Context, History, and Twitter Data: Some Methodological Reflections

To what extent can, or should, discursive psychologists and microanalysts of online data ignore the social and technological context of the communication they are studying? In this chapter I discuss briefly the debate around context in conversation analysis before considering the role of archived material in both discussion forums and Twitter, as well as the clearly visible social detail that arrives with each post and tweet. I finish with a detailed case study of communication on Twitter between a British celebrity and his followers, in which the public identity of the individual, and his well-documented history, is an unavoidable part of the discursive context. In conclusion, I suggest that the extent to which we draw on this context is largely determined by our subjective motivations as researchers.