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 increas-ingly 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 sym-bolic 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.