YouTubified (political) talk shows as participatory endorsement
A case study of Piers Morgan vs. Bassem Youssef on Palestine’s Treatment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17820501 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shahinaz Hesham Elsamadoni (0009-0000-0055-7210, Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language and Semiotic Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2096-031X • E-ISSN: 2751-7160 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/lass-2026-0012 |
| OpenAlex | W7155030793 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 32 |
Digital platforms have transformed political talk shows from one-directional broadcast formats into participatory environments in which audiences actively evaluate, reinterpret, and publicly judge mediated debates. YouTube enables users to engage with political infotainment content through visible interaction metrics such as likes, comments, and emojis. Drawing on the theory of participatory culture, this study examines how YouTube users collectively construct power relations through engagement with a viral political talk-show episode: “Israel-Hamas War: Piers Morgan vs. Bassem Youssef on Palestine’s Treatment.” Conceptualizing audience engagement as participatory endorsement, the study argues that users do not merely react to political content but publicly evaluate speaker credibility and performance, producing a “winner versus loser” narrative through collective evaluative practices. Using quantitative content analysis, the study examines 486 top comments. The analysis focuses on verbal appraisal, emoji use, and engagement metrics to assess how users evaluate and endorse the two main social actors. Findings reveal a strong asymmetry in audience response: Youssef is overwhelmingly endorsed through positive language, high engagement, and affective emojis, while Morgan is predominantly framed through criticism, and disbelief. These patterns suggest that YouTube’s participatory affordances facilitate audience-constructed symbolic authority, enabling users to collectively position Youssef as the rhetorical “winner” of the debate
Affordance · Citizen journalism · Construct (python library) · Credibility · Emoji · Narrative · Politics · Rhetorical question · Source credibility · Digital Communication and Language · Humor Studies and Applications · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
The Culture of Connectivity
The Content Analysis Guidebook
The Relevance of Algorithms
Effect of online video infotainment on audience attention
The Impact of Journalistic Cultures on Social Media Discourse
The Impact of Social Endorsement Cues and Manipulability Concerns on Perceptions of News Credibility
How emotional are emoji
Emojis influence emotional communication, social attributions, and information processing
“Stuck with Him”
Transformation of the media landscape
Uses and Grats 2.0
Impolite viewer responses in Arabic political TV talk shows on YouTube
Audience measurement and digitalization
A Tale of Two Stories from “Below the Line”
Social network sites and acquiring current affairs knowledge
User-generated accountability
Want to be on the top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook
Media prosumers in political communication
The Softening of Journalistic Political Communication
Social Endorsement Cues and Political Participation
The Daily Show
Participation framework underlying YouTube interaction
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |