“We created this account to be free”: Twittering as a communicative genre, as enacted by users identifying as Filipino men living with HIV
2025
Lim, Aldo Gavril T.
A traditionally hard-to-reach population, Filipino men living with HIV (FMLWH) are visible on Twitter (now X), offering a unique window into their communicative practices. This online ethnography analysed Twittering as a communicative genre, as enacted by FMLWH. Primarily drawing on Lomborg’s (2014) functional-pragmatic approach to genre, the analysis focused on user composition, content, style, and pragmatic function. Three studies were conducted via a multiphase sequential mixed-methods design. The research employed a palette of methods, including social network analysis, cluster analysis, technobiography, social media elicitation, corpus linguistics, and content analysis. Analysis of 1,447 public accounts revealed an expansive network comprising 302,934 follows and 20,996 @mentions. Both connection and conversation networks showed low density, moderate to high reciprocity, and short degrees of separation between actors. While Twitter bios highlighted HIV identities, tweets covered a diverse range of topics and functions, indicating that Twittering extended beyond the discussion of HIV. Brevity, informality, and playfulness were the stylistic hallmarks of Twitter content produced by FMLWH. Ultimately, Twittering fostered self-expression, community, and sexual reclamation among FMLWH, showing that their communicative practices were fundamentally rooted in the pursuit of freedom. Quoting one participant: “We created this account to be free.”
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