Elon Musk’s Social Media Communications on Stock Volatility: A Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This thesis is a Discourse Analysis which aims to unveil the discourse construct in Elon Musk’s selected tweets that shook the stock volatility. This research employs Discourse Analysis by Gee (2004), Systemic Functional Linguistics by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) emphasizing on Transitivity system and Mood analysis. Zappavigna’s and Logi’s Paralanguage analysis (2024) is also deemed necessary to analyze the paralinguistic elements in this research. The qualitative research was employed in this research the objects of the data were taken using documentary method. The researcher collected the data from Twitter, such as Elon Musk’s original tweets and news media which emphasizes publishing his tweets within the timeframe of December 2020 – June 2021. Then, the data were processed using SFL by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), Paralanguage analysis by Zappavigna and Logi (2024) and Discourse Analysis by Gee (2004). This research found that Elon Musk's tweets purposefully used informal language and emojis to connect with his audience during a difficult time. This approach aimed to build solidarity and downplay the social gap between Musk and his followers. Furthermore, the analysis revealed frequent use of declarative statements and emojis to emphasize information and generate excitement, potentially influencing his followers' investment decisions.