Bonding Gossip as an Identity Negotiation Life Phase: A Study of Multimodal Texting via Smartphone Among Taiwanese College Freshmen

• Main Author: Hong-Chi Shiau
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2016-11-01
• Series: Social Media + Society
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116677138

Drawn on ethnographic interviews with 17 informants as well as seven focus group interviews, this study examines how college freshmen text on social media via smartphones to formulate collegiate bonding. Gossip is common between two individuals to avoid collapsed context, so both parties can ascertain the meaning derived from such situated interaction; it is less frequently among multiple small group users. Three linguistic genres of gossip identified include (1) sarcastic gossip—negative but not malicious—on fellows, (2) gossip against authorities, and (3) celebrity gossip. However, gossiping among freshmen is a life-phase phenomenon, usually lasting 2 or 3 months until a solid social network with stronger ties in an offline context has been secured. Over time, the freshmen have gradually reduced their amount of time investing in such communicative capital. As a result of multimodal communicative tools, social media has afforded wider and more multimodal dissemination of information which the freshmen might otherwise have not been able to access. Gossiping is popular for it provides sources of conversational comfort and sartorial security, creating a safer net so that the freshmen could playfully navigate through the precarious life phase.