The search for national identity in the discourse analysis of YouTube comments

Abstract

YouTube is a popular social media site that provides the users a space to view, upload video clips or log in and write comments. Even though many of the YouTube users remain anonymous when commenting, their language use in the comments can reflect the identity of a particular community. Therefore, a variety of computer-mediated discourse can be obtained from YouTube in deciphering a specific community or a country's identity. This qualitative study is keen to investigate the representation of the Malaysian identity in the YouTube comments. Analysis were performed on the YouTube comments of Malaysian-related YouTube videos uploaded by famous Malaysian YouTubers. Textual analysis and coding of the YouTube comments were carried out using the NVivo software based on Herring's (2004) Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) and Braun & Clarke's (2006) Thematic Analysis framework. Findings showed that there were various themes that were repeated in the YouTube comments discourse which is a representation of the Malaysian identities, namely feelings of love towards the country, Malaysian cuisine, language mix, being multiracial, Malaysian behaviours or stereotypes, and the birth country Malaysia. These results provide insights into the discourse that are associated with Malaysian identities and contributed knowledge to fill in the gap in literature regarding national identity in social media, particularly Malaysia.