How the term ‘gaslighting’ is used online
This study identifies and examines different ways the word ‘gaslighting’ is used online. The article goes into the contextual, linguistic, and emotional aspects of the usage of the term. The study revealed that most often the term ‘gaslighting’ is used in the discussion of mental health issues and political and social commentary. It was also discovered that 32% of the analysed posts expressed users’ experiences with being manipulated and mentally abused. Additionally, a significant percentage of the posts (42%) contained psychology-related vocabulary items such as ‘therapy’, ‘trauma’, ‘emotions’, ‘narcissist’. Based on the findings of the study, the word ‘gaslighting’ cannot be replaced by any other term or phrase in the majority of contexts, which solidifies its specific semantic features and showcases how it has been redefined and adapted by the online community.