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Digital influencers, besides being a personal branding phenomenon, constitute, nowadays, important partners for brands in the digital environment. Despite the benefits for both parties, the brand and the endorser, there is a risk when the individuals or the brand take part in some scandal or questionable activity, which causes a loss of credibility and reputation. The contagious effect of personal or corporate brand crisis with the partners is well reported in the literature. However, there are no studies about such occurrence in the digital environment, considering that the phenomenon of digital influence has some particularities differing from traditional celebrity endorsement. This chapter focuses on the research of the consequences of a change in the credibility of influencers or brands, after the occurrence of a negative situation, and the way in which this change affects the two parties involved, the brand and the influencer. We conducted a netnographic study of the social media pages of three digital influencers and the social media pages of a recognized fast fashion brand recognized in the digital world. We analyzed 1500 social media comments from their audiences and found that influencers suffer from a loss in sympathy and credibility by scandals while crisis communication strategies in corporate brands can prevent such damages. Strategic implications for brand managers and digital influencers managing their endorsements are addressed in the discussion.

Innovative modern technologies are utilised in the hospitality and tourist industry to attract prospective consumers. Travel vlogs have emerged as a type of visual travel blog which includes information regarding tourist destinations, accommodation, cuisine, touristic activities, mode of accessibility, etc. The current study aims to investigate the influence of vlogger credibility on triggering the tourist intention to visit an eco-tourism destination.

The present study is a quantitative study, and it was conducted by surveying 218 respondents. A structured, close-ended and self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents.

The findings indicated that vlogger trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness significantly impact Bangladeshi tourists' intention towards visiting an eco-tourist destination.

The present study has several theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, the research framework illustrated how the vloggers' trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness on Bangladeshi tourists' visit intention to eco-tourist destinations. Practically, tourism industry practitioners, particularly destination marketers, will get benefit from the present study.

Purpose: This study analyses the mediating effect of parasocial interaction (PSI) in the link between hedonic motivation and impulsive buying intention (IBI) in fashion vlogging about sustainable cosmetics.

Need for the Study: Due to the mass popularity of YouTube, vlogging has led to an augmented level of PSI of vloggers with consumers, which strongly impacts a consumer’s behavioural consequences and persuades consumers to indulge in impulsive buying. Thus, marketers need to comprehend the changing behavioural patterns, including sustainable products, as this new communication medium serves the future of promotion and advertising.

Methodology: Online questionnaires were administered to 349 Gen Z female fashion vlog followers. Structural equation modelling and Hayes Process macros were employed to test the model relationships.

Findings: Results indicate that PI with the fashion vlogger partially mediates between hedonic motivation and impulse buying intention for sustainable cosmetic products. Fashion consciousness (FC) was also established as a significant moderator between all the model relationships.

Practical Implications: The findings of the study would be helpful for fashion brands in the content development of visual marketing communications, which would tap the female Gen Z consumer. Improving the PSI between the follower and the fashion vlogger can be easily enhanced by delivering the right content through the vlogger’s videos.

Using data from a feminist discourse analysis of comments on Facebook news articles, this research outlines backlash and regulatory practices directed towards youth activists Greta Thunberg, X González and Malala Yousafzai. A conceptual framework of semiotic violence highlights how these comments function to silence, delegitimise, vilify and punish sociopolitically active girls who challenge the status quo. The first mode of semiotic violence works to symbolically annihilate girl activists by silencing or rendering their political contributions invisible. The most obvious manifestation of this is instructing girls to shut up and go away. Additionally, their activism is ignored by refusals to acknowledge it as appropriate through suggestions they focus on gender-normative activities, such as domestic chores, playing with dolls and finding boyfriends. Undermining girls’ agency by describing them as puppets, mouthpieces, script readers, pawns and tools is also common. Here, girls’ contributions are rendered invisible through implications that they are being brainwashed and manipulated. The second mode of semiotic violence reinforces ideologies that girls are not politically competent and punishes them for being outspoken. This includes explicitly discrediting girls’ knowledge and abilities. Regulating their emotionality is also prevalent. This is consistent with Liberal political theory which justified women’s exclusion from public life by associating men with reason and women with emotion. Finally, insults degrade them for transgressing into a space demarcated as an adult and masculine realm. The semiotic violence directed towards these ‘girl power’ figures highlights that many people do not believe girls have the right to assert their sociopolitical opinion.

This chapter presents a methodological discussion about ethnographic practice from a feminist perspective that contributes to the field of communication studies methodology and theory. The ethnography engages Black (Afro-Brasileiro and African-American) and economically disadvantaged youth from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and New Orleans (USA) regarding their strategies of social and media visibility. This multi-sited ethnography proposes to improve the objectives of ethnography through theoretical flexibility, liberation from a priori assumptions, greater representation of the voices of community members, disavowal of the imperatives of positivist work, and abiding respect for the “other.”

With 43.2 million coronavirus cases and 525,000 deaths in 2022, India ranked second worldwide, after the United States (84.6 million cases and 1 million deaths), according to the latest available June 2022 COVID-19 impact data.

Amid people’s growing mistrust in the government, India’s news media enhanced the nation’s distinguished designation as the world’s largest and most populous democracy. India’s news media inform, educate, empower, and entertain a surging population of 1.4 billion people, which is roughly one-sixth of the world’s people.

Drawing upon the media agendamelding theoretical framework, we conducted a case study research into interplay between two prominent democratic institutions, the media and the government, to analyze the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in redefining India’s networked society.

India’s COVID-19 pandemic aggravated internecine tensions between media and government relating to four key freedom issues: (1) world’s largest COVID-19 lockdown affecting 1.3 billion Indians from March 25, 2020 to August 2020 with extensions and five-phased re-openings, to restrict the spread of COVID-19; (2) Internet shutdowns; (3) media censorship during the 1975–1977 “Emergency”; and (4) unabated murders of journalists in India.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused deleterious problems debilitating the tensions between the media and the government, India’s journalists thrived by speaking truth to power. This study delineates key aspects of India’s media agendamelding that explicates how the people of India form their media agendas. India’s news audiences meld media messages from newspapers, television, and social media to form a picture of the issues, insights, and ideas that define their lives and times in the 21st century digital age.