Divon, T., & Eriksson Krutrök, M. (2025). The rise of war influencers: Creators, platforms, and the visibility of conflict zones. Platforms & Society, 2.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624251325721
Open access: Yes
Notes: it is not surprising today to find yourself scrolling through social media and finding posts where users reflect on their experiences about war directly from the places where such war is taking place—not only shaping what we know of the armed conflicts but also shaping how we think of war. In this paper, Divon and Eriksson Krutrök explore the rise of these war influencers, centring on the use of TikTok in Ukraine. By engaging in a digital ethnography, they centre their research on two issues. First, they create a typology of war influencers, outlining two types of war influencers (celebrity-war influencers and user-war influencers). Second, they examine content creation styles that define war influencers, noting three strategies: “(1) POV (Point-of-View) as connective war witnessing immerses viewers in the creator’s lived experiences, fostering a direct and empathetic connection to the realities of conflict through personal storytelling; (2) Memefied warzone depictions use humor and familiar internet memes to juxtapose the severity of war with the relatable vernacular of digital culture, making the content both engaging and shareable; (3) Politainment and the playful grammar of war explores how war vernaculars merge entertainment and political commentary, leveraging TikTok’s interactive features to engage global audiences and drive discourse” (p. 7). Overall, the authors present a carefully grounded case for understanding how the platformization of war transforms the languages and experiences of conflict—and how this can be traced within the broader trajectory of mediating violence.
Abstract: Since February 2022, the war in Ukraine has ushered in a new era of war documentation, with TikTok emerging as a central platform for showcasing daily life in conflict zones. This shift has given rise to “war influencers,” a distinct group of content creators who transform war zones into consumable units of content by using platform-specific vernaculars to convey their lived experiences. We present a typology of war influencers: (1) Celebrity-War Influencers, who leverage their well-established mechanisms of fame to transition into wartime advocacy; (2) User-War Influencers, who harness the powerful dissemination capabilities of platforms to spotlight their sites of trauma, thus rising from anonymity to online fame. Utilizing digital ethnography, we analyze 97 videos from Ukrainian TikTok creators, examining User-War Influencers from the onset of the war. We identify three primary styles employed by these influencers: (1) POV storytelling, using point-of-view templates to connect audiences with personal war testimonies; (2) memetic content, juxtaposing war sights with trending memes to enhance engagement and shareability; and (3) playful politainment, combining entertainment and political commentary through features like LIVE to fundraise and mobilize global audiences. Bridging war photography, citizen journalism, and influencer culture, we argue that war influencers leverage platform affordances and user interactions to amplify war zone visibility, foster civic engagement, and shape global perceptions of conflicts. In doing so, they contribute to the construction of social epistemology, redefining the collective processes through which knowledge about war zones is mediated and understood online.
