Pizza, beer and kittens: Negotiating cultural trauma discourses on Twitter in the wake of the 2017 Stockholm attack. (November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Eriksson, Moa
• Is Part Of: New media & society. Volume 20:Number 11(2018)
• Page Start: 3980
• Page End: 3996
• Publication Date: 2018-11
• Subjects: Connective action -- cultural trauma -- discourse -- social media -- terror attacks -- Twitter; Mass media -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Mass media and culture -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Internet -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302.2305
• DOI: 10.1177/1461444818765484
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1461-4448

Abstract

The overarching aim of this study is to analyse how social media communication can impact the formation of cultural trauma discourses in the aftermath of disruptive societal events. The article focuses on how the hashtag #openstockholm was used on Twitter for support, sharing and cooperation after the Stockholm lorry attack in 2017. Much of the content posted with this hashtag had a light-hearted tone, flouting the conventional trauma discourses of grief and sorrow in a way that was surprising, and perhaps even provocative, to some. A thematic analysis of tweets shows the different uses of the hashtag over time, as well as distinguishes two conflicting discourses that either downplayed or amplified the cultural trauma narrative. The study shows that the responses to traumatic events may depend on a culturally specific logic of collective action frames which implies the need for contextual understandings of how cultural trauma discourses are negotiated.