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Storytelling in the Digital World
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Benjamins Current Topics 104] 2019
► pp. 53–77

Recontextualizing racialized stories on YouTube

When stories (re)appear in YouTube videos, they are recontextualized not only by their titling and editing, but especially by chains of online comments. This article explores how a Northern Italian politician’s racialized story, which was first recontextualized by a TV news reporter on a YouTube video, is further recontextualized for different ends by commenters on that video. I show how these commenters negotiate and reframe the racial aspects of digital discourse and its sociocultural meanings through their various responses and across different temporal and spatial scales. By applying linguistic anthropological and sociolinguistic theories and narrative analytical tools to digital storytelling, this study emphasizes how racialized language is neither stable nor unidirectional, but is rather constantly negotiated discursively among various groups of virtual audience members. Besides investigating the pragmatics of narrative interaction in the digital realm, this article speaks to methodological challenges that surround the study of online storytelling.
Keywords: digital storytelling, Italy, Lega Nord, migration, narrative, racialized language, scales, stance, YouTube
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Recontextualizing racialized stories on YouTube: Stancetaking and scaling
  • Italy’s Lega Nord (‘Northern League’): Politics and migration
  • Racializing joking remarks on YouTube
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
  • Transcription conventions
Published online: 18 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.104.04per
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