Around sixty years after a McLuhan claimed that world will become a “global village”, we are witnessing the exact transformation of it, especially in the era of social media’s quick development into an important way to influence society as a part of the advancement of information and communication technologies. Social media has today become a very powerful tool for expressing opinions, views, and ideas and has become an influential tool of opinion creation.
According to one scientific article “social media is a form of digital media which provides a place for political marketers to create a political marketplace where candidates, government officials, and political parties can use social media to drive public opinion in the desired direction.” This definition is precisely giving the insight of one possible role that influence produced via social media can crucially play in society opinion making – furthermore in politics. It does not only apply to content created by already politically engaged people, (meaning political parties candidates), but also on those who are full-time influencers in fields such as lifestyle, fashion, food etc. but use their voice to involve in current political situation and position themselves as potential political candidate.
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This article deals with the influencer’s role in politics, considering them as an individuals who use social media to promote ideas, framing it in the theoretical context of performativity, and making a conclusion about the ethics of influencer’s intention at first place.
Phenomenon of influencer
In order to understand what influencer clarify as, there are a few key points through which their role can be explained as. “A social media influencer is defined as an individual or group that has built a sizable and trusting social media audience such that they are able to ‘exert a significant influence on their followers’ and peer consumers’ decisions’ “. In addition, influencers can be explained within the framework of theories. They appear similar to what, in theory of Katz (1957) is described as opinion leaders—individuals who pass on information to others and who enjoy special clout. Influencers are the online equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing (Duffy, 2020) due, in no small part, to the trust that influencers build with their audiences. From an economic perspective, influencers effectively engage in a “commodification of relationships” (Shtern, Hill, & Chan, 2019, p. 1952), using the rapport they develop with their audiences to advertise products and services.
As we are witnessing increase of the number of influencers as a profession, there are some characteristics that distinguish them over the quality and popularity. Key to the success of influencers is their ability to convey authenticity. Conceptually, authenticity has different connotations: (a) being true to oneself, (b) being real, and (c) being original (Syvertsen & Enli, 2020). Authenticity can serve as an ethical compass for influencers to stay true to themselves and their audiences (Wellman, Stoldt, Tully, & Ekdale, 2020). When an influencer successfully performs authenticity on social media, they build trust between themselves and their audience, which grows their social capital.
Social media has empowered influencers to play a significant role in political engagement offering both opportunities for enhanced civic participation and challenges that need to be addressed. It is questionable whether the influencers in Western Balkans use social media influence on behalf of their sincere ambitious to make changes in the society or, by using their position, they only collect the attention in order to provoke the public, which provides them with clicks, likes and shares, all leading to higher salary. Severe challenges that political influence of influencers can lead to are the potential risk of spreading misinformation at first place, as influencers might inadvertently or deliberately share false information, leading to misinformed political environment. There has to be taken in consideration the possibility of echo chamber’s presence and emerging in a way that users are exposed only to information that reinforces their existing beliefs, reducing exposure to diverse viewpoints and constructive dialogue. In addition, as the nature of social media is, in context of consumerism and political economy, the race for money, those commercial interest which are unlikely the stimulation for some influencers, are also important. They are referred to situations in which influencer engagement can prioritize sensationalism and virality over substantive political discussion.
Although we are talking about individuals who used their already reached popularity on social media platforms to gain political support, their appearance is, as the one of political party candidates, also possible to analyze through their performativity.
Performativity in context of political appearance
Performance studies, founded by Richard Schechner, shows how different aspects of human behavior are performed and what are the consequences from performing them in everyday life to performing activities in the visual and performing arts. Schechner notes that almost everything can be viewed as a performance. His findings can be easily applied to political action: script, movements, repetitions, rhetorical strategies and improvisations are an indispensable part of political events and speeches, which indicates to the theatrical, stage character of politics. Main implications of performativity in correlation within political representation are that it is an action act, moreover than just a presence of a subject. Therefore, political representation, due to Scechner, is not only about doing, but also about “showing doing”, which enables their influence on the audience. In the space “in between” there is a tension between attempts at control (the desire for an ideal viewer, voter, follower) and what escapes control (through improvisation, interpretation and interruptions). In that space between the actor and the audience, space is created for dialogue, but also for conflict. In addition, performance is a creative activity. Individuals tailor their social identities and aim at controlling others’ impressions and opinions of them through behavior and performances within particular audiences.
