Rethinking Legitimacy Co-construction on Social Media: Veganism on YouTube

Social media influencers are charismatic leaders who build their popularity on social media platforms for monetisation purposes. They increasingly engage in social issues, such as climate change and have been shown to positively influence the legitimacy of veganism. Rather than focusing on ethical and environmental concerns, influencers promote veganism through aspirational lifestyle discourses, focused on health and wellness. While follower engagement is crucial to the influencer success, it is unclear how audiences contribute to the co-construction of legitimising discourse. Drawing on legitimacy theory, this study investigates the evolution of vegan discourse on YouTube between 2014 and 2024. Using an abductive mixed-methods approach guided by computational theory construction, we analyse transcripts and comments to surface 14 distinct legitimising discourses. Our preliminary results suggest that comments may reproduce an illusion consensus rather than foster discursive engagement.