ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline: March 31, 2026

Editors:

• Tendai Chari, University of Venda, South Africa
  
• Ufuoma Akpojivi, Independent Researcher/Research Fellow, UNISA
  

Digital media technologies have become a key site upon which political meanings are produced, consumed and challenged. While politicians use digital popular cultural repertoires to ingratiate themselves with the electorate, the same technologies are being harnessed by ordinary people to speak truth to power, exposing abuses, mobilising protests and demanding accountability from authorities, often bypassing centralized traditional media. On the African continent, examples include the #EndSARS in Nigeria in 2020 when youth shared videos of police brutality via Twitter (formerly X) and Instagram, sparking nationwide protests, crowdfunding, and global solidity that pressured the government to dissolve the SARS unit. In 2024 during the Kenya Gen Z Protests against the Finance Bill, young people used TikTok, X and AI generated content under the hashtag #RejectFinance Bill2024 to educate, organize street actions and crowdfund transport, forcing parliamentary rejection of the Bill amid clashes. Similarly, in 2020 Zimbabweans used the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter during protests against human rights abuses, trending globally and attracting support of the global community. In all the cases highlighted above, the mutual amplification of politics and popular culture was on display signifying the enmeshment of politics and popular culture (Street et al, 2013). Increased “fluidization” of the border between politics and popular culture in the digital age demonstrates how popular culture is a crucial realm for shaping, performing and challenging political meanings (Chen, 2023). Digital technologies are enabling citizens to participate in the simultaneous production and consumption of content, highlighting the importance of popular culture in the production of politics (Hamilton, 2016). The intersection manifests at different levels. For instance, politicians are becoming more of digital icons while popular artists such as musicians, sports and media personalities, are venturing into politics using digital media (Street, 1997) either as participants or endorsers; a phenomenon referred to as “celebrification/celebritisation of politics” (Agyepong, 2016; Ahmad, 2020; Brooks et al, 2021). In Africa well-known artists who have vied for political office include the Democratic of Congo’s Rhumba maestro, Kanda Bongoman, soccer idol, George Weah who participated in the 2006 Liberian presidential elections and most recently South African musician Penny Penny (real name, Erick Nkovane), who became a councillor for the opposition MK party, to mention but a few. Despite online activism being criticized for being “vacuous and superficial” (Drumbl, 2012) resulting in pejorative descriptions such as “clicktivism” or “slacktivism” digital media has enabled citizens to perform political activism such as signing petitions online and sharing protest messages with virtual communities. Existing scholarship problematizes the intersection of popular culture and digital media in Africa as a double-edged force where digital media are lauded for their potential to democratize discourse through grassroots memes, hashtags and music remixes, yet derided for engineering fragmentation, misinformation, erosion of political trust and creating “multiple truths” as aiding vigilantism (Ajaegbu & Ajaegbu, 2024). Drawing on network society theory, studies highlight how platforms like WhatsApp and X enable networked publics to challenge elite control but amplify echo chambers and post-truth rhetoric. For instance, studies on Nigerian #EndSARS or election memes illustrate how digital popular culture subverts governance narratives through pidgin and Nollywood tropes (Ajaegbu & Ajaegbu, 2024), how online media have become veritable sites of youth cultures from which vulnerable young people negotiate the unstable landscape of a post-colonial state that has foisted on its vulnerable youth population (Imoka, 2023). Prior scholarship has examined the intersection of digital media and politics has predominantly focused on how digital media have been leveraged for political purposes in industrialised democracies of the West and “popular cultural manifestations” of politics in digital media (Hamilton, 2016:4) while very few studies have been devoted to understanding how digital media shape the production, consumption and contestation of political meanings and narratives. Consequently, this has left a lacuna on how everyday practices, the banal and the trivial, what Roland Barthes refers to as the “what-goes without-saying” (Barthes, 2009: 10) shape the production, consumption and contestations of political meanings and narratives in the African context. The proposed edited volume seeks to fill this gap by providing an expanded view of the digital popular culture-politics nexus from a global South, particularly an African perspective by examining politics in Africa through the prism of digital popular culture, and its potential to transform our perception of the “sights, sites and cites of power” (Hamilton, 2016:4). Taking after Hamilton (2016) we contend that studying politics through the prism of digital popular culture not only creates possibilities to illuminate the myriads of ways in which politics intersects with everyday lived experiences of citizens thus reclaiming the status of popular culture as an important site upon which political meanings can be constructed and deconstructed. Our goal is to foreground digital popular culture as a potent vehicle for contesting power. The volume seeks to demonstrate that contrary to perceptions that popular culture is ‘vacuous’, ‘trash’, ‘inferior culture’ ‘artificial’ or mere entertainment devoid of any substance (Englert, 2008; Fabian, 1997; Street, 2001; Marchart, 2008; Street, 2004; Street et al, 2013), digital popular culture can be an authentic source of knowledge about the way in which politics is understood, practiced, performed, and consumed in the African context. The volume illuminates how politics is substantiated through diverse digital popular cultural forms and artefacts. The volume explores the intertextuality between politics and popular culture, demonstrating how political discourse draws on references, or mixes prior texts, popular discourses, symbols or cultural narratives to create layered meanings, particularly in Africa’s digital arena through social media memes, videos, and posts. This manifests through citizens repurposing historical slogans, popular aphorisms, wise sayings, biblical allusions, or popular media to critique power, blending traditional rhetoric with digital formats or viral posts.

