Twitter and power relations: A discourse analysis of campaigns related to a marriage equality referendum in Slovenia

Abstract

This paper analyses two key Twitter campaigns related to the referendum on the Amendment to the Marriage and Family Relations Act held on 20 December 2015. The aim of the paper is quantitative and qualitative analysis of discourse as a means to control social power and dominance in discourse. We first describe the corpus on which the analysis is based and then present the results of a critical discourse analysis of the tweets published by the main supporters of the new amendment and its main opposers and initiators of the referendum in which we investigate Twitter as a means to control social power in the specific context of an attempt to marriage equality in the Republic of Slovenia.