Digital Critical Discourse Analysis — Analyzing Power and Ideology in Online Communication

Digital Critical Discourse Analysis (Digital CDA) is a qualitative research approach that applies the theoretical and methodological tools of Critical Discourse Analysis to digital and online communicative contexts. It examines how language, multimodal elements, and digital affordances are mobilized in online spaces to produce, reproduce, or contest power relations, ideologies, and social inequalities. Drawing on traditions established by Fairclough, Wodak, and van Dijk, Digital CDA treats digital texts — from social media posts to comment threads and websites — as sites of ideological struggle shaped by the platforms that host them.