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Mostly satirising top-of-mind brands, user-generated parody accounts are a phenomenon mostlyassociated with Twitter. As an emerging trend in South Africa, parody accounts using cleverlywrittensatire attract a large and loyal following as social media communities enjoy the sharedpleasure of sharing funny content and the intense positive emotions felt when making fun ofbrands that they care about. Of particular concern is when audiences find parody accounts morehonest, entertaining and authentic compared to the official social media brand account. Moreover,user-generated parody accounts often misappropriate brand identities, thereby not only confusingunsuspecting social media communities but also satirising brand meanings. Correspondingly,social media management teams are faced with a reputational risk or paracrisis, since theemotional resonance of brand reputations are being hijacked. Too often, official responses toparody accounts are knee-jerk responses to take back control, such as aggressive threats andlitigation, easily escalating into angry viral social media backlashes. The purpose of the study wasto establish suitable paracrisis response strategies for parodied brands to maintain emotionallyresonant reputations. Using a synergistic approach to mixed methods in a triangulation design,this study collected and analysed data from a purposive and snowball sample of 207 social mediaexperts. Findings suggested that humorous, tongue-in-cheek banter with user-generated parodyaccounts intended for harmless fun optimise emotionally resonant brand reputations in the ageof parody.

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This study is a qualitative analysis of citizen journalists’ blog posts relating to the Gautrain Projectin South Africa, with a main focus on the Gautrain’s readiness to commence operations on 8 June2010 for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. This article is based on sections of a current MTechstudy on citizen journalism. Citizen journalism as a phenomenon is examined within the context of the blogosphere. Thegatekeeping theory is used as an approach to journalism in the online environment. So far, only avery limited number of studies have specifically addressed gatekeeping in the online environmentwhere citizen journalists decide what is news and which issues need to be raised on the publicsphere agenda. In the online context this is sometimes referred to as gatewatching.Although not professionally trained journalists, citizen journalists often perform the samegatekeeping functions as professional journalists. As gatewatchers of mainstream media content,press releases and other background information, citizen journalists may reintroduce debate inthe public sphere and introduce new insights previously overlooked by the mainstream media.This article demonstrates how citizen journalists acted as editorial ‘gatewatchers’ on the topic ofthe Gautrain project’s readiness for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup in terms of seven categories.It also illustrates that when functioning as editorial gatewatchers, citizen journalists have thepotential to establish new criteria for newsworthiness in the public sphere.