Corpus-based critical discourse analysis of NFT art within mainstream art-market discourse and implications for the political economy of digital art

The paper addresses how NFTs are framed and positioned within mainstream art market discourse and the implications for their integration, valorisation, and the tensions around their emergence in the contemporary art world. It situates NFTs as cryptographic tokens enabling ownership and resale of digital artworks, noting both the hype cycle (meteoric rise in 2021–early 2022, followed by a sharp collapse in mid-2022) and ongoing uncertainty. Advocates argue NFTs can democratise art markets and provide new revenue models; critics question their cultural cachet, investment potential, speculative dynamics, regulatory clarity, environmental impact, and governance. The study identifies a knowledge gap in linguistic analyses of NFT discourse and proposes an interdisciplinary approach combining critical discourse analysis (CDA), corpus linguistics, and political economy to examine three influential 2023 art market reports. The research question: How are NFTs discursively framed and positioned in mainstream art-market reports, and what are the implications for their integration, valorisation, and tensions around accessibility, diversity, and sustainability?

The literature review outlines Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a multidisciplinary framework examining how language constructs and contests power and ideology (Fairclough, Wodak, van Dijk). Key concepts include discourse, intertextuality, power, and ideology, with methods spanning textual, linguistic, semiotic analyses, and critical reflection. CDA has been increasingly applied to art criticism, interpretation, education, visual culture, curatorial practice, museums, social media, and activism, with emerging emphases on intersectionality, digital/new media art, globalisation, and environmental concerns. Within art discourse, CDA reveals how institutions, critics, and curators shape narratives, inclusions/exclusions, and power dynamics, and how digital media reconfigures these. The review also notes debates specific to NFTs and digital art around ownership, marketisation, environmental sustainability, regulation, and valuation, situating the study within political economy perspectives that interrogate commodification and hierarchies in art markets.

The study employs CDA augmented by corpus linguistics tools to analyse the framing of NFTs in three influential 2023 art market reports: (1) Art Basel & UBS, The Art Market 2023; (2) Artprice & Artron Research Academy of Arts (ARAA), The 2022 Global Art Market; (3) Sotheby's & ArtTactic, Insight Report - Peak Performance: The Art Market Beyond $1 Million, 2018–2022. The combined corpus totals 385 pages and over 100,000 words (105,993 words), treated as a representative, multimodal set of institutional texts focused on the global art market. Analyses include frequency counts, concordance (keyword-in-context), collocation, sentiment analysis, and structural placement within reports. MAXQDA software supported qualitative and quantitative text processing. The study also considers typical discursive features of economic reports (technical jargon, data reliance, passive voice, nominalisation, hedging, causality, persuasive tone, logical structure) to interpret how institutional authority and valuation frames are constructed.

- Frequency: Report 1 (Art Basel & UBS) mentions 'NFT' 193 times (0.29%), versus 'digital art' 21; 'contemporary art' 42; 'post-war and contemporary' 41; 'Old Masters' 61; 'Modern Art' 25; 'Impressionist and post-impressionist' 13. Report 2 (Artprice/ARAA) 'NFT' 37 (0.17%), 'Contemporary Art' 19, 'Digital Art' 3. Report 3 (Sotheby's/ArtTactic) 'NFT' 10 (0.06%), 'Digital Art' 3, 'Impressionist and Modern Art' 4. Across reports, 'NFT' is markedly more prominent than 'digital art', indicating discursive primacy; its lower frequency in Report 3 reflects an emergent status at the high end. - Concordance: Frequent context words embed NFTs in commercial discourse. Report 1: sales (31), art (30), art-related (16), platforms (13), digital (12). Report 2: art (17), fine art (15), auction (14), turnover (13), market (6). Report 3: art (3), sales (1), platforms (1), top-selling (1). - Collocation: Report 1: art-related NFTs (16), NFT sales (12), NFT platforms (9), collectibles NFTs (5), NFT marketplaces (4). Report 2: NFT auction (11), NFT auction turnover (10), NFT market (6). Report 3: art NFTs (1), Everydays NFT (1), art NFTs grew (1), top-selling NFT (1). These patterns position NFTs as both art objects and market commodities. - Sentiment: Overall framing is overwhelmingly positive in Reports 2 and 3; Report 1 is largely neutral due to a dedicated legal exhibit discussing risks (copyright infringement, money laundering, insider trading, fraud). - Structure: High structural prominence in Report 1 (two subsections on NFTs and two exhibits addressing technology and legal aspects). Report 2 includes NFTs as a key trend subsection. Report 3 lacks a dedicated NFT section, indicating lower structural prominence in the >US$1m segment. - Synthesis: Institutional discourse legitimises and valorises NFTs, integrating them into mainstream market categories while acknowledging risks and ethical concerns. NFTs are prominent across the general and auction-focused reports but remain less established in top-tier segments, consistent with their price levels relative to the >US$1m market.

Findings address the research question by showing that influential market institutions frame NFTs with high discursive prominence, associating them with established art-market lexicons of sales, auctions, platforms, and turnover. This constructs legitimacy and confers ideological acceptance within mainstream art-market discourse. The tiered prominence—strong in general and auction reports, weaker at the high end—maps onto existing market hierarchies, indicating integration with uneven status across segments. The commercial framing foregrounds financialised valuation, risking the marginalisation of artistic and cultural dimensions. At the same time, discourse reflects a dual narrative: NFTs can democratise access and bypass gatekeepers, yet they also concentrate wealth and influence among a few collectors, platforms, and artists, thereby amplifying existing hierarchies. Reports recognise ethical tensions around accessibility, diversity, and environmental sustainability, and legal risks (IP, fraud, AML). Overall, NFTs are positioned as legitimate market commodities and emerging art forms whose continued integration depends on evolving institutional validation, regulatory clarity, and addressing sustainability and equity concerns.

The study contributes an interdisciplinary CDA–corpus approach to chart how NFTs are framed within mainstream art-market reports. Quantitative prominence, commercial collocations, positive sentiment, and structural placement together indicate growing institutional legitimisation and valorisation of NFT art. Nonetheless, NFTs’ status remains emergent at the high end, and ethical issues—environmental impact, diversity and inclusion, market transparency, and IP—are unresolved. Implications include: (1) for researchers, a replicable framework to track evolving discourse and valuation; (2) for policymakers, the need for adaptive regulation on copyright, sustainability, and transparency; (3) for practitioners, guidance to integrate digital art strategically while engaging ethical considerations. Future research should longitudinally monitor discourse across additional institutional genres and regions, incorporate multimodal analyses of visuals and data displays, and examine intersections of identity, geography, and platform governance in shaping access and value.

The corpus comprises three 2023 reports (Art Basel & UBS; Artprice/ARAA; Sotheby's/ArtTactic). While narrow in source count, these are authoritative, widely cited, and directly reflect institutional perspectives; combined length (>100,000 words across 385 pages) supports mixed-method analysis. The focus on economic reports privileges institutional, market-centric discourse and excludes broader media, artist statements, and non-textual modalities in the reports (e.g., charts) beyond textual references. Sentiment and collocation patterns may be sensitive to report-specific editorial choices. The high-end segment remains underrepresented in explicit NFT sections (Report 3), potentially understating certain dynamics at the top tier. Results capture a snapshot of 2023 discourse amid a rapidly evolving market.