Influencers and Their Salience: Public Perceptions of Individual Agendas on Instagram

Bantimaroudis, Philemon

doi:10.1177/09760911231163281

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Wu et al (2011) note that, while members of the general public now share the same access to social media that a celebrity does, information flows have not become egalitarian by any means. Personal salience (Bantimaroudis 2023) is still a key-and very unequally distributed-commodity in the attention economy (Marshall 2021, Hendricks andMehlsen 2022). Although it is far from new or unique to social media, the figure of the influencer occupies a prominent position within information ecosystems and is a powerful driver of virality.…”

Section: Antisemitism and (Online) Virality: The Role Of Influencersmentioning

confidence: 99%

3. ‘Pop’ Antisemitism and Deviant Communities

Chapelan

2024

Antisemitism in Online Communication

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Social media platforms and the interactive web have had a significant impact on political socialisation, creating new pathways of community-building that shifted the focus from real-life, localised networks (such as unions or neighbourhood associations) to vast, diffuse and globalised communities (Finin et al. 2008, Rainie and Wellman 2012, Olson 2014, Miller 2017). Celebrities or influencers are often focal nodes for the spread of information and opinions across these new types of networks in the digital space (see Hutchins and Tindall 2021). Unfortunately, this means that celebrities’ endorsement of extremist discourse or narratives can potently drive the dissemination and normalisation of hate ideologies. This paper sets out to analyse the reaction of French social media audiences to antisemitism controversies involving pop culture celebrities. I will focus on two such episodes, one with a ‘national’ celebrity at its centre and the other a ‘global’ celebrity: the social media ban of the French-Cameroonian comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala in June–July 2020 and the controversy following US rapper Kanye West’s spate of antisemitic statements in October–November 2022. The empirical corpus comprises over 4,000 user comments on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter (now X). My methodological approach is two-pronged: a preliminary mapping of the text through content analysis is followed by a qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis that examines linguistic strategies and discursive constructions employed by social media users to legitimise antisemitic worldviews. We lay particular emphasis on the manner in which memes, dog-whistling or coded language (such as allusions or inside jokes popular within certain communities or fandoms) are used not only to convey antisemitic meaning covertly but also to build a specific form of counter-cultural solidarity. This solidarity expresses itself in the form of “ deviant communities” (see Proust et al. 2020) based on the performative and deliberate transgression of societal taboos and norms.

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Section: Antisemitism and (Online) Virality: The Role Of Influencersmentioning

confidence: 99%

3. ‘Pop’ Antisemitism and Deviant Communities

Chapelan

2024

Antisemitism in Online Communication

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Section: Antisemitism and (Online) Virality: The Role Of Influencersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antisemitism in Online Communication

2024

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The normalisation of hate speech, including antisemitic rhetoric, poses a significant threat to social cohesion and democracy. While global efforts have been made to counter contemporary antisemitism, there is an urgent need to understand its online manifestations. Hate speech spreads easily across the internet, facilitated by anonymity and reinforced by algorithms that favour engaging--even if offensive--content. It often takes coded forms, making detection challenging. Antisemitism in Online Communication addresses these issues by analysing explicit and implicit antisemitic statements in mainstream online discourse. Drawing from disciplines such as corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, semiotics, history, and philosophy, this edited collection examines over 100,000 user comments from three language communities. Contributors explore various facets of online antisemitism, including its intersectionality with misogyny and its dissemination through memes and social networks. Through case studies, they examine the reproduction, support, and rejection of antisemitic tropes, alongside quantitative assessments of comment structures in online discussions. Additionally, the volume delves into the capabilities of content moderation tools and deep-learning models for automated hate speech detection. This multidisciplinary approach provides a comprehensive understanding of contemporary antisemitism in digital spaces, recognising the importance of addressing its insidious spread from multiple angles.

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Influencers and Their Salience: Public Perceptions of Individual Agendas on Instagram

Cited by 2 publications

References 34 publications

3. ‘Pop’ Antisemitism and Deviant Communities

3. ‘Pop’ Antisemitism and Deviant Communities

Antisemitism in Online Communication

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