The book makes two important contributions. First, it  addresses the paucity of African focused studies on popular cultural manifestations of politics in digital spaces by systematically examining everyday practices and intertextual remixes of popular tropes that construct and subvert power – moving beyond Western-centric perspectives to foreground banal and everyday socio-political dynamics. Secondly, the book reclaims popular culture’s agency by challenging dismissals of digital popular culture and repositioning it as a potent, decolonial site for reclaiming political imagination – transforming perceptions of power through citizen authorship on digital platforms while problematizing risks like misinformation and vigilantism.

 The book addresses the following questions:

• In what way is digital media expanding our knowledge and understanding of politics in contemporary Africa?
  
• How do popular cultural artefacts stimulate and sustain political expression on digital platforms in the African context?
  
• How do politicians and political institutions discipline and co-opt digital media to manufacture consent through ordinary everyday practices?
  
• How are citizens leveraging the everyday cultural practices on digital media to subvert the power of powerful elites and institutions?
  
• How has the ubiquity of digital media shaped the production, performance and consumption of political meanings?
  
• In what ways are the borders between politics and popular culture collapsing in the digital age?
  

The book distinguishes itself from existing scholarship by foregrounding political significations embodied everyday practices in the digital sphere. It views digital popular culture as having the potential to influence politics and communication, thereby expanding perspectives on politics by exposing citizens to “different places, voices, views and experiences” (Hamilton, 2016:4). The volume offers a continent-wide exploration of everyday digital popular cultural practices in Africa, thus addressing existing knowledge gaps in the global South.

We invite contributions that engage with theoretical and empirical research that consider the socio-political and cultural factors shaping digital media and popular culture in Africa. We are particularly interested in original contributions that tackle the identified and related themes using a broad range of theoretical and methodological approaches.

Chapters may draw on interdisciplinary approaches from media studies, communication, political science, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, and related fields. The abstract must clearly state the objectives of the study, the theoretical framework and the methodological approaches to be deployed. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Intertextuality of politics and popular culture in the digital age
  
• Sports and politics in the digital age
  
• Fandom and politics in the digital age
  
• Religion, politics and digital media
  
• Popular theatre and politics online
  
• Political advertising in the digital age
  
• Film, politics and digital media
  
• Popular Music and politics in the digital age
  
• Political satire in the digital media
  
• Celebrification/celebritisation of politics in the digital age
  
• Clandestine radio and politics in the digital age
  
• Intersection of food cultures, politics and digital media
  
• The politics of political party regalia, costume and national symbols in the digital era
  
• Popular theatre, politics and digital media
  
• Sculpture, politics and digitality
  
• Political propaganda online
  
• Avant-garde arts and politics
  
• Politics, hactivism, clictivism and slacktivism
  
• Memefication of politics
  
• Microcelebrities and influencers and politics
  
• Digital politics and celebrity activism
  
• Digitality and celebrity humanism in Africa
  
• Gamification of politics in Africa
  
• Digital media and political scandals
  
• Subversive digital artefacts and politics
  
• Digital political satire in Africa
  
• Fictional representations of politics in the digital media
  
• User-generated content and politics in Africa
  
• Podcasts as alternative public spheres
  
• Blog, vlogs and politics in Africa
  
• Popular entertainment and politics in the digital age
  
• Political cartoons in the digital era
  
• Mass culture and politics in the digital age
  
• Popular culture and politics in the age of Artificial intelligence
  

Abstracts and biographies

Abstracts of between 400 and 500 words should be send by the 31 March 2026.

