This article presents findings of a research carried out among pro-refugee individuals in social media in Hungary. During the so-called refugee crisis that emerged in the summer of 2015, anti-immigrant sentiments in the Hungarian public were fueled by a strong governmental campaign. This unusually strong propaganda campaign created a strong hegemonic discourse. Nevertheless, a pro-refugee counterpublic opposing the hegemonic discourse also emerged. The article discusses existing scholarly literature on the phenomenon and how it appears in and is shaped by the digital sphere. The empirical findings focus on two characteristics of the pro-refugee counterpublic. First, we look at the political affiliations of this counterpublic. Second, we ask if the different digital affordances used by the counterpublic and their combinations indicate the formation of a community. The methodological ambition of the article is to present a digital data-driven approach, based on data provided by Facebook, which allows the individual profiling of each user. The connections and schemata of these profiles provide the analytical background of the present research. We aim to illustrate that such a digital approach has a number of advantages over traditional sociological methods, especially in the research of subaltern counterpublics.

Intersections. EEJSP 3(1): 31-55. DOI: 10.17356/ieejsp.v3i1.197 http://intersections.tk.mta.hu AbstractBig Data presents the social sciences with an overarching challenge. Following many theoretical manifestos, we here present an empirical case study to demonstrate the new approaches that have become possible by using social media data in a specific field of cultural analysis. This paper reflects on changes in celebrity/fandom culture (Jenkins, 2006;Jenkins, Ito and boyd, 2015). The trend towards democratization was hastened by the spread of the internet, while the demotization of the process of celebrity creation became even more pronounced through web 2.0. Our study examines the relationship between the Hungarian celebrity sphere and social media fandom using quantitative research, including cross-sectional, network and correlation analyses. To illustrate the differences among the categories of celebrities and their fandom, we introduce two valuesenvironmentalism and consumerism-which help to highlight existing patterns. Analysis of these dimensions can provide benchmarks for interpreting the thus-created proxies, and help us to reflect on the social roles of celebrities and their followers.