TW: su1(1d3 – Multimodal Self-Censorship on YouTube

Abstract

This paper aims at introducing and cataloguing different self-censorship techniques on the video-sharing platform YouTube. Special focus is placed on 1) the multimodal nature of self-censorship and the creative use of different semiotic resources on the platform and 2) how these techniques are used differently on the different communicative levels (Boyd 2014, Dynel 2014, Schmidt & Marx 2019).
To that end, a corpus of ten commentary videos is investigated with the goal of illustrating the different techniques and their potential functions. It is shown that censoring processes are focussed on the lexical level, but that other linguistic and semiotic dimensions are involved as well.