Shaping the status trend of COVID vaccines on TikTok: critical discourse analysis of bloggers’ videos

Утворення статусного тренду ковід-вакцин у ТикТоку: критичний дискурс-аналіз блогерських відео

TikTok належить до платформ, які стали для молоді інструментом створення віртуальних груп та отримання популярності за допомогою звернення до актуальних тем суспільного дискурсу, який розглядається у статті як комунікативна подія, що поєднує лінгвістичну форму, значення та дію. У 2021 році, під час пандемії корона - вірусу, однією з таких тем була ієрархія ковід-вакцин, що набула популярності, зокрема, й на платформі ТікТок. У статті проаналізовано вербальні та невербальні засоби, які використовують блогери для створення та підтримки елітарного статусу одних та дискредитації інших вакцин. У дослідженні використано критичний дис - курс-аналіз та мультимодальний дискурс-аналіз, які дозволяють розкривати такі відносини нерівності та домінування. Дослідження виявило, як семіотичні відносини між мовою та образом формують ієрархію ковід-вакцин, в якій вакцина Пфайзерпосідає перше місце та вважається елітарною, тоді як інші вакцини розглядаються як маркери нижчого соціального статусу. У роботі також визначено стратегію побудови іміджу та тактику протиставлення «свій - чужий», за допомогою яких блогери просувають та підтримують свою домінуючу позицію. Виявлено, що реалізація такої комунікативної поведінки досягається лексичними засобами: перевага Пфайзервербалізується прикметниками `classy', `rich', `expensive', які визначають її як елітарну вакцину; Модерна характеризується як `average', а Johnson &Johnson вважається гіршою за сам ковід. Мультимодальність відео дозволяє блогерам висловити схвалення чи презирство до вакцин невербально: для цього використовуються просодія (інтонація), міміка та візуалізовані метафори (прирівнювання вакцин до брендів мобільних телефонів).

Ключові слова: критичний дискурс-аналіз, дискурс, TikTok, мультимодальність, вербальні та невербальні засоби.

Main part

Statement of the Problem. The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically affected interpersonal interactions shifting social activities into online communication, basically into social media that allow subscribers to participate in interactions, create and share media resources and self-created content with other users. Social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok) have played an important role in «youth resocialization in a pandemic society» (Ostrovsky, Chen, 2020) transforming the Internet into an effective tool of self-expression for millions of people. This helped users to visualize their representations and rituals of culture, to create new groups for socialization and to form their own agendas that influenced the public discourse.

One of the most influential platforms to build a community around is TikTok, which describes itself as «the leading destination for short-form mobile video» and declares as its mission to «inspire creativity and bring joy» (Our Mission). TikTok has rapidly overshadowed other social media platforms, especially among teenagers and young generations, due to its visual features and sound bites that allow for more accessible video creation. TikTok has «changed the world in 2020, its success is a refreshing revolution for meritocratic self-expression» which also has «changed an awful lot more than just how we consume media online». Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok's algorithm facilitates the process for ordinary users to be creators by giving them «as much chance of going around the world as the next person's, whether they have 0 followers or 100,000» (Galer, 2020). As a result, on TikTok, one rapidly gains large audiences and followers even without having any status background enjoyed by celebrities or social media stars (Kennedy, 2020).

Other appealing features of TikTok are the option to upload and download any content in video format which can be seen and followed by everyone on the app as well as the «For You» page that suggests most viewed, liked and shared videos that match the user's preferences and interests automatically deduced from the user's previous interactions and views. Such features of the app made teenagers nurture «the most powerful tool they had ever seen» (Galer, 2020).

Researchanalysis. Since «activities on social media primarily consist of language use» (Gnach, 2018: 195), social media have become the research focus of linguistics. Analyzing social media content adheres to the principles of language and discourse studies. The discursive environment generated with the help of information technologies and sociolin - guistic aspects of the content shared online have motivated intensive linguistic research into communication on social media: researchers explore information and emotions in computer-mediated texts (Grunder-

Fahrer, Schlaf, Wiedemann, Heyer, 2018), linguistic performance in videos (Calhoun, 2019), pragmatic functions of hashtags and images (De Cock, Pedraza, 2018); scholars employ conversational analysis to interactions on social media (Paulus, Warren, Lester, 2016). There are also studies that view social media communication as a hybrid form that combines features of interpersonal and mass interactions. Some experts examine how social media influence the way people select, process and make sense of the news (Lee, Tandoc, 2017). There is also evidence of the power social media give their users to create new forms of self-expression and to influence opinions (Neubaum, Kramer, 2017). Moreover, social media have proved to increase the social capital, facilitate formations of communities and boost their connectedness (Ryan, Allen, Gray, Mclnerney, 2017).

