Triggered together: the circulation of emotions in the digital virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article examined the emotionality of the COVID-19 pandemic discourse in the digital space of social media, contending that emotions are not just psychological responses to stimuli but are constitutive of relational, ethical, and political bodies produced in its circulation. Informed by Koschut’s methodological framework for studying emotions in discourse and Fairclough’s analytical framework for Critical Discourse Analysis, select “landmark” texts were analyzed for their emotion discourse. It discusses the securitization of the COVID-19 pandemic through an exercise of ontopower, that is, by preempting the threat from the hateful pasaway. By problematizing the phenomenon of being “triggered,” it also argues for the potentiality of any affected individuals or groups to be activated to perform their ethical responsibility towards their Others, and to resist regimes of power through assemblages. The affective structures of social media allow for the reverberation of affect from the digital virtual to the actual world. Hence, this article also argues that to be “triggered” together is an invitation to participate in the revolutionary moments of solidarity and compassion. It concludes with a discussion on the potentials of the circulation of emotions to “trigger” individuals to participate in different forms of digitally networked actions.