ABSTRACT
Through the analytical lens of stance, this chapter brings together Bakhtin’s (1984) theorizing on carnival, Kraidy’s (2016) notion of creative insurgency (the mixture of activism and artistry), and computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring, 2004) to investigate how online trolling is deployed as delegitimization in the context of Russian-Ukrainian geopolitical conflict. Specifically, it analyzes a string of comments posted below an article in a Ukrainian bilingual (Ukrainian/Russian) online newspaper KorrespondenT about an ultra-expensive commemorative version of the iPhone 7 with Putin’s portrait in gold. The analysis shows that the commenters use carnivalesque language—especially abusive language, profanities, curses and oaths—to ridicule and in so doing delegitimize Putin and his supporters. While prior studies frame trolling as meaningless malice (Buckels, Trapnell, & Paulhus, 2014; Barney, 2016) and/or focus on individual trolls (Hardaker, 2010, 2013), this work’s intersection of literary, communication and discourse analytic approaches captures the collective, artistic and activist nature of trolling.
