A Conversation Analysis of Facebook Confessions Pages: Identity and Identification Nurul Firdauz Binti Abd Rahman PhD The University of York Sociology September 2018 Abstract How individuals identify each other through digital media and display their claims of knowledge is at the core of this study. This work contributes new insights into how participants accomplished identity work by looking at the conversational resources they use in addressing matters of identity in their interaction. The study draws on Conversation Analysis (CA), particularly conceptual work on membership categorization analysis (MCA) and epistemics for analysis. The findings based on two interrelated aspects of the data taken from Facebook Confession Pages interaction. The first concerns the features of the initial (confessional) message, and the second relates to subsequent responses on the initial message. Close examination of the initial message shows ways that identity work is initiated as it would implicate in that subsequent response messages. Two primary forms of messages were then identified on the basis of person reference: those that inform and those that inquire. In each category, the analysis demonstrates that person reference is used as interactional resource in making an epistemic claim of the referent. The person reference is contextual in that they are locally based and understood within the specific contexts of the message. Thus, it is shown that the employment of person reference in the initial message illustrates the epistemic level that author has with the referent. Accordingly, analysis of the subsequent response messages demonstrated ways in which the identity, as presented in the initial message, is identified. The analysis of the subsequent response messages offers insight into how identity works is accomplished through a collaborative commenter’s epistemic stance. Additionally, the study also examines the technological element of FCPs that assist participants in their identity work that is Facebook name. It indicates that this Facebook functionality performed various interactional works including identification work as it provides a link to the right identified referent. Overall, the finding shows that as the identity work is performed, epistemic stance is a requisite component of the interactions. It then may challenge the notions of the invisibility of identity in digital contexts. 2 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 2 List of Tables.......................................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 10 Author’s Declaration ............................................................................................................ 11 Chapter 1: An Introduction to the Study .............................................................................. 12 Research Focus ............................................................................................................... 12 (Defining) Identity and Identification ............................................................................. 13 Facebook Confession Pages............................................................................................ 14 Research Methodology ................................................................................................... 16 Overview of Chapters ..................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2: Literature Review ............................................................................................... 22 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 22 Studies of Computer- Mediated- Communication .......................................................... 24 Studies of Social Identity in Computer- Mediated- Communication ............................. 31 Considering Social Identity Studies in This Study .................................................... 35 Conversation Analysis of Computer- Mediated- Communication ................................. 38 Conversation Analytic Studies of Facebook ............................................................. 42 Facebook Confession Pages (FCPs) .......................................................................... 46 Conversation Analysis .................................................................................................... 48 Sequential Organisation .................................................................................................. 50 Membership Categorization Analysis ............................................................................. 53 3 Person Reference in Practice .......................................................................................... 57 Epistemics ....................................................................................................................... 61 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 3: Methodology ...................................................................................................... 66 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 66 Facebook ......................................................................................................................... 66 User Profile and Timeline ......................................................................................... 67 Friends and Followers ............................................................................................... 68 Tagging and Notification ........................................................................................... 69 The Corpus ...................................................................................................................... 70 The Material .............................................................................................................. 70 How the FCPs Work .................................................................................................. 71 The Language ............................................................................................................ 73 Data Collection and Organization................................................................................... 74 Collecting the Data .................................................................................................... 75 Managing the Data .................................................................................................... 76 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................. 82 Ethical Considerations .................................................................................................... 83 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 85 Chapter 4: Analysis of the Initial Messages in FCPs ........................................................... 86 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 86 Some Practices for Referring to Persons in Talk- in- Interaction ................................... 88 4 Informing Messages ........................................................................................................ 94 Non- Recognitional References ................................................................................. 94 Recognitional Descriptions ..................................................................................... 100 Inquiring Messages ....................................................................................................... 107 Description .............................................................................................................. 108 Recognitional Reference ......................................................................................... 113 Epistemic Relationship of the Author and the Referent ............................................... 115 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 117 Chapter 5: Identification Work on Response Messages .................................................... 119 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 119 Identity and Identification Work on FCPs .................................................................... 121 Epistemic stance: Networks .......................................................................................... 123 The Recipient .......................................................................................................... 123 The Author .............................................................................................................. 132 Epistemic Stance: Localness ......................................................................................... 139 Epistemic Stance: Situational