“Healing is Coming”: COVID-19 Celebrity Rhetoric as Testimonials
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34739/fci.2026.07.02Keywords:
COVID-19, vaccines, celebrity, crystallization, rhetoricAbstract
This work considers: when a celebrity speaks about health on television or social media, how does the rhetoric coincide with U.S. values? According to Johanna Hartelius and Jennifer Asenas (2010), “in epideictic engagements, language is reinvigorated; it recurs and circulates, accumulating new meaning in each new instantiation” (p. 360). It is this type of recurring connection from a series of testimonials that informs this study, particularly concerning the COVID-19 vaccine and epideictic rhetoric. With crystallization and Aristotle’s notion of epideictic rhetoric as a framework, celebrity vaccination videos, news segments, and posts are analyzed, citing them as forms of testimonials. Ultimately, it can be argued an implicit rhetoric of values powerfully addresses the divided American beliefs and opinions about COVID-19, and in particular, the COVID-19 vaccinations. In reviewing a select number of case studies, this research analyzes celebrity rhetoric in connection with perceptions of COVID-19 vaccinations and how they may function as informal ad campaigns promoting themes of health and responsibility.
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