The Application of ENA to Political Discourse in Taiwan: A Case Study

This study investigates social media interactions between individuals commenting on Taiwanese social media during a visit by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to Taiwan It specifically focuses on discourse patterns on the Facebook fan pages of Taiwan’s three major parties: the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Kuomintang (KMT), and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Furthermore, it models comments on PTT, the Taiwanese equivalent of Reddit. The discourse is qualitatively coded by two researchers using Hamilton’s framework for political discourse analysis. Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is used to model connections between codes. Results show that DPP supporters employ civil and supportive language in response to the Speaker’s visit, whereas KMT and TPP supporters appear acrimonious and sarcastic. Additionally, TPP supporters tend to be more rational, civil, and supportive than those of the KMT. The supporters’ discourse patterns appear to align with the parties’ public rhetoric. The PTT model demonstrates general support for the visit but often in acrimonious and sarcastic tones. Nevertheless, alternations between civility and acrimony are observed in the PTT discourse. This study highlights the potential of ENA in analyzing Taiwanese political discourse on social media.