Becoming a Media Provocateur: Persona Constructions and Transformations in Eva Selsing’s Rhetoric
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v25i83.6Keywords:
Media provocation (Driessens), provocative style, persona, agency, public debateAbstract
With the concept media provocateur, a personification of Olivier Driessens’ concept media provocation, we refer to debaters who use provocative rhetoric and social media circulation to gain a prominent speaking position in traditional, journalistic mass media. In a close reading of selected texts by Eva Selsing, whom we regard as a paradigmatic case, we show how Selsing constructs and transforms her provocative persona across journalistic genres and thereby establishes herself as a media provocateur in a hybrid media system. In continuation of this, we discuss how provocative style may function as a catalyst for rhetorical agency for media provocateurs, the media they work for, and potentially the general public. However, as we see it, the public’s agency is dependent on publicist mass media to not only offer media provocateurs a platform and fortify the provocateurs’ self-presentation; public mass media must also take responsibility for and play an active role as curators of the public debate that the media provocateurs’ rhetoric creates.
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