Influencers - a non-essential profession in society? : A discourse analysis of BBC News and The Guardian comment fields on Facebook

Sammanfattning: In today's media landscape, the boundaries between traditional media and digital media are intertwined. Thus, many news outlets can use social media platforms such as Facebook to share their articles to reach a larger audience. At the same time, it creates an opportunity for readers to interact with the articles by leaving a comment.  The purpose of this study is to examine what Facebook users comment on posts that contain links to news articles about influences in relation to COVID-19. The selected news articles are published on BBC News and The Guardian Facebook pages. Our research question is: What do Facebook users comment on posts about influencers in relation to COVID-19? Besides, we have two subquestions to support the research question; (1) What are the similarities and differences in the responses when comparing the comments on posts from 2020 and 2021? (2) What are users' opinions about influencers in relation to COVID-19? To support the questions, we use the theories public sphere and discourse theory.  Regarding the method, the study is carried out with a qualitative approach, which means that we examined four Facebook posts, of which 50 comments from each post by using discourse analysis. The choice of posts is based on the articles in the posts being about influencers in connection with COVID-19. Then the material was processed in the program NVivo, where we could identify the most used words among the comments.  The results show that the themes that can be identified in the posts are influencers as a profession, influencers' ethical behaviour and society. Then we analyse the themes, some of the most used words and writing styles in different contexts. For example, many commentators argue that being an influencer is not a real job, and thus it is absurd that influencers are allowed to travel abroad even though the restrictions imply that UK residents can only travel abroad for work. In line with this, many also criticise restrictions as they apply only to a specific group, which influencers do not fall into the category. Other aspects that can be founded are that influencers can do whatever they want, and they are skilled at marketing.  We concluded in the study that the pictures and headlines serve as a basis for how the commentators can view influencers. Moreover, public opinion may differ depending on the knowledge of people regarding COVID-19. We can also indicate that Facebook users tend to leave comments with descriptive and convincing writing styles rather than explanatory.