Abstract

Assuming that “YouTube provides a deindividuated interactional context where social identity, including ethnic identity, is salient”, we focus our analysis on the online discussants’ identity narratives in order to investigate what makes each identity narrative into a cohesive specific ethos and how this ethos is coherent with the positioning of the party and their leaders. Our methodology includes qualitative analysis as well as a quantitative approach. Our findings confirm that the emotions and ideologies salient in the leadership speeches and keywords are perpetuated, reinvented and re-enacted in avatars, pseudonyms and comments, constructing therefore a coherent virtual community. We also conclude that the ethos of this virtual community was built on the concept of resisting the loss of sovereignty, symbolically co-constructed with myths, memories and a glorious past, instilling pride and unity, while cultivating anger, resentment and contempt against the “enemy”.