Selected Papers of #AoIR2021: The 22nd Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers Virtual Event / 13-16 Oct 2021 TITLE: AFFECTIVE DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN THE CROSS-PLATFORM STUDY OF EMOTION AND RACE ON TWITTER, GAB, AND FACEBOOK Author: Megan Boler Institution: Social Justice Education, OISE/University of Toronto Extended Abstract: In the context of the so-called "post-truth" crisis, emotions have resoundingly replaced facts in our fast-moving, affectively-driven internet-based culture (McIntyre 2018). Scholars are challenged to develop innovative methods for studying emotion and affect within studies of popular culture, social media, and political communications (Boler and Davis 2020). What is an effective interdisciplinary approach to the study of affect useful for studying communications in our rapidly-evolving media ecosystems? While the "affective turn" makes sense in the humanities, disciplines studying elections and populist sentiments traditionally draw upon quantitative and qualitative methods that tend to reduce and measure emotions as simply negative and positive (Boler and Davis 2018). Further, political communications scholarship on "affective polarization" tend to define "in-groups" and "out-groups" solely in terms of partisan differences, missing much of the complexity of social identities and race relations that catalyze ideological and affective polarization (Iyengar et al 2019). To bring greater complexity into understandings of affective polarization and how emotion drives debate within social media, this three-year, funded research project draws from cutting-edge scholarship on the politics of emotion and affect theory to inform an innovative grounded theoretical study of emotional expression in social media. Relevant to this talk, the team investigated how emotion was mobilized and discussed within social media regarding salient election issues including voter fraud, Antifa, and Black Lives Matter in the context of the highly polarized U.S. election and the pro-Trump ecosystems. The overarching RQ framing the project was: x How are emotions expressed in relation to narratives of racial and national belonging, in the context of election-related social media? Suggested Citation (APA): Boler, M. (2021, October). Affective Discourse Analysis and Social Media: Methodological Innovations in the Cross-Platform Study of Emotion and Race on Twitter, Gab, And Facebook. Paper presented at AoIR 2021: The 22nd Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Virtual Event: AoIR. Retrieved from http://spir.aoir.org.