Discourse of Power and Identity in Selected Malaysian Netizens’ Tiktok Comments: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The rapid growth of social media, particularly TikTok, has created a new digital discursive space in which identity construction, power negotiation, and ideological formation unfold through everyday user interactions. This study examines how discourses of power and identity are enacted in 50 comments purposively selected from five TikTok videos concerning selected social, political, and cultural issues in Malaysia. Grounded in Fairclough’s (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis framework and Tajfel and Turner’s (1986) Social Identity Theory, the analysis focuses on the linguistic and discursive strategies used by the selected commenters to articulate stances, delineate identity boundaries, and position social groups. The findings indicate that the sampled comments contain recurring strategies of digital cynicism, moral evaluation, stereotyping, us–them positioning, perceptions of algorithmic visibility, and collective affiliation. These patterns suggest that, within this limited dataset, TikTok comments may function as sites where social dominance is reinforced, challenged, or negotiated. References to algorithms are interpreted as users’ perceptions of platform visibility rather than as evidence of TikTok’s actual algorithmic operations, because no direct platform or algorithmic data were analysed. Accordingly, the findings are exploratory and should not be generalised to Malaysian netizens as a whole. The study contributes a context-specific account of how language, identity, and perceived platform power intersect in selected Malaysian TikTok comment threads.

Discourse, Power, Identity, Critical Discourse Analysis, Ideology

1. Angouri, J. (2018). Culture, discourse, and the workplace. Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Bishop, S. (2020). Algorithmic experts: Selling algorithmic lore on YouTube. Social Media + Society, 6(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120913909 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Charteris-Black, J. (2014). Analysing political speeches: Rhetoric, discourse and metaphor. Palgrave Macmillan. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Cotter, K. (2021). Shadowbanning and the politics of visibility. New Media & Society, 23(7), 1970-1987. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Du Bois, J. (2007). The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (Ed.), Stancetaking in discourse (pp. 139-182). John Benjamins. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Entman, R. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-58. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. Longman. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings. Pantheon. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Hardaker, C. (2015). Trolling as a vernacular practice. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 3(1), 57-86. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. Hashim, R. (2020). Digital discourse in Malaysian social media. Malaysian Journal of Communication, 36(2), 115-130. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

13. Kaye, D. B. V., Chen, X., & Zeng, J. (2022). TikTok as a public sphere: A study of youth political expression. Social Media + Society, 8(2), 1-12. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

15. Literat, I. (2021). Remixing politics on TikTok: Visual political narratives. New Media & Society, 23(11), 3365-3387. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

16. Mahmud, W. A. W. (2019). Moral policing and digital Islam. Journal of Media Studies, 32(1), 45-62. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

17. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1984). The spiral of silence: Public opinion-our social skin. University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

18. Scheufele, D. A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 9-20. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

19. Tan, H. K. (2023). Youth engagement on TikTok Malaysia. Journal of Asian Communication, 33(1), 78-95. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

20. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel (Ed.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7-24). Nelson-Hall. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

21. Tufekci, Z. (2015). Algorithmic harms beyond Facebook and Google. Colorado Technology Law Journal, 13(1), 203-217. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

22. Van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

23. Van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society, 17(3), 359-383. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

24. Wodak, R. (2001). The discourse-historical approach. Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

25. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2016). Methods of critical discourse studies. Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

26. Yusof, A. F. (2021). Political cynicism among Malaysian netizens. Jurnal Komunikasi, 37(3), 55-72. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

27. Zappavigna, M. (2020). Searchable talk and online sociality. Journal of Pragmatics, 170, 85-97. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

28. Zulli, D., & Zulli, D. (2022). TikTok’s ambivalent algorithmic identity. New Media & Society, 24(8), 1836-1854. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

29. Zeng, J., & Schäfer, M. (2021). Algorithmic publics on TikTok. Information, Communication & Society, 24(12), 1675-1691. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

30. Miller, V. (2020). Understanding digital culture. Sage Publications. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

31. Abidin, C. (2020). Mapping internet cultures. Social Media Studies, 9(2), 12-27. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

32. Rahim, S. A. (2021). Digital moral panic in Malaysia. Asian Journal of Communication, 31(2), 210-227 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]