Abstracts should be emailed as word to tendai.chari@univen.ac.za/cc ufuoma.akpojivi@gmail.com

Chapters (6000 -8000 Words) will be due by 30 September 2026

Biographies should not be more than 200 words

Reference Style: Harvard

Note: We do not require an article publishing charge (APC)

Important Dates

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 31 March 2026
  
• Notification for Accepted Abstracts:  15 April 2026
  
• Deadline for Full Papers: 30 September 2026
  
• Expected Date of Publication: 31 December 2026
  

Targeted Publisher: Routledge

References

Agyepong, L. (2016). Understanding the Concept of Celebrity Capital through an Empirical Study of the Role of Celebrity Endorsements in 2008 and 2012 Ghana Election Campaigns. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Department of Communication. University of Leicester.

Ahmad, N. (2020). Celebrification of Politics: Understanding Migration of Celebrities into Politics Celebrification of Celebrity Politicians in the Emerging Democracy of Indonesia. East Asia, 37:63-79.

Ajaegbu, O.O. and Ajaegbu, C. (2004). The New Democratisation: Social Media Impact on the Political Process in Sub-Saharan Africa: Frontiers in Communication. 9:1394949. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1394949.

Barthes, R. (2009) [1957] Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. London: Vintage.

Brooks, G., Drenten, J., and Piskorski, M.J. (2021). Influencer Celebrification: How Social Media Influencers Acquire Celebrity Capital. Journal of Advertising, 50(5) 528-547.

Chen, D. (2023). Seeing Politics Through Popular Culture. Journal of Chinese Political Science, 29: 185-205.

Driessens, O. (2013a). Celebrity Capital: Redefining Celebrity Using Field Theory: Theory and Society, 42(5): 543-560.

Driessesn, O. (2013b). Being a Celebrity in Times of Its Democratisation: A Case Study from the Flemish Region. Celebrity Studies, 4(2):249-253.

Drumbl, M.A. (2012). Child Soldiers and Clicktivism: Justice, Myths and Prevention. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 4(3): 481-485.

Englert, B. (2008) Popular Music and Politics in Africa. Some Introductory Reflections. Stichproben Wiener Zeitschrift fur Kritische Afrikastudien, 8(14): 1-15.

Fabian, J. (1997). Popular Culture in Africa: Findings and Conjunctures. In Karin Barber (eds). Readings in African Popular Culture. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Grayson, K. (2016). Foreword. In Caitlin Hamilton and Laura J. Shepherd (eds.) Popular Culture and World Politics, (x-xi). London: Routledge.

Hamilton, C. (2016). World Politics 2.0: An Introduction. In Caitlin Hamilton and Laura J. Shepherd (eds.) Popular Culture and World Politics, (pp3-14). London: Routledge.

Hamilton, C., and Shepherd, L.J. (2016). Understanding Culture and World Politics in the Digital Age. London: Routledge.

Imoka, C. (2023). Digital Media, Popular Culture and Social Activism Amongst Urban Youth in Nigeria. Critical African Studies, 15(2): 134-148.

Literat, and Kligler -Vilenchik (2021). How Popular Culture Prompts Youth Collective Political Expression and Cross-Cutting Political Talk on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis. Social Media and Society, 7(2): 1-14

Marchart, O. (2008). Cultural Studies. Konstanz: UTB.

Patti, E. (2020). Popular Culture in the Digital Age. In Enrico Minardi and Paolo Desogus (eds.) The Last Years of Italian Popular Culture: “Andare al Popolo”, (pp1-8). New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Storey, J. (2018). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. London: Routledge.

Street, J. (1997). Politics and Popular Culture. Pennsylvania: Temple University Press.

Street, J. (2001). The Politics of Popular Culture. In Kate Nash and Allan Scott (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Street, J. (2004) Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6(4): 435-452.

Strinati, D. (1995). An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge.

Gothenburg, Sweden

June 8-11, 2026

Deadline: March 6, 2026

Dear community,

We would like to remind PhD students about the upcoming deadline for the ACM UMAP 2026 Doctoral Consortium, with paper submissions due on March 6, 2026 (AoE).

ACM UMAP brings together research in AI and HCI to support effective human-AI collaboration via interactive systems that can model, adapt and personalize to their users. The conference will take place on June 8-11, 2026 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The Doctoral Consortium is a great chance to get direct mentoring from world-leading experts, connect with other students, and present work in a supportive, yet critical environment.

