The Marriages of Celebrity Politicians: A Social Semiotic Approach to How Commenters Affiliate Around YouTube Gossip Videos

Inwood, Olivia; Zappavigna, Michele

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-15119-4_9

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…YouTubers as microcelebrities are significant in the construction of identities (Martínez and Olsson, 2019); discriminatory discursive strategies in YouTube comments (Chen and Flowerdew, 2019); multimodal affordances of YouTube and the construction of alternative identities (Chang and Chang, 2019); and YouTube comments and conspiracy theories (Ha et al, 2022). Recent studies explore affiliation and legitimation strategies in YouTube comments, adopting a social semiotic approach (Inwood and Zappavigna, 2023a, 2023b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

YouTube discourse of the Oting massacre in Nagaland: investigating affiliations, sentiments and Naga identity negotiation in YouTube comments

Muinao,

Ratnamala

2023

Media, War & Conflict

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Personae identification and understanding the social bonds shared in online interactions are found to be key to combating misinformation and conspiratorial discourse as well as aiding in developing solutions for specific communities. The 2021 Oting massacre in Nagaland that killed 14 civilians sparked public outrage and widespread protests calling for justice and the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in northeast India. The massacre received a lot of attention, including YouTube videos, and reignited discussion on militarization, Naga identity and a backlash over the botched operation. A close qualitative analysis of 500 randomly extracted comments from 10 selected YouTube videos identified 15 personae with unique linguistic patterns that reveal specific ideational targets and their affiliation strategies in the discourse. A sentiment analysis of 11,294 comments shows a higher negative score linked to condemnation, hate speech and conspiracy than a positive score linked to solidarity and empathy. ‘Nagaism’ as being a Naga is reimagined and reinforced via YouTube, countering misconceptions about Naga identity.

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