The marriages of celebrity politicians: a social semiotic approach to how commenters affiliate around YouTube gossip videos

Olivia Inwood, Michele Zappavigna

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapterpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

A particular target of gossip in the digital age is the ‘celebrity politician’, that is, politicians whose private life is scrutinised in similar ways to that of traditional celebrities, with similar issues foregrounded, such as their appearance and the state of their marriage or relationships. This chapter details a social semiotic method for understanding how commenters affiliate around YouTube gossip videos about celebrity politicians. It focuses on comment threads associated with YouTube gossip videos about US politicians’ marriages in order to illustrate how solidarity is enacted through the semiotic practice of gossiping via an appraisal and dialogic affiliation analysis. The particular comment threads analysed were sampled from the Nicki Swift YouTube gossip channel. This channel was selected as a case study because it is one of the most popular self-described YouTube gossip channels that focuses on both celebrities and politicians. The marriages of celebrity politicians that are discussed in the dataset include Donald Trump and Melania Trump, Joe Biden and Jill Biden, Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff, and Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. The social semiotic analysis undertaken in this study demonstrates the unfolding of gossip and its ramifications regarding the key social bonds at stake in this discourse. Social media users evaluate the marriages of celebrity politicians, bonding around shared speculations and conspiracy theories. The results of this study show a preference for negative gossip, thus understanding how this negativity generates attention is important in order to dismantle the cultural and economic systems that help fuel misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationA Gossip Politic
EditorsAndrea McDonnell, Adam Silver
Place of PublicationSwitzerland
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Chapter9
Pages133-153
Number of pages21
ISBN (Electronic)9783031151194
ISBN (Print)9783031151187
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameRhetoric, Politics and Society
VolumePart F772
ISSN (Print)2947-5147
ISSN (Electronic)2947-5155

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

  • Affiliation
  • Celebrity politician
  • Gossip
  • Linguistics
  • YouTube

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