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Abstract

Abstract

This paper introduces a conceptual framework for analyzing social media narratives as socio-technologically situated, multi-authored, and interactionally co-constructed phenomena. While narrative analyses of platforms like YouTube often isolate videos as self-contained stories, we argue that narratives on social media unfold across dynamic webs of interaction involving creators, commenters, viewers, and platform affordances and algorithms. Our framework expands what counts as a narrative on social media by tracing how stories are edited, framed, responded to, and algorithmically shaped across time. Focusing on a YouTube video of an Uber ride posted by a Turkish social media influencer in the US, we demonstrate how multiple co-tellers introduce new interpretations of the recorded events and reshape the narrative for subsequent viewers. By identifying co-tellers and tracing the trajectories of narratives, this framework allows analysts to better examine how narratives, thus discourses and ideologies, evolve, circulate, and impact audiences.

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/content/journals/10.1075/ni.25120.ozc
2026-03-27
2026-04-20

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/content/journals/10.1075/ni.25120.ozc
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Unpacking the narrative complexities of YouTube
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.25120.ozc
/content/journals/10.1075/ni.25120.ozc
/content/journals/10.1075/ni.25120.ozc
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: digital discourse ; social media narrative analysis ; text trajectories ; algorithmic agency ; recontextualization ; YouTube narratives

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