How Social Media Changes Meaning: A Philosophical Analysis of Contemporary Language

Abstrak

The development of social media has transformed the ways in which people use, understand, and negotiate meaning in everyday communication. Popular terms, informal language, humor, irony, memes, and various forms of digital expression demonstrate that linguistic meaning increasingly depends on the context of interaction and the communities in which users participate. This phenomenon is important to examine because changes in meaning are not only related to linguistic development but also to the formation of identity, social relations, and cultural understanding in digital spaces. This study aims to analyze how social media influences the formation, transformation, and negotiation of meaning in contemporary language use from the perspective of Philosophy of Language. This study employs an interpretative phenomenological approach to understand users’ experiences and reflections in interpreting digital language. The research is designed to obtain data through in-depth interviews with approximately 15–20 social media users, observations of digital communication practices, and document analysis involving posts, comments, memes, and other relevant forms of digital expression. The data are analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, with Wittgenstein’s concept of meaning as use serving as the primary theoretical perspective, supported by pragmatic theory and digital discourse studies. The findings indicate four main patterns: meaning shifts according to context; humor and irony function as spaces for meaning negotiation; language serves as a marker of identity and social membership; and tensions emerge between speakers’ intentions and audience interpretations. Theoretically, this study contributes to an expanded understanding of meaning as use in the context of digital communication. Practically, it emphasizes the importance of digital literacy that is oriented not only toward technological competence but also toward the ability to understand context, intention, and the diversity of meanings in social interaction.
Keywords: Social Media, Meaning as Use, Philosophy of Language, Digital Communication, Pragmatics, Digital Literacy, Identity Formation