News That Talks Back! Affective politics and feminist democratic approaches to digital news commentary

This paper examines Aotearoa and Australia based influencers @ShitYouShouldCareAbout and @CheekMedia to explore how feminist democratic theory can reimagine political engagement and challenge affective polarisation among young audiences. It investigates how youth-centric platforms such as Instagram and Substack are leveraged by influencers to foster relational publics, cultivate parasocial relationships, and nurture a sense of authenticity, inclusivity, and belonging through an ethic of care. By employing everyday discourse, vibrant aesthetics, mundane polls, and emotionally resonant storytelling, these platforms promote transformative justice with the aim of reengaging politically fatigued youth. Using a multimodal discourse analysis of posts alongside semi-structured interviews with the platform’s content creators, this study examines how practices such as content curation, boundary work, and attentive listening shape @ShitYouShouldCareAbout’s distinctive approach to deliberation and dialogue. Drawing on feminist democratic theory, the paper critiques the dominance of autonomous, rational and dispassionate discourse in traditional democratic models, advocating instead for embodied and situated knowledge. However, these relational dynamics are constrained by platform affordances, including visibility settings, closed comment features, and algorithmic recommendation systems. Ultimately, the findings suggest that feminist-informed deliberative strategies can strengthen democracy by centering emotion, affect, and everyday lived experiences, helping young people, in their own words: “give a shit."