"Wokeness *MUST* die" : Impoliteness in netizens' replies towards Trump's 2024 win on Platform X

Sammanfattning

Digital platforms allow for online discourse and various opinions regarding global trends and political issues. On the other hand, social media can also be a space to perform socially disruptive behaviors. These socially disruptive behaviors are considered an expression of impoliteness (Culpeper, 2011). Impoliteness studies have been conducted on social media, focusing on certain events. However, less attention is given to ordinary citizens’ reactions since most studies focus on political elites (Rega et al., 2023). To fill the gap, this study explores impoliteness among habitual internet users called ‘netizens’ during the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election Results on the social media platform X. How impoliteness strategies vary depending on the posts’ political leaning is further investigated. Thus, 20 posts were collected for contexts and sources of replies. Using Culpeper’s (2005) impoliteness strategies, 1,000 replies by netizens were categorized and further analyzed based on van Dijk’s (2008) sociocognitive approach. Based on the analysis, five types of impoliteness strategies were found except withhold impoliteness. A link between the posts’ leanings and netizens' impolite replies was found through conducting chi-square tests. Furthermore, netizens’ employment of impoliteness further reveals existing ideologies and social attitudes towards certain groups. Therefore, social media research on impoliteness helps understand digital language and online behaviors reflected on Platform X.