The Language of Shame in Cyber Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Gendered Moral Policing on X Media
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22437/titian.v9i2.48850Keywords:
language, shame, cyber, discourseAbstract
Cyber Discourse Analysis (CDA), which analyzes how language constructs and maintains power relations in online communication, enables us to study gendered moral policing on the internet. This research aims to provide linguistic evidence of how moral judgment and gender discrimination are realized in public reaction to Erika Carlina's pregnancy scandal on the social media site X. A qualitative descriptive approach, theorized by Fairclough's (1995) three-dimensional CDA model and supported by Van Dijk's (2015) discourse theory and Cameron's (2012) verbal hygiene theory, is employed. The research demonstrates that male respondents employ rational and evaluative language with a consideration of responsibility and social norms, while female respondents use emotional and corrective language that demonstrates internalized patriarchal ideology. The findings show that online discussion is an electronic extension of classical moral control, whereby the discourse of shame is employed as a communal tool of gendered judgment and social control in Indonesian society.
Abstrak
Analisis Wacana Siber (Cyber Discourse Analysis/CDA), yang menelaah bagaimana bahasa membangun dan mempertahankan relasi kuasa dalam komunikasi daring, memungkinkan penelitian terhadap praktik gendered moral policing atau pengawasan moral berbasis gender di internet. Penelitian ini bertujuan memberikan bukti linguistik mengenai bagaimana penilaian moral dan diskriminasi gender direalisasikan dalam reaksi publik terhadap skandal kehamilan Erika Carlina di media sosial X. Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif, dengan kerangka teori Analisis Wacana Kritis tiga dimensi dari Fairclough (1995), serta didukung oleh teori wacana Van Dijk (2015) dan teori verbal hygiene dari Cameron (2012). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa responden laki-laki cenderung menggunakan bahasa yang rasional dan evaluatif dengan mempertimbangkan tanggung jawab serta norma sosial, sedangkan responden perempuan menampilkan bahasa yang emosional dan korektif yang merepresentasikan internalisasi ideologi patriarki. Temuan ini mengungkap bahwa diskusi daring merupakan perpanjangan elektronik dari praktik kontrol moral klasik, di mana wacana malu digunakan sebagai alat komunal untuk menghakimi dan mengontrol perilaku berbasis gender dalam masyarakat Indonesia
Downloads
References
Megarry, J. (2014, November). Online incivility or sexual harassment? Conceptualising women's experiences in the digital age. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 47, pp. 46-55). Pergamon.
Selinger, H. W., & Shohamy, E. (1989). The preparatory stages of research. Second language research methods, 43-64.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. The handbook of discourse analysis, 466-485.
Badad Alauddin, M., Fitri, D., & Apri Wenando, F. (2025). Tradition to Technology: The Transformation of Indonesian Culture in the Social Media Era. Asian Journal of Media and Culture, 1(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.63919/ajmc.v1i1.16
Hipsky, E. (2024). The Man-Hating Woman: Studying Bystander Perceptions of Social Media Sexism Confrontations. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors
Jane, E. A. (2014). “Your a ugly, whorish, slut”: Understanding E-bile. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4), 531–546. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2012.741073
KhosraviNik, M., & Esposito, E. (2018). Online hate, digital discourse and critique: Exploring digitally-mediated discursive practices of gender-based hostility. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 14(1), 45–68. https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2018-0003
Küchler, C., Stoll, A., Ziegele, M., & Naab, T. K. (2023). Gender-Related Differences in Online Comment Sections: Findings From a Large-Scale Content Analysis of Commenting Behavior. Social Science Computer Review, 41(3), 728–747. https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393211052042
Roiha, M. (n.d.). Beyond the screen Digital realities and embodied harm in the Supervisor : Olga Jubany.
Dicka, M. (2021). Cybermisogyny : Hate Against Women and Gendertrolling Manifestation on Instagram. Ilmu Komunikasi, 18(2), 183–200.
Cameron, D. (2020). Language and gender: Mainstreaming and the persistence of patriarchy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2020(263), 25–30. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2020-2078
Aziz, S., Imtiaz, A., & Rasul, S. (2025). CYBERFEMINISM AND PUBLIC REACTIONS : A FEMINIST POSTSTRUCTURALIST DISCOURSE ANALYSIS COMSATS University Islamabad , Lahore Campus Fatima Jinnah Women University , Rawalpindi. 2(2), 1003–1022.
Yasmin, M., Jabeen, T., & Noor, S. (2025). Examining Digital Hate: Gendered discursive strategies in online harassment of Pakistani influencers. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 19(May), 100759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100759
Scheff, T. J. (2003). Shame in self and society. Symbolic interaction, 26(2), 239-262.
Leeming, D., & Boyle, M. (2004). Shame as a social phenomenon: A critical analysis of the concept of dispositional shame. Psychology and psychotherapy: Theory, research and practice, 77(3), 375-396.
Çolak, F. Z. (2022). A critical discourse analysis of populist far-right in the post-shame era: The politics of fear: the shameless normalisation of far-right discourse, by Ruth Wodak, London, Sage Publications Ltd, 2020, 360 pp.
Renaud, K., Searle, R., & Dupuis, M. (2021, October). Shame in cyber security: effective behavior modification tool or counterproductive foil?. In Proceedings of the 2021 New Security Paradigms Workshop (pp. 70-87).
Baughan, A., Cross, K. A., Khasanova, E., & Hiniker, A. (2022). Shame on Who? Experimentally Reducing Shame During Political Arguments on Twitter. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(CSCW2), 1-18.
Obasi, J. C., Ukoha, E. O., & Onoyima, R. U. (2025). Discourse Analysis of the Role of Language on Cyberbullying in Selected TikTok Videos. Howard Journal of Communications, 1-24.
Bahammam, L. (2018). Gendered discourses and discursive strategies employed in Twitter-hashtagged debates about Saudi-women’s issues
Mir, H. (2022). Shame On You: The 2018 Senate Race and Gendered Language on Facebook and Twitter
Basak, R., Sural, S., Ganguly, N., & Ghosh, S. K. (2019). Online public shaming on Twitter: Detection, analysis, and mitigation. IEEE Transactions on computational social systems, 6(2), 208-220.
Mizin, K., Slavova, L., Lyashuk, A., & Hromovenko, V. (2021). The emotion concept of SHAME as one of the markers of social infantilism: Cross-cultural analysis based on language corpora data. Amazonia investiga, 10(48), 97-106.
Language Shaming on YouTube: Linguistic Features, Themes, and Social Implications
Marciotto Oliveira, A. L. A., & Miranda, M. V. (2022). “Calling a spade, a spade”: impoliteness and shame on Twitter. Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics, 13(2), 22-32.
Teimouri, Y. (2018). Differential roles of shame and guilt in L2 learning: How bad is bad?. The Modern Language Journal, 102(4), 632-652.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Istiqomah Istiqomah, May Sastia, Elfa Salsabila, Rahmadsyah Rangkuti (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Titian: Jurnal Ilmu Humaniora is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish their manuscripts in Titian: Jurnal Ilmu Humaniora agree to the following terms:
1. The copyright in each article belongs to the author.
2. The author acknowledges that Titian: Jurnal Ilmu Humaniora reserves the right to be the first to publish under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
3. Authors may submit articles separately, arranging for non-exclusive distribution of manuscripts that have been published in this journal to other versions (e.g., delivery to the author's institutional repository, publication into a book, etc.), acknowledging that the manuscript has been first published in Titian: Jurnal Ilmu Humaniora.
