013 with an initial time frame of completion within two years. It is too early to pass judgment about the benefits of the deal simply because its scope is still being framed as of this writing. However, it's possible to shed light on the most likely sticking points during the negotiations, particularly those seen from the U.S. negotiating side. Likewise, it's not too early to draw up interests and concerns of U.S. business. Both are discussed in this paper. The fi...

Discourses of Brexit, 2019

Dieser Artikel behandelt die Verbindung der Kritischen Diskursstudien (KDS) und der Korpuslinguis... more Dieser Artikel behandelt die Verbindung der Kritischen Diskursstudien (KDS) und der Korpuslinguistik im Zuge eines Forschungsprojektes zu Reprasentation der EU auf den Diskussionsseiten der englischen Wikipedia. Hinsichtlich dieses Bruckenschlags werden Synergieeffekte, aber auch potentielle Schwachen und damit verbundene Losungsansatze aufgezeigt. Dabei wird u. a. dargelegt, wie korpuslinguistische Ansatze der Gefahr des cherry-picking entgegenwirken und die Kritischen Diskursstudien wiederum kritische Reflexion der traditionell quantitativen Korpuslinguistik fordern.