YouTube as a narrative battlefield : Brazilian social media influencers and the Russian war in Ukraine

Abstract

In digital media spaces, many non-traditional actors, such as social media influencers, challenge traditional knowledge elites and gatekeepers, journalists, and experts by disseminating information and offering explanations to political events. Especially young people are increasingly following politics, news, and societal issues through social media influencers, and they may adopt values and ideologies from them. Following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several popular Brazilian YouTube influencers produced lengthy informative videos with the aim of explaining the historical background of the war to their followers. This article studies four ideologically different influencers using a discourse analytical approach and drawing from international relations’ conceptualization of strategic narratives, i.e. narratives produced by state actors to legitimize their policies. The article focuses on how these influencers participated in the narrative battle between Ukraine and the so-called West and Russia by drawing from various information sources and historical trajectories. By doing so, they legitimated some interpretations and, thus, functioned as “political-educational influencers.” This article contributes to a nascent field of social media influencers’ politicization, especially in the so-called Global South, and to strategic narrative scholarship.