Language and discourse in social media relational dynamics: a communicative constitution perspective

This article presents and discusses a theoretical proposition to study social media and their relational dynamics based on the role of language and discourse in communicative interactions that occur in social media. We propose a theoretical foundation that is grounded on the communicative constitution perspective that focuses on the power of communicative acts and practices to create organizational realities. The theoretical proposition suggests that social media are communicatively constituted, just as are relationships; thus, relational dynamics in social media that feature oral or written communications should be analyzed through the study of actors’ language and discourses. The article concludes with reflections on the implications of this theoretical proposition for the study of relational dynamics in social media and provides suggestions for future research.