ABSTRACT
Political and cultural discourses often highlight group relations, conflicts and resistances and involve debates that are often publicized by the mass media and the Internet. And generally, stances reflect the kind of social and cultural positions, assumptions and identities people take in relations to other members of the society. Ideologies expressed through stance-taking generally recognize the main ideological and cultural assumptions of certain groups as well as other groups, and when people feel that their identities, cultures and social rights are infringed upon, they resist and conflict results. This nature of ideologies characterizes political groups, social movements or rebel/terrorist groups (van Dijk 2005). Hence, having proper understanding of people’s cultural and social uniqueness as expressed in the kind of discourses they produce, as well as proper respect for such cultural and ideological positions and stances, will achieve social harmony. Like Shi-xu (in press) rightly observes, being conscious of people’s cultural differences and adopting critically minded approaches to communication towards them will foster cultural coexistence, harmony and prosperity. In the study of the stances of the rebel/terrorist groups on Twitter, which highlights their positions (in terms of why they do what do they; what cultural assumptions they espouse and what they wish to be known for), this study recognizes that human discourses are culturally differentiated and competitive in terms of groups’ worldviews, identities, interests, values or representations (see Shi-xu 2009); therefore, having the right understanding of and proper attitude towards the rebels groups in question, in terms of their uniqueness; and they in turn, having respect to the society’s expectations of them, will likely foster peace and social harmony.
