The people of today's society have multiple social media platforms that they can use to communicate with other people all around the world. By doing so, they are getting affected by each other’s thoughts and opinions. The aim of our study is to examine what leadership and followership looks like in a relationship between a public figure and its followers on social media. The study is performed with qualitative methods and a deductