Weaponizing Words in a Connected World: Digital Microaggressions, Weaponised Communication, and Technology-Governed Exposure

Abstract

This study examines how digital microaggressions become structurally consequential in platformed communication environments by tracing their structural association with weaponised communication and technology-governed exposure, and by assessing downstream effects on perceived societal vulnerability. Although prior research has examined online hate, emotional virality, and algorithmic amplification in separate streams, fewer studies have modelled how subtle hostile discourse, strategic emotional intensification, and engagement-based platform architectures function as an integrated influence system. Using a cross-sectional survey of 400 active social media users, the study measured four constructs: digital microaggressions (microinsults, microinvalidations, microassaults), weaponised communication (emotional provocation, polarising framing), technology-governed exposure (algorithmic amplification, recommendation frequency), and perceived societal security vulnerability (identity polarisation, social cohesion erosion). Importantly, the construct of societal security vulnerability in this study is conceptualised at the perceptual level. It reflects interpretive assessments of identity polarisation and social cohesion rather than institutional, geopolitical, or policy level instability. This distinction ensures that the findings are bounded within communication-driven risk perception in digital environments. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Descriptive results indicate higher exposure to subtle microaggressions (microinsults and microinvalidations) relative to overt hostility, alongside elevated exposure to emotional provocation and perceived algorithmic amplification. Structural results are consistent with a layered amplification pattern in which digital microaggressions are positively associated with weaponised communication, which is associated with technology-governed exposure, corresponding with heightened perceptions of identity polarisation and weakened social cohesion. Rather than implying objective national destabilisation, the findings clarify how repeated exposure to emotionally intensified and algorithmically amplified discourse shapes interpretive perceptions of societal vulnerability. The study advances digital influence research by integrating microaggression theory, emotional contagion dynamics, and platform governance perspectives into a unified structural explanation of how micro level hostility may scale into broader perceptions of societal fragmentation within digitally mediated environments.