IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/meanco/v11y2023i2p188-202.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Selfies and Speeches of a President at War: Volodymyr Zelensky’s Strategy of Spectacularization on Instagram

Author

Listed:
  • Maite Plazas-Olmedo

    (Department of Communication Sciences, Universitat Jaume I, Spain)

  • Pablo López-Rabadán

    (Department of Communication Sciences, Universitat Jaume I, Spain)

Abstract

The spectacularization of politics is not the exclusive patrimony of the media in their news coverage. Leaders from all over the world have successfully incorporated this “communicative style” into their own strategies, a style that finds a suitable space in visual social networks such as Instagram, in dynamic formats such as video, and in crisis contexts. This article analyzes the “spectacularization” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s through Instagram. The methodological proposal is based on the study of the 5W in relation to the digital image and investigates the leading role, the staging, the space, and the technical resources of the videos. Thus, a content analysis is applied to a sample of 143 videos published by the president on his official profile in February–March 2022, when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began, and in September–October 2022. We observed that Zelensky uses video in an intense and “spectacular” way: He exploits his figure in a professional style, strategically combines careful staging with amateurism, and uses resources such as subtitles to internationalize his discourse.

Suggested Citation

  • Maite Plazas-Olmedo & Pablo López-Rabadán, 2023. "Selfies and Speeches of a President at War: Volodymyr Zelensky’s Strategy of Spectacularization on Instagram," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 188-202.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v:11:y:2023:i:2:p:188-202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/6366
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v:11:y:2023:i:2:p:188-202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.