Key dates:

• Paper submission: March 6, 2026
  
• Notification: March 20, 2026
  
• DC Day: June 8, 2026
  

Call for DC papers: https://www.um.org/umap2026/call-for-doctoral-consortium-applications/

We look forward to your submissions.

Kind regards, 

The UMAP 2026 organizing committee

September 7, 2026

Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno

Deadline: March 31, 2026

Dear all, 

We are pleased to share the Call for Papers for the ECREA 2026 Pre-Conference “The Evolution of Election Campaigning on Social Media”, which will take place on September 7, 2026, at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno.

The pre-conference focuses on comparative perspectives on social media election campaigning, including campaign strategies, communication styles (e.g., negativity, populist rhetoric, personalization), the use of AI, the role of misinformation, voter engagement, and methodological innovations in studying digital campaign data.

Submission deadline: March 31, 2026

Submit a 300-word abstract (excluding references) to: DLilleker@bournemouth.ac.uk

Fee: €25 (coffee break and lunch included)

More information about the call can be found here.

We look forward to seeing you in Brno.

--

On behalf of the organizers,

Darren, Martina, and Alena

August 11-12

Malmö University Malmö, Sweden

Deadline: March 30, 2026

In collaboration with Malmö Research Centre for Imagining and Co-Creating Futures, AoIR invites participants to its annual Flashpoint symposium.

For those interested in participating in the symposium, the deadline to submit an abstract of up to 300 words is March 30, 2026.

Confirmed keynote plenary speakers are

• prof. Annette Markham, Utrecht University, Netherlands
  
• prof. Susana Tosca, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
  
• prof. Kat Jungnickel, Goldsmiths University of London, UK
  
• prof. Sarah T. Roberts, UCLA, USA

As technologies evolve, our relationship to the technological world changes, and so should our methods of studying the world around us. The methods we use to conduct research matter in understanding what can be studied, how the studies reflect the world, and how the groups we are studying (with) relate to academia. Internet research faces challenges in recruitment, data quality, practicality, and ethics, leading to questions about sampling bias, data truthfulness, and other issues that require creative solutions. We need to question and challenge many of the dominant approaches and find ways to reimagine methods that fit contemporary research challenges. Research methods need to evolve with the world, respect its diversity and be open to inventive ways to involve research participants in knowledge co-creation.

Creative research methods can be methods that draw on creative self-expressions of research participants or researchers, including visual, text, sound, and materials. They may also involve creative use of technologies as part of the research process and outcome – apps, mash-ups, data visualisations, APIs, etc. In addition, creative methods can encompass transformative approaches, including participatory, speculative, artistic, worldbuilding, decolonising, activist and community-based research approaches that are designed to reduce the power imbalances and include diverse voices in academic research. Mixed and hybrid methods that challenge researchers to question the paradigmatic assumptions of their work may also be understood as creative research practices. 

In the spirit of challenging established academic traditions, the symposium invites scholars interested in method-related discussions to join us in imagining and co-creating methods for a new era of internet research. 

We invite individual abstracts for papers, performances, spoken word pieces or artistic creations that highlight creative research methods or focus on the process of creating new methods. Please submit an abstract no longer than 300 words, five keywords and a short bio (including contact details) by March 25, 2026. 

The symposium will charge a fee of 500 SEK (~47 EUR/~56 USD/~41 GBP) that will cover lunches and coffee, and AoIR will also sponsor dinner for symposium participants. If you do not want to share any work but would still like to be part of the symposium, you can also sign up as a participant after March 15. PhD students and early-career scholars are particularly welcome, and AoIR will provide some fee waivers for the early-career scholars (available at a later stage when registration opens). 

Submit your contribution to the symposium: Imagining and Co-creating Methods for Internet Research AoIR Flashpoint Symposium at Malmö – Fill out form (https://forms.office.com/e/yzLEg9T0fb)

Important dates:

• Deadline for abstract submission: March 30, 2026
  
• Registration opens March 15, 2026
  
• Notification of acceptance: mid-April, 2026
  
• Deadline for registrations June 15, 2026
  
• Symposium in Malmö 11-12 August, 2026

More information about Malmö Research Centre for Imagining and Co-Creating Futures: https://mau.se/en/research/research-centres/imagining-and-co-creating-futures/

The Symposium organiser is prof. Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt

(contact: pille.pruulmann.vengerfeldt@mau.se), The scientific committee includes Prof. Andra Siibak and prof. Julia Velkova.

