The Social Construction of Mental Health Facts in Social Media Language

Social media has had a significant impact on the increasing visibility of mental health. This article draws on a digital ethnographic approach and discourse analysis of posts to the microblogging site X (formerly Twitter) to examine uses of and metacommunication about the language of mental health. The analysis traces and snapshots how mental health language is being used to construct mental health, mental illness, and related subjects as a meaningful social object by participants on social media. The results focus on a particular practice around contesting the language and meaning of mental health designations, identities and language as a form of communication ritual that produces normative metadiscourse about mental health, what it means, and how we should understand and talk about it.