British MPs’ Twittering Behaviours during COP26: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis

In this work we analysed how British MPs discursively and visually performed their role on Twitter, during a decisive event for climate change policies such as the Conference of Parties (COP). Employing a multimodal qualitative approach (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Machin & Mayr, 2012), we focused on how the selected MPs per formed their role as participants in COP26 events through visual and textual discourse practices, employing a typology of Twittering be haviours coined by Graham et al. (2013), based off on two macro-cate gories (Broadcasting and Interaction) and further exemplified in mul tiple functions. We find that comparatively there are both similarities in their use of Twitter as a broadcasting mean and differences in terms of functions and the way they perform it, especially according to the ‘role’ they held during the event, confirming the Twittersphere as a virtual forum where they construct and present their own opinions, in a ‘one to many’ way, doing politics as usual.