Stepanović, Ivana (2021) Youtube as a New Site for Political Debates: New Opportunities for Reconciliation in the Former Yugoslav Countries

About the Author

Ivana Stepanović (Serbia) is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research since 2014. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Belgrade, MA in Human Rights and Democracy in South-East Europe from the University of Sarajevo and University of Bologna and BA in Philosophy from the University of Belgrade. Her previous research has focused on the issue of privacy in the context of digital technologies. Currently, she is mainly interested in issues concerning privacy and security on the internet, the role of new media in political, cultural and economic changes, particularly in South-East Europe, the role of algorithms in policing the internet and the impact of digital surveillance on everyday life. She is also interested in topics concerning privacy and security in prisons and the role of digital technologies in the transformation of labour.

Abstract

The internet and social media have radically transformed the traditional divide between private and public by introducing new virtual spaces. This creates the possibility to create various semi-private and semi-public compartments that have enabled the emergence of ‘participatory culture’ that blends creators and their audiences who both produce and consume.  The digital ethnography research described in this paper explores influencer culture in former Yugoslavia to uncover specific reconciliation narratives and find out how social media can potentially contribute to normalising relations between different ethnic groups in the region.

Key words: digital ethnography, former-Yugoslavia, influencer, prosumers, social media

II.2021/WP02

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