Drew Skylar Davis | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Drew Skylar Davis
Title: “Sorry My Obsession is so Deep”: A Rhetorical Analysis of Parasocial Relationships with Love Island Cast Members on Instagram
Major: Communication Studies
Minor: Environmental Studies
Advisor: Nicolas Hernandez

Parasocial relationships are a type of relationship that has previously been studied based on how they are formed, but how the person in the parasocial relationship interacts has not typically been studied. This study aims to understand the rhetorical implications of parasocial relationships of the comments underneath Love Island contestants’ accounts. I used generative analysis to analyze the top 50 comments under 12 different posts from four Love Island contestants’ accounts. These comment sections revealed four themes of comments: about the show’s context, wanting engagement from microcelebrity, projecting onto microcelebrity, and praising the microcelebrity. I studied the messages and was able to see these themes, as well as how prevalent they were across the three time periods and microcelebrities I chose from. I also found an interesting notion of how the audience of the parasocial relationship is shifting over time; the viewer is the rhetor of the parasocial messages, and the microcelebrity is the audience to them. This study fills a gap regarding the role of the viewers as the communicators in the relationship, as well as there is not much research done on Love Island.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.