Constructing the Augmented Discursive Whole as a Unit of Analysis: A Methodological Proposal for Digital Media Discourse

Abstract

Social media environments have transformed the production and circulation of media discourse, raising methodological questions about the most appropriate unit of analysis for its study. This article proposes an operationalization of the concept of the augmented discursive whole through a corpus of Facebook posts published by the Algerian online news outlet Tout Sur l'Algérie between 2013 and 2017. By combining insights from media discourse analysis and digital discourse analysis, the study develops a methodological framework that defines the unit of analysis as the Facebook post together with its coextensive comments, while justifying the exclusion of news articles accessible through hyperlinks. A case study demonstrates that this approach reveals processes of discursive reconfiguration that remain largely invisible when the Facebook post is examined in isolation. The main contribution of the article lies in formalizing a procedure for operationalizing the augmented discursive whole as a unit of analysis for digital media discourse.