Between love stories and activism

: pathos, storytelling, and connection in the communication of Taylor Swift on Instagram and through music

Abstract

A glamorous superstar who is taking the world by storm and an ancient Greek scholar. These are not necessarily two people which one would bring together. And yet this is exactly what this dissertation does. The ancient Greek scholar Aristotle and his rhetoric are looked at from a modern way through the glittering and sparkling lens of Taylor Swift. The dissertation uses a qualitative research design with a content analysis as well as semi-structured interviews to understand the communication strategy of artist Taylor Swift. The research focuses on the concept of storytelling in connection with an emotional communication approach related to the pathos theory of Greek scholar Aristotle. It assesses how Swift uses pathos in storytelling to create an emotional connection with her fans. The dissertation considers the impact of the music of artist Taylor Swift and looks at Instagram to understand the communication strategy connected to social media. Understanding the connection which Swift built with the help of her music and social media interaction. The interviews and the content analysis underline how successful Swift manages to interact with her fans and how emotional her communication strategy is. It shows how promoting engagement is one of her main ways of creating a successful, emotion-based communication strategy. The dissertation also looks at the activism which can be found in Swift’s communication and how it has become part of her recent music as well as her Instagram appearance.

Date of Award	10 Feb 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Patrícia Tavares (Supervisor)