{"title":"‘Conspiracy theories should be called spoiler alerts’: Conspiracy, coronavirus and affective community on Russell Brand’s YouTube comment section","authors":"Robert Topinka","doi":"10.1177/14614448241237489","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how conspiracy theories anchor affective communities through an analysis of the YouTube comment section for the actor and comedian turned political influencer, Russell Brand. Comparing videos before and after Brand’s shift to covid scepticism, I explore like counts, reply networks and other commenting patterns in a dataset of 217,157 comments and conduct an in-depth analysis of 2000 top comments. The findings show first, a shift towards right-wing viewpoints; second, a reduction in comment length and comment replies alongside an increase in likes; third, a sharp rise in proclamations of Brand fandom; and fourth, a steep increase in references to conspiracy. The in-depth analysis reveals that comments focused not on narrating the content of conspiracies but on celebrating conspiracy as the basis of a political community and as a defence against accusations of paranoia. I argue that conspiracy theories can function as formal categories that anchor affective communities.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Media & Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241237489","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article examines how conspiracy theories anchor affective communities through an analysis of the YouTube comment section for the actor and comedian turned political influencer, Russell Brand. Comparing videos before and after Brand’s shift to covid scepticism, I explore like counts, reply networks and other commenting patterns in a dataset of 217,157 comments and conduct an in-depth analysis of 2000 top comments. The findings show first, a shift towards right-wing viewpoints; second, a reduction in comment length and comment replies alongside an increase in likes; third, a sharp rise in proclamations of Brand fandom; and fourth, a steep increase in references to conspiracy. The in-depth analysis reveals that comments focused not on narrating the content of conspiracies but on celebrating conspiracy as the basis of a political community and as a defence against accusations of paranoia. I argue that conspiracy theories can function as formal categories that anchor affective communities.
期刊介绍:
New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.