ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to understand the role of parody characters on Twitter as drivers of digital narratives connected to ongoing crises. Using a paradigmatic case study methodology, we will focus on the hugely popular Spanish parody account @Coronavid19, where the virus, presented as a fictional character, has been offering a humorous chronicle of an unprecedented social and health crisis, from the early beginning and in almost real time. This case has been chosen considering its popular impact in terms of media repercussion and growth (almost half a million followers in less than a week), but also its peculiarities as a fictional character and a privileged chronicler in the first person. Our goal is to understand how this kind of fictional parody character is built, how narrative and character traits evolve along time, and to observe to which extent they serve as a tool to cope with hard times, fostering collective empowerment, empathy and stressing official recommendations by mocking irrational behavior. We conducted a systematic extraction of tweets over nineteen weeks (n = 954 tweets) for analysis and conducted a semi-structured interview with the author behind the account. Results point to a character-driven narrative with a transformation arc in an otherwise unpredictable plot, where: (1) the threat is made tangible and vulnerable through humanization; (2) the bleakest implications of the pandemic are side-lined in the process; (3) there lies a tension between character coherence, relevance and the authorial ethical dilemmas faced in front of an unpredictable, far-reaching crisis.

摘要

本文的目的是了解模仿角色在Twitter上的作用，作为与持续危机相关的数字叙事的驱动力。使用范式案例研究方法，我们将重点关注广受欢迎的西班牙模仿帐户@ Coronavid19，该病毒以虚构的形式呈现，从一开始就一直为人们提供前所未有的社会和健康危机的幽默编年史。几乎是实时的。选择此案是因为考虑到它在媒体的影响和发展方面的普遍影响（不到一周的时间有将近50万的追随者），而且还具有虚构人物的特征和第一人称的特权编年史者的特点。我们的目标是了解这种虚构的模仿角色是如何建立的，叙事和角色特质如何随着时间而发展，并观察他们在多大程度上充当了应对困境，嘲笑非理性行为，促进集体授权，同理心和强调官方建议的工具。我们在19周内对推文进行了系统的提取（n  = 954条推文）进行分析，并对帐户背后的作者进行了半结构化采访。结果指向了一个角色驱动的叙述，该叙述带有变换弧线，该变换弧线在其他情况下无法预测，其中：（1）通过人性化使威胁变得明显和脆弱。（2）在这一过程中，大流行的最暗淡的影响被排除在外；（3）人物连贯性，相关性与在不可预知的，深远的危机面前面临的创作道德困境之间存在着张力。