Metaphors of the virtual how ordinary people frame what the internet is.pdf (1.27 MB)
Metaphors of the virtual: how ordinary people frame what the internet is
This article explores how experiences of the virtual are metaphorically articulated in people’s narratives of these experiences. It analyses a database of 171 responses by UK adults of all ages and backgrounds to establish how they used metaphor to frame their experiences online, at a time when the internet was increasingly becoming a platform for living everyday life. The article finds that respondents used a multiplicity of metaphoric frames simultaneously, some of them well established and conventionalised in discourse, and some newer. Although there is evidence of a new way of metaphorically framing the virtual as a way of experiencing the everyday, this had not yet replaced conventionalised metaphors in the data, but co-existed with them. The article argues that a slow shift in discourse patterns may be taking place alongside a shift in experience, whereby the role of technology in mediating the everyday is becoming invisible.
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
Social SemioticsISSN
1035-0330Publisher
Taylor & FrancisExternal DOI
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1-14Department affiliated with
- Media and Film Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2022-10-31First Open Access (FOA) Date
2022-12-01First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2022-10-31Usage metrics
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