The Global Media & Internet Concentration Project is delighted to announce the launch of its data dashboard.  This powerful tool provides an interactive view of global media and internet revenues, market structures and concentration by drawing on data compiled by the GMICP. 

The dashboard is designed to help researchers, policymakers, journalists, and the public explore trends in media ownership and digital platform dominance and to create customised, comparative visualisations, across 24 countries and 15 industry sectors.

We are hosting two sets of webinars to introduce this tool and its functionality.  Each set of webinars is tailored for particular stakeholder groups and is offered in duplicate for convenience across time zones.  Each session will be hosted by researchers from the GMICP and will last approximately 90 minutes.

Please email Guy Hoskins at ghoskins@torontomu.ca to request Zoom registration details.

Researchers/journalists/civil society organizations: 

• March 11th, 9.30pm EST
  
• March 12th, 8.30am EST
  

Policymakers & regulators: 

• March 25th, 9.30pm EST
  
• March 26th, 8.30am EST
  

June 8-11, 2026

Gotheborg, Sweden

Deadline: March 6, 2026

Dear Community,

The submission deadline for Industry Papers at the ACM Conference on User Modelling, Adaptation and Personalization (ACM UMAP 2026) is quickly approaching.

ACM UMAP brings together research in AI and HCI to support effective human-AI collaboration via interactive systems that can model, adapt and personalize to their users. The conference will take place on June 8-11, 2026 in Gotheborg, Sweden.

The industry track is the perfect venue to showcase real-world solutions in user modeling, adaptation, and personalization, discuss deployment challenges, and share effective solutions with the community.

Important Dates (AoE)

• Paper submission: March 6, 2026
  
• Notification of acceptance: April 3, 2026
  
• Conference: June 8-11, 2026
  

Call: https://www.um.org/umap2026/call-for-industry-track-papers/

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

The UMAP 2026 organizing committee

Cardiff University

We are seeking a talented mix of high-profile, innovative, current and future leaders of research to join our values-driven, pioneering, and vibrant university as part of our allocation of the UKRI Global Talent Fund initiative.

Open to international applicants currently living and working outside the UK, we want to appoint Global Talent Senior Research Fellows and Professors to accelerate our research leadership in key strategic areas aligned to the following UK industrial strategy areas. One of these areas is creative industries, including digital technologies.

The successful candidates will be well-established in their fields and have a significant portfolio of research with an established track record of publication and research grants and national, emerging, or international reputation in their chosen research area. Importantly, successful candidates will have the ability to drive areas of research and innovation in partnership with external partners and other disciplines.

If you feel that you have the skills, enthusiasm and drive to meet this challenge, we'd love to hear from you.

Find out more information, and how to apply, on our website.

April 24, 2026

Online

Deadline: March 16, 2026

For more details, click here https://ierlab.com/influencer-diplomacy/

The Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab)  is calling for submissions for our upcoming symposium on Influencer Diplomacy, to be held online via Zoom on 24 April 2026. 

Recent research on influencers has highlighted their growing presence in political arenas. Concepts such as ‘political influencers’ (Schwemmer & Riedl 2025), ‘political relational influencers’ (Goodwin et al. 2023), ‘propaganda influencers’ (Woolley 2022), or ‘influencers as ideological intermediaries’ (Arnesson 2023) capture the varied ways creators engage with political content, whether by shaping public opinion, amplifying state messaging, or embodying ideological narratives. Within these political capacities, influencers are playing an increasingly prominent role in diplomacy, though their involvement is met with mixed responses. For example, the European Union’s use of influencers on platforms such as TikTok to engage younger audiences reflects an institutional embrace of influencer-led diplomacy (DiSario 2026), as does the positive reception of American streamer iShowSpeed’s state-sanctioned tour of China (Latifah Aini 2025). By contrast, Chachavalpongpun (2025) critiques how influencers have leveraged the Thai–Cambodian border conflict to expand their digital visibility in ways that intensify geopolitical tensions, while Colombian influencers have faced backlash for promotional activities in Israel (Freixes 2025). Together, these examples reveal that the involvement of influencers in diplomatic arenas warrants closer attention, as they are not merely amplifying diplomatic messages but are actively shaping diplomatic processes, mediating between publics, political conflict, and state agendas.

