Discourses of public breastfeeding on Russophone social media. A discursive-material analysis of VKontakte discussions

Semykina K., Dorofeeva O.

This paper draws on the discursive-material analysis framework to analyse discussions about public breastfeeding on VKontakte, a popular social media platform in Eastern Europe and Asia. The study zooms in on two types of discussion sites: groups for mothers and e-bile groups dedicated to mocking mothers. To analyse this discourse and social media practices relevant to it, posts and comments in selected groups devoted to the topic of public breastfeeding were collected through the VKontakte API. Drawing on the framework of discursive-material analysis, we identified the major nodal points of the discourse on public breastfeeding: naturalness, aesthetics, intimacy, social norms, and needs of the child. These nodal points constitute the core of the discursive structure, stabilising the discourse on public breastfeeding. We also analyse how social media features, such as platform affordances and user practices, contribute to shaping the digital discourse on public breastfeeding. We focus specifically on recontextualisation and engaging in conflict in the digital context as key practices. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the social and digital contexts constructing the issue of public breastfeeding.

Keywords: discourse, social media, public breastfeeding

Publication based on the results of: Russians’ Daily Social Practices under Exogenous Shocks (2024)

In book

Discourse in the Digital Age. Social Media, Power, and Society

NY: Routledge, 2023.