Interdisciplinary Studies in Media and Culture

Discursive Construction of Economic Corruption on Twitter: An Analysis Based on van Dijk’s Model

Articles in Press

Document Type : .

Authors

Zohreh Ghavidal 1
soodeh maghsoodi 2

1 Ph.D. Student in Sociology (Specializing in Iranian Social Issues), Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Social Sciences Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

10.30465/ismc.2026.53726.3016
Abstract
Twitter, as one of the most influential social media platforms, provides a space where users reactions are rapidly expressed and social discourses on public issues are formed and representedThis study aims to examine how economic corruption is represented in the discourse of Persianspeaking Twitter usersdrawing on Teun Avan Dijk’s framework of Critical Discourse Analysis.The research data consist of 200 Persian tweets related to the hashtag “economic corruption collected between September 2023 and August 2024 through purposive samplingThe tweets were selected based on several criteriaincluding direct relevance to the topicbeing written in Persian, authenticity of the user accounts, and the exclusion of promotional content and repeated retweetsThe selected tweets were analyzed at three levelssemantic, lexical, and argumentativeThe findings indicate that, within the discourse of Twitter users, economic corruption in Iran is portrayed as a multilayered and networked phenomenon that is closely associated with power structures and institutional mechanismsThe analysis identifies three dominant discoursesstructural and institutionalized corruption, economic corruption among political and power elitesand the politicization of corruption as a tool for political competition and exclusionOverall, the results suggest that social media platforms play a significant role in shaping and reproducing critical discourses about economic corruption and its relationship

Keywords

Iran
economic corruption
Twitter
construction
discourse
Subjects
Interdisciplinary Studies in Media and Culture

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 21 June 2026

  • Receive Date 16 December 2025
  • Revise Date 19 June 2026
  • Accept Date 21 June 2026
  • Publish Date 21 June 2026

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