To achieve the objectives of this study, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) are integrated to explore the content of TikTokers' discourse and their language. CDA approach aims at examining the language within certain contexts that influence communication, i.e., social practice, social power and ideology (Fairclough, 1995). Discourse is related to the concept of «communicative event» which combines a complex unity of a linguistic form, meaning and action (Van Dijk, 2001: 355). CDA helps to facilitate the procedures by employing semiotics, text linguistics, social theory and interactional sociolinguistics (Wodak, 2009). Thus, in order to investigate verbal units in TikTokers' discourse, a multidisciplinary and multi-methodical approach (Wodak, Meyer, 2008) is also applied.

The «multimodal meaning» of discourse is «realized through more than one semiotic code» (Kress, Leeuwen, 2006: 177), which requires MDA traditionally regarded as an approach appropriate to conceptualize inter-semiotic relations between language and image (O'Halloran, Pal, Jin, 2021). Hence, analyzing audio-visual discursive practices of TikTokers compels a multimodal approach that involves an `internal' semiotic interpretation of texts (language, image and video processing) as well as an `external' interpretation, i.e., the coherence of these texts with the environment surrounding them. In other words, the aim of MDA is «to elaborate tools that can provide insight into the relation of the meanings of a community and its semiotic manifestations» (Kress, 2012: 37). Therefore, the framework of our analysis involves both CDA and MDA and «can be top-down, where analysts begin with their understanding of the content; or bottom-up, where the starting point is the linguistic detail» (Hidalgo Tenorio, 2011: 198).

Thepurposeofthearticle. Recently, with the spread of Covid-19, vaccines have become a common topic on social media platforms, which has created a new `vaccine discourse' in online communication. CDA focuses on dominance, inequality and power exercised by certain social groups over the discourse, which entails the assumption that language and its means are powerful tools that directly impact on social norms, ideologies, knowledge and beliefs (Van Dijk, 1993; Willig, 2014). The purpose of this study lies in that it aspires to unveil the hidden meanings within the language of TikTokersso as to clarify the mechanisms that enable the bloggers to influence the online public discourse and enhance dominance over their rivals' discourses. In other words, the study explores TikTok bloggers' videos and examines verbal and nonverbal means used to argue for the superiority of the Pfizer vaccine over others designed to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

Maintext. In 2021, American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that many US jurisdictions had been distributing the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine specifically to the homeless, home bound populations, migrants as well as incarcerated individuals (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). Allocating the vaccine for the most disadvantaged social strata coupled with the vaccine's low-rate efficacy (66.9% compared to 95% attributed to Pfizer and 94.1% to Moderna) resulted in ranking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a «second-class option» (Tiffany, 2021). Simultaneously, it enhanced the «Pfizer superiority complex» picturing this vaccine as a marker of the «ruling class» in the public sphere (Schwedel, 2021). It is not surprising, therefore, to find Pfizer-elitism and superiority in Tik - Tokers' videos: they have caught on with the external context of powerful institutional and public discourse.

The vaccine rivalry culture originated on TikTok has been noticed by a number of experts (Rosenblatt, 2021; Tiffany, 2021) who consider it to be one of the latest trends on the social media. TikTok video makers are said to have created a hierarchy of vaccine brands, cultures and identities: Pfizer versus Moderna versus Johnson & Johnson. In this hierarchy, Pfizer is presented as the «elite» and «ruling class» vaccine (Tiffany, 2021; Schwedel, 2021), Moderna is believed to be used by the «middle class» and Johnson & Johnson is looked down upon as an «inferior product» (Stanley-Becker, 2021).

The hierarchical nature of the vaccine rivalry culture that emphasizes social, cultural and even racial inequalities is found in the TikTok videos selected with the help of continuous sampling for the purpose of this study. For example, in a TikTok

page called «hotdaddyissues», a young blogger posts the following video: «When they gave me vaccine they asked me which one I wanted because they had three. I was like… give me an option. And they told me, «Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson». Of course, I want Pfizer! It sounds rich, decadent, luxury. I'm not sure about science but that one sounds classy. Now I hear some of my friends got Moderna!… MODERNA!!! Naturally, I have to build a complex and shame them. MODERNA!? The poverty! Couldn't be me. These T-cells are designer» (CHeck, 2021).