ABSTRACT
The previous chapter presented the results of the quantitative analyses of Flickr and Twitter posts. Specifically, almost half of the Flickr posts include self-expression, making it the dominant social function, ahead of eye-witnessing. The proportion of visual content that is not photography (more than a quarter) is also relatively surprising for a social media platform that caters to photo lovers. These two results show the richness and diversity of that social media platform. Chapter 12 will explore further the issue of self-expression by focusing on posts that include a photograph, related or unrelated to Brexit, and self-expression. In doing so, I do not consider posts based on cartoons, memes, etc., which have already been the focus of a large body of research. Photographs and self-expression are included in 468 posts, accounting for 29% of the Flickr corpus. In other words, a third of the Brexit-related Flickr posts comprise a picture and markers of self-expression. In Section 12.1, I code the presence of thematised, signal-like and supported attitude in image and text and outline patterns of text–image relations used when citizens voice their emotions and/or opinions. In the second section, I address the issue of subjectivity in self-expression when I outline five types of appraisers in discourse. I provide a typology of eight types of verbal attitude in Section 12.3 and discuss visual patterns in Section 12.4. While these frameworks are suited for quantitative findings, they also allow for the writer’s attitudinal engagement to be analysed in fine-grained detail. In this respect, I briefly introduce Martin and White’s (2005) system of engagement in Section 12.5 and illustrate it with examples from the Flickr corpus.
