Cover not available

In:Influencer Discourse: Affective relations and identities
Edited by Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and Alexandra Georgakopoulou
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 349] 2024
► pp. 128–147

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 5
🍊🍊🍊: Political influencers as flashpoints for manufactured online aggression

 | The Open University
 | The Open University
Published online: 17 October 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.349.05sea
Abstract
In the context of the literature on practices of social media influencers, little attention has been paid, so far, to the emerging category of political influencers. This chapter examines the social media feed of a political influencer as a site of antagonistic political debate generating audience outrage. Drawing on digital ethnography and digital discourse analysis, we focus on a media event centring around a tweet posted by the British journalist Ash Sarkar on the date upon which three people were killed in a terrorist incident in a park in Reading, UK. The tweet unleashed a storm of abuse targeted at Sarkar from people erroneously relating its content to the killings. Our analysis reconstructs how this post and reactions to it created lines of dis/alignment around broad antagonistic and reactionary online discourses as a strategy of weaponizing and communicating outrage against this type of political influencer.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The political influencer
  • 3.Research focus and theoretical approach
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1The instigating post
    • 4.2The metasemiotics of emoji
    • 4.3Fabricating an anti-story
  • 5.Conclusion: The Sarkar effect
  • Note
  • References
References (39)
References
Abidin, Crystal. 2016. Visibility Labour: Engaging with Influencers’ Fashion Brands and #OOTD Advertorial Campaigns on Instagram. Media International Australia 161 (1): 86–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Amaral, Iñes, Rocio Zamora, María del Mar Grandío, José Manuel Noguera. 2016. “Flows of Communication and ‘Influentials’ in Twitter: A Comparative Approach between Portugal and Spain during 2014 European Elections.” Observatorio (OBS) Journal 10 (2): 111–128. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
AoIR. 2020. “Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0.” [URL]
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. “Discourse in the Novel” (M. Holquist & C. Emerson, Trans.). In The Dialogic Imagination, ed. by M. Holquist (Ed.), 259–422. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2019. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The next level of political digital culture”, Diggit Magazine, 22 January, available online at: [URL] (accessed 7 July 2020).
Blommaert, Jan and Anna De Fina. 2016. “Chronotopic Identities: On the Timespace Organization of Who We Are”. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, Paper 153: 1–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahlgren, P. (2013). The political Web: Media, participation and alternative democracy. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Darrow, Thomas A. 2005. “The Influence of Celebrity Endorsements on Young Adults’ Political Opinion.” International Journal of Press/Politics, 10 (3): 80–98.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daskalopoulos, Ally, Nadia Hernandez, Felix Jason, Holly Jenvey, David Gustafson, Robin Mosley, Cam Rodriguez, Nika Schoonover, and Sitoria Townsend. 2021. ‘Thinking Outside the Bubble: Addressing Polarization and Disinformation on Social Media’. CSIS Journalism Bootcamp. Available online at: [URL]. Accessed 30 March 2023.
De Fina, Anna. 2022. “‘I especially loved the little Nana dancing on the balcony’: The emergence, formation, and circulation of chronotopoes in mass-mediated communication”. Language in Society: 1–21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drake, Philip and Michael Higgins. 2006. “‘I’m a celebrity, get me into politics’: The Political Celebrity and the Celebrity Politician”. In Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture, ed. by Su Holmes, and Sean Redmond, Routledge: London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Esposito, Eleonora. 2021. Introduction: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Politics and Violence. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 9 (1): 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flemmen, Magne and Savage, Mike. 2017. The Politics of Nationalism and White Racism in the UK. The British Journal of Sociology 68 (S1). S233–S264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freberg, Karen, Kristin Graham, Karen Mcgaughey, and Laura A. Freberg. 