Discourse Analysis of Academic Cheating Phenomenon: A Case Study of Users’ Comments on the Kuwaiti News Account (Al Majlis) on Twitter

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Kuwait University, Kuwait

Abstract

Academic cheating has a devastating effect on societies. This study investigated Twitter users' attitudes towards academic cheating news in Kuwait to understand how they perceive academic cheating. The research analyzed the discourse on two main incidents; the protest against the “anti-cheating regulation” in 2018 and the “cheating group on WhatsApp” incident in 2023. For the case study, the researcher chose Al Majlis Twitter account as the news platform on which the comments have been selected. A total of 1259 tweets were analyzed manually. The findings revealed that users had negative attitude towards cheating. People viewed cheating as a severe problem that was put in a political and social context. However, some users justified cheating and accused the educational system for the problem. The research has concluded with some suggestions to combat cheating, such as, raising religious awareness among students. Future studies could study other academic misconduct, such as plagiarism.  To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the discourse of social media users about academic cheating.

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References

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