Research on political influencers has shown how digitally native creators blend advocacy (Riedl et al. 2021; Martin et al. 2024), self-branding (Ong et al. 2022), and platform vernaculars (Harris et al. 2023) to engage audiences through affective and narrative labour (Goodwin et al. 2023; Martin et al. 2024). While this literature has focused primarily on domestic politics, recent studies demonstrate growing overlaps between influencer practices and diplomacy. For example, Lo Presti et al. (2025) identify ‘geopolitical influencers’ shaping public discourse around international conflicts, while Arnesson (2024) shows how state-sponsored trips by Swedish influencers function as soft power and perception management. Influencers also enact diplomacy through semi-official and spontaneous practices, including war influencing (Divon & Eriksson Krutrök 2025; Taher et al. 2025;) and activist interventions that reshape international perceptions of nationhood (Casas 2025). Taken together, these studies reveal influencers operating across multiple diplomatic registers, yet without a shared definition of ‘influencer diplomacy’.

The uncertain boundaries of ‘influencer diplomacy’ reflects broader transformations in diplomacy itself. Diplomacy has traditionally been understood as negotiation among states through official representatives (Cornago 2022). However, diplomacy has expanded beyond its traditional focus on state actors, to include a broader range of actors and practices. Cultural diplomacy shifts representation away from diplomats, with the state using culture to foster trust, promote the nation, and shape international perceptions (Kim 2017). Citizen diplomacy moves diplomacy further from the state, as individuals undertake diplomatic work through journalism, activism, and community initiatives, acting as political agents in their own right (Anton & Moise 2022). Meanwhile, everyday diplomacy highlights how diplomacy unfolds in ordinary, mundane encounters, showing how international relations are experienced and enacted outside formal state institutions (Jones & Clark 2015; Marsden et al. 2016).

In the age of influencers, diplomacy is shaped further by branding infrastructures, visibility economies, and platform logics. For example, government–influencer collaborations are often regulated through commercial frameworks that inadequately capture their political implications (Annabell et al. 2025), while political and diplomatic communication increasingly adopts influencer-oriented logics of metrics, relatability, and attention—or ‘wanghong thinking’—shaping practices in China (Xu 2024). Meanwhile, influencers on platforms like TikTok also enable states to reach foreign audiences while circumventing official restrictions (Fjällhed et al. 2024), raising concerns about instrumentalisation and blurred boundaries with propaganda (Ong et al. 2022; Reveilhac 2025; Wooley 2022; Xu & Schneider 2025). Scholars further question who counts as an influencer and what agency these actors hold: Anton and Moise (2022) situate influencer diplomacy within citizen and informal diplomacy; Casas (2025) includes artists, minor celebrities, activists, and indigenous cultural producers; and Tian et al. (2025) and Manfredi et al. (2024) highlight overlaps between politicians, influencers, and citizen journalists, underscoring the lack of a shared definition.

Context-specific studies illustrate how influencer diplomacy operates across multiple registers and produces varied impacts. In Indonesia, for example, influencers can soften national symbolism, potentially signalling shifts in paternalistic governance, while also intersecting with nation branding moments such as sporting events (Li & Feng 2022; Ratriyana et al. 2024). In China, state-curated collaborations privilege particular racialised and national subjectivities, raising questions about imagined diplomatic audiences, while foreign YouTubers are incorporated into official networks through reposting by diplomats and state media (Brockling et al. 2023; Cho-Li et al. 2025). In Russia, unofficial actors such as the Night Wolves biker group are embedded within national influence ecosystems (Boichak 2023). Wartime and border-region contexts further illustrate these dynamics: Brazilian influencers shape narratives around the Russia-Ukraine war (Pelevina & Salojärvi 2025), and 'pro-China foreign political influencers' share content across borders in international contexts to reshape global reputation and national image (Tian et al. 2025). Studies also highlight influencers’ own strategies, balancing official collaborations, spontaneous content, personal branding, audience expectations, and political sensitivities, while leveraging participation for visibility and professional gain in China and Korea (Lee & Abidin 2022; Lee & Alhabash 2022; Xu & Qu 2025). At the level of everyday diplomacy and transnational imaginaries, Chinese vloggers also participate in shaping ‘unofficial geopolitics’ in Pakistan (Zoppolato & Culcasi 2026).

In this symposium, we focus on the generative concept that we call influencer diplomacy. We see this as the ways in which influencer cultures, practices, and industries impact diplomatic processes, from influencers assuming diplomatic roles and politicians adopting influencer strategies, to marketing firms leveraging influencer infrastructures in the mediation of international relations. Influencer diplomacy operates not only at formal state and institutional levels but also intersects with everyday politics, shaping public discourse and social engagement. Moreover, it must account for how influencers, as platform-savvy actors, tailor diplomatic communication to the vernaculars, norms, and affordances of specific digital platforms. 

To explore this phenomenon in more detail, the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab) will be hosting a one-day online symposium (on Zoom) to examine the evolving practice of influencer diplomacy. We invite submissions from humanities and social sciences, including but not limited to media studies, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, area studies, and international relations. We particularly welcome submissions that focus on empirically grounded research and comparative case studies. 

Selected papers will be considered for a peer reviewed edited collection. As such, we are only able to consider original, previously-unpublished abstracts/papers. Suggested topics include but are not limited to: 

• Influencers as official and unofficial intermediaries in diplomatic endeavours
  
• Motivations, labour, and negotiation in influencers’ diplomatic practice
  
• Politicians adopting influencer strategies in international communication
  
• The role of affect, intimacy, authenticity, and storytelling as diplomatic resources
  
• Audience participation, public formation, and the politicisation of influencer collaborations
  
• Influencer diplomacy as both a practice and a governing logic: how diplomacy increasingly ‘thinks like an influencer’
  
• Influencer diplomacy in crisis, conflict, humanitarian, and wartime contexts
  
• Regulation, disclosure, and governance of state–influencer collaborations

To be considered for the symposium, please submit a 250-word abstract and 100-word bio via the Google form below by 1700hrs (GMT+8) 16 March 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent on 20 March 2024. We gladly welcome co-authored submissions; to keep presentations consistent, each submission is limited to one presenter, preferably the corresponding author. Please submit via this form: https://forms.gle/7EWBPEuR4gk3ceKK7 

All enquiries should be directed to contact@IERLab.com

Key Dates:

• 16 March 2026: Abstracts and biographies due
  
• 20 March 2026: Notifications of acceptance
  
• 24 April 2026: Influencer Diplomacy Symposium
  

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Faye Mercier, Wuxuan Zhang, Prof. Crystal Abidin

Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab), Curtin University

References:

Aini, Fauzia Latifah. 2025. ‘Changing China’s Global Image through IShowSpeed Visit’. Modern Diplomacy, April 26. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/04/26/changing-chinas-global-image-through-ishowspeed-visit/.

Annabell, Taylor, Catalina Goanta, Thijs Kelder, and Felix Pflücke. 2025. ‘Sponsored by the State: The Private Regulation of Government Influencers’. Journal of Consumer Policy, ahead of print, September 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-025-09598-x.

Anton, Anca, and Raluca Moise. 2022. ‘The Citizen Diplomats and Their Pathway to Diplomatic Power’. In Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens: A European Communication Perspective, edited by Sónia Pedro Sebastião and Susana de Carvalho Spínola. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_13.

Arnesson, Johanna. 2023. ‘Influencers as Ideological Intermediaries: Promotional Politics and Authenticity Labour in Influencer Collaborations’. Media, Culture & Society 45 (3): 528–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221117505.

Arnesson, Johanna. 2024. ‘“Endorsing a Dictatorship and Getting Paid for It”: Discursive Struggles over Intimacy and Authenticity in the Politicisation of Influencer Collaborations’. New Media & Society 26 (3): 1467–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211064302.

Boichak, Olga. 2023. ‘Mapping the Russian Political Influence Ecosystem: The Night Wolves Biker Gang’. Social Media + Society 9 (2): 20563051231177920. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231177920.

Brockling, Marie, Haohan Lily Hu, and King-wa Fu. 2023. ‘The Role of “State Endorsers” in Extending Chinese Propaganda: Evaluating the Reach of Pro-Regime YouTubers’. International Journal of Communication 17 (September): 23–23.

Casas, Ccory Yamina Silva. 2025. ‘Digital Ambassadors of Peru: Cultural Diplomacy in the Age of Content Creators’. Política Internacional, no. 137 (June): 253–68. https://doi.org/10.61249/pi.vi137.225.

Chachavalpongpun, Pavin. 2025. ‘How a Thai Influencer Is Profiting From the Border Conflict With Cambodia’. The Diplomat, August 20. https://thediplomat.com/2025/08/how-a-thai-influencer-is-profiting-from-the-border-conflict-with-thailand/.

Cho-Li, Qiuyue, Rebecca Frazer, Tse-hsi Chien, and Spiro Kiousis. 2025. ‘Pro-China YouTubers in Digital Diplomacy: Shaping Americans’ Perceived Credibility, Trust, Media Engagement, and Attitudes Towards China’. SSRN Scholarly Paper No. 5496847. Social Science Research Network, September 17. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5496847.

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Di Sario, Federica. 2026. ‘“We Would Be Foolish If We Didn’t Use Influencers”: The EU’s Bet on TikTok Diplomacy’. The Parliament Magazine, January 14. https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/we-would-be-foolish-if-we-didnt-use-influencers-how-the-eu-is-bypassing-traditional-media.

Divon, Tom, and Moa Eriksson Krutrök. 2025. ‘The Rise of War Influencers: Creators, Platforms, and the Visibility of Conflict Zones’. Platforms & Society 2 (December): 29768624251325721. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624251325721.

Fjällhed, Alicia, Matthias Lüfkens, and Andreas Sandre. 2024. ‘New Trends in Digital Diplomacy: The Rise of TikTok and the Geopolitics of Algorithmic Governance’. The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, 288–96.

Freixes, Josep. 2025. ‘Controversy over Colombian Influencers’ “War Tourism” in Israel’. Colombia One: News from Colombia and the World, November 12. https://colombiaone.com/2025/11/12/colombia-influencers-war-tourism-israel/.

Goodwin, Anastasia, Katie Joseff, Martin J. Riedl, Josephine Lukito, and Samuel Woolley. 2023. ‘Political Relational Influencers: The Mobilization of Social Media Influencers in the Political Arena’. International Journal of Communication 17 (February): 21–21.

Harris, Brandon C., Maxwell Foxman, and William C. Partin. 2023. ‘“Don’t Make Me Ratio You Again”: How Political Influencers Encourage Platformed Political Participation’. Social Media + Society 9 (2): 20563051231177944. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231177944.

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Ratriyana, Ina, Desideria Cempaka Wijaya Murti, and Immanuel Dwi Asmoro. 2024. ‘#IndonesiaRepresent: Investigating Nation Branding at International Fashion Events through the Presence of Social Media Influencers’. Asiascape: Digital Asia 11 (1–2): 56–84. https://doi.org/10.1163/22142312-bja10056.

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University of Manchester, UK

The CreativeAI studentships (2026-29) - fully-funded PhD studentships on cutting-edge creativeAI projects - will explore the rapidly evolving relationship between creativity and artificial intelligence (AI), considering what AI does for creativity and what creativity does for AI. 

Six supervisor-led interdisciplinary projects bring together outstanding expertise by over 15 academic staff in arts, languages and cultures, computer science, social anthropology and law to address timely societal questions around AI’s impact on agency, authorship, imagination, inequality, and social relationships.

Studentships will be organised around three strands: AI for creativity, creativity for AI, and creativity of AI, supported by a methodological training theme, creative AI methods.

The Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures and Media (DHCM) will serve as the intellectual and organizational home of the CreativeAI studentships, with members already working at the intersection of AI, creativity, society, and culture.

Key features of this studentship

• Receive a fully funded studentship covering tuition fees and an annual stipend at the UKRI rate (previously 2025/26 £20,780 per year) for 3.5 years.
  
• Research Training and Support Grant (RTSG): £3,000 total over 3.5 years.
  
• CreativeAI studentship methods training and cohort-building activities.
  

The deadline for applications is March 30, 2026. Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact the project leads in question. General questions about the CreativeAI studentships can be directed to Sam Hind (sam.hind@manchester.ac.uk).

For more details, see: https://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/funding/list-of-awards/creativeaistudentships

July 15-17, 2026

Barcelona, Spain

Deadline:  March 10, 2026

The techno-deterministic paradigm of AI has exacerbated social challenges. Academia is mobilising to assess the impact of AI in society and understand how to contribute to shaping this paradigm. This summer school aims to explore the social, ethical, and political challenges posed by contemporary artificial intelligence systems, with particular attention to any form of discrimination, including all intersectional manifestations of ageism, racism, sexism, ableism, and others. Thus, the focus is on the critical examination of how power relations enter algorithmic systems, including the roles of data practices and institutional arrangements, and on how we can reimagine accountability, anti-discriminatory action, and inclusion in automated socio-technical environments.

More info: https://anyage.ai/article/shaping-ai-for-inclusion-barcelona-summer-school-2026