Instagram as an affective battlefield : Patriotic inspirational influencers as strategic narrators

Abstract

This chapter studies the different roles Ukrainian social media influencers have adopted during the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine that started in February 2022. Using social media data gathered from influencers’ Instagram profiles and an online questionnaire sent to prominent Ukrainian social media influencers, this chapter shows how the war affected the influencers’ practices and how they participated in communicating about the war. Drawing from social media influencers’ politization scholarship, the international relations conceptualization of strategic narratives, and theories of affectivity in the public sphere, this chapter shows how influencers navigate between commercial, political, and lifestyle content in the communication environment changed by the war. They function as information disseminators by spreading information and amplifying Ukrainian strategic narratives, as social activists by calling their followers to participate by donating, and as patriotic inspirational influencers promoting Ukrainian culture and nationalistic narratives of history. Influencers bring the horrors and the exceptionality of the war to their followers while also showing and living its everydayness.