Visual Linguistic Features of Small Stories in Technologically Mediated Communication on Facebook Messenger

This article fills a gap in narrative research by investigating how graphical communication contributes to developing small stories in Technologically Mediated Communication (TMC) environments like Facebook Messenger (FM). Scholars examining everyday narratives have primarily concentrated on their structure and identity formation, while others have investigated the linguistic features of graphicons in digital environments. Nevertheless, there remains a gap in explicitly connecting these visual elements as essential contributors to the overall construction of narratives and identities. The article explores how visual aspects are integrated into text-based exchanges, influencing the construction of narratives and identity. The research method is discourse analysis and the data are Facebook Messenger exchanges among a group of college students. The findings show that graphicons are critical, co-constructed narrative components that promote an interactive relationship between verbal and visual communication.