When your neighbor becomes a threat

Abstract This paper analyzes how a series of online COVID-19-related discussions in a public social media group divided a community consisting of part-time and permanent residents. The group is a general discussion forum aimed at the inhabitants of a relatively small Finnish municipality. The discussions took place in March-April 2020, and the recurring topic was the potential danger posed by holiday home owners, who permanent residents feared would bring the virus with them. The discussions escalated quickly, and several threads went on simultaneously for some weeks. In the discussions, an ingroup and an outgroup were instantly formed. The material is analyzed from the point of view of categorization analysis, hate speech and metapragmatics. I examine the course of the discussions, and topics such as responsible behavior, health, and money. In addition, I also examine the metapragmatic utterances and sequences, which steadily increased during the discussions, and take a critical stance toward them. The research method employed will be qualitative content analysis.