2011. “Who are the Social Media Influencers? A Study of Public Perceptions of Personality.” Public Relations Review 37 (1): 90–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar and Bou-Franch, Patricia (eds). 2019. Analyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2015. “Sharing as Rescripting: Place Manipulations on YouTube between Narrative and Social Media Affordances”. Discourse, Context & Media (Special Issue: Communicating Time and Place on Digital Media, ed. by Alexandra Georgakopoulou) 9: 64–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “Sharing the Moment as Small Stories: New Challenges.” Narrative Inquiry 17 (2): 311–333. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “From Narrating the Self to Posting Self(ies): A Small Stories Approach to Selfies.” Open Linguistics (Special Issue: Personal Narrative Online, edited by D. Dayter and S. Mühleisen) 2 (1): 300–317. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra and Korina Giaxoglou. 2019. “Emplotment in the Social Mediatization of the Economy: the Poly-storying of Economist Yanis Varoufakis” Language@Internet 16 (6): 1–15.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giaxoglou, Korina. 2022. “Mobilizing Stories of Illness in Digital Contexts: A Critical Approach to Narrative, Voice and Visibility.” Poetics (Special Issue edited by Maria Mäkelä and Hanna Meretoja): Critical Approaches to the Storytelling Boom) 43 (2): 287–308. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, A., Joseff, K., Riedl, M. J., Lukito, J. and Woolley, S. 2023. Political Relational Influencers: The Mobilization of Social Media Influencers in the Political Arena, International Journal of Communication, 17, p. 21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harrington, John. 2020. “Game of Influence: How New-wave Political Influencers became ‘Lightning Rods’ of Debate.” PR WEEK, January 20. Available online at: [URL] (accessed 07/07/2020).
Hou, Mingyi. 2019. Social Media Celebrity and the Institutionalization of YouTube. Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 25 (3): 534–553. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khamis, Susie., Ang Lawrence & Raymond Welling. 2017. Self-branding, ‘Micro-celebrity’ and the Rise of Social Media Influencers. Celebrity Studies 8 (2): 191–208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewis, Rebecca. 2018. Alternative influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube (White paper). New York: Data & Society Research Institute.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lima, Leo Noboru. 2022. “Why The Oranges In The Godfather Mean More Than You Think,” Looper, 16 January. Available online at: [URL] (accessed 9/05/2022).
Marwick, Alice. 2015. Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marwick, Alice and danah boyd. 2011. “To See and be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17 (2): 139–158. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Monllos, Kristina. 2020. “‘Stand for Something’: As Protests Continue, Tone-deaf Influencer Marketing is in the Spotlight,” Digiday, 4 June. Available online: [URL], (accessed 4/07/2020).
Myers, Fraser. 2020. Ash Sarkar: woke segregationist. Spiked, 9th March 2020. Available online: [URL] (accessed: 10 May 2022).
Peacock, Alice. 2020. Journalist Ash Sarkar Gets Death Threats for Photo of her Enjoying Lolly in Park, The Mirror, 21 June. Available online at: [URL] (accessed: 21/05/2022)
Phillips, Whitney. 2016. This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poe, Nathan. 2005. Big Contradictions in the Evolution Theory, page 3, christianforums.com, 11 August, [URL] (accessed 7/7/2020).
Riedl, Magdalena, Carsten Schwemmer, Sandra Ziewiecki and Lisa M. Ross. 2021. The Rise of Political Influencers — Perspectives on a Trend Towards Meaningful Content. Frontiers in Communication 6 (Article 752656). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seargeant, Philip. 2019. The Emoji Revolution: How Technology is Shaping the Future of Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Street, John. 2004. “Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation.” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6:4, pp. 435–452. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The Guardian. 2021. Julie Burchill agrees to pay Ash Sarkar ‘substantial damages’ in libel case. The Guardian (A. Bland), 16th March 2021. Available online: [URL] (accessed: 10 May 2022)
Varis, Pia. 2016. Digital Ethnography. In Georgakopoulou, Alexandra and Tereza Spilioti (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication. London: Routledge, pp. 55–68.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vochocová, Lenca. 2018. “Witty Divas, Nice Mothers and Tough Girls in a Sexist World: Experiences and Strategies of Female Influencers in Online Political Debates.” Media Culture & Society 40 (4): 535–550. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue