Politicisation of the Domestic: Populist Narratives About Covid-19 Among Influencers

Abstract

The article analyses the proliferation of narratives about Covid-19 as an orchestrated political event among female lifestyle influencers on Czech Instagram. As the Covid-19 pandemic turned even the most basic everyday activities into politically loaded questions, the boundaries between lifestyle, domestic, and political content posted by influencers became increasingly blurred. The article explores this process of "politicisation of the domestic" with a focus on (a) the gendered character of influencer communities on Instagram, (b) the process of authority building within the newly politicised and gendered spaces, and (c) the post-socialist socio-political context of the Czech Republic that frames current political events by symbolic references to a totalitarian past. Empirically, the article builds on data collected using digital ethnography and ethnographic content analysis of selected Czech female lifestyle influencers’ Instagram profiles.