One important idea about representation is the acceptance of a degree of cultural relativism between one culture and another, a certain lack of equivalence, and hence the need for translation as we move from the mind-set or conceptual universe of one culture or another. Producing meaning depends on the practice of interpretation, and interpretation is sustained by us actively using the code – encoding, putting things into the code – and by the person at the other end interpreting or decoding the meaning (Hall, 1980). But note, that, because meanings are always changing and slipping codes operate more like social conventions than like fixed laws or unbreakable rules. As meanings shift and slide, so inevitably the codes of culture imperceptibly change.
Western Balkans examples
Presidential elections in Montenegro in 2023 surprised public with a, among the regular ones, candidate that was previously popular because of his attitude and humor on social media. Familiar for his pseudonym ‘’Jodžir’’, how he is named on all social media accounts, Jovan Radulović is known by his specific taste for humor that very often crosses the boundary of moral, ethic, and moreover normal. Normalizuj.me article describes Jovan Radulović as “a real-life character from Zabjelo who throws bad jokes and laughs a lot for no reason, and as such is undoubtedly a phenomenon of our time”. By consciously exposing his private life, with all wife and children in it, and becoming a victim of merciless surveillance, he is furthermore using social media as a platform through which he exposes sometimes absurd, even dumbfounding comments, posts, and opinions. Not only that he gathered almost half of million followers on Instagram by sharing his views, eventually he started gaining money by advertising diverse types of companies. And on top of it, he used his followers to become candidate on the latest Montenegrin presidential elections. Jovan Radulović, without any responsibility for his acts, get involved in politics, collected eight thousand signatures from citizens as a prerequisite for becoming a candidate for a position of a president. At that moment he was given the amount of 25 thousands euros for making and implementing a political campaign, but Radulović used his popularity, charm, and did the campaigning part only via his social media accounts. His whole political guideline was that political elites should be replaced by someone who does not promise impossible, and does not put money in their pocket. But that is the exact thing what Jodžir did. All the money he was given to make a campaign, he saved for himslef. NGO „MANS“, from Montenegro, called him the financial winner of the elections, because he spent only 485 euros out of 25 thousand euros.
Jodžir, as a phenomenon can definitely be described as social media buzz. It is a term used in viral marketing and can be defined as the interaction of people on social networking sites about product or service or an idea which amplifies or alters the unique marketing message. This emotion, excitement, energy, or anticipation about a product, service or an idea can be positive or negative.
On the other hand, there is one more positive example in Croatia, of a women who is influencer in a field of fashion and make-up, but more important educated in European politics field, with the experience of practice work in European Union Parliament. Nina Skočak mostly became famous because of her posts on Tik Tok that reached very good feedback. She used her established authenticity and popularity on social media platforms to promote her political ideas and collected around 8.500 signatures that enabled her to become a holder of an independent list (Gen Z list) on the upcoming elections of the European Parliament. She formed an independent list composed of young people passionate about politics, all Gen Z, with an average age of 26. Not being part of any established political party or structure makes it more challenging to reach out to people. Because of that, Nina ventures off the beaten path and engages with her electorate by organizing pop quizzes, flea markets, or simply communicating in bars frequented by Croatian youth, but mostly communicates with her followers, who are also youth, via social media.
How it is described in Euronews article, despite holding a master’s degree in European politics and having solid professional experience, she is portrayed by Croatian media primarily as an influencer, which is a challenge for a young woman who wishes to seriously defend her ideas of youth – and gender – inclusion in politics, but also more broadly to improve the living conditions of young people. This may be perceived as a paradox, because the increased power range of influencers has been lighting up recently, but in the Nina Skočak example, her influence is being underestimated, maybe taking in consideration the stereotypes of her being young fashionable women. Those examples emphasis that not every influence and opinion shared via social media has to be good and credible. Influencers leverage their extensive reach and persuasive power to mobilize, inform and shape the opinions of followers, often driving political discourse in unprecedented ways. The commercialization of political advocacy, where endorsements may be financially motivated rather that ideologically driven further muddies the waters of authentic political engagement. As influencers continue to play a prominent role in shaping political opinions, it is crucial to address challenges, such as also already mentioned risk of occurrence of misinformation and eco chambers, to protect the integrity of democratic processes and ensure a well-informed electorate. It is us — in society within human cultures – who make things mean, who signify.