Autorité et médias sociaux. Une approche discursive de l’autorité dans le Web social

This article aims to demonstrate the existence of processes of constructing discursive authority in the social (or participative) web. To accomplish this, we will first provide a theoretical overview of the concept of authority, which will enable us to distinguish between its defining elements and its situational manifestations. Then, we will examine three non-exhaustive but prototypical examples of communication on collaborative web platforms to show how certain linguistic-discursive and technological characteristics of these environments facilitate the creation of a discourse marked by trust and, as a result, authoritative for different user communities. Our analyses will start from an examination of internet memes, where both certain dissemination logics and technoenunciative characteristics reveal the persistence of discourse authorization mechanisms that lie somewhere between technological parameters and enunciative postures. Then, we will illustrate the strategies used by users, who can be regarded as scientific "influencers" on Twitter, to establish their legitimacy and online credibility. Finally, we will look at a collaborative creative writing project on Twitter ("Bowary") to explore the relationships between the notion of authority and this new form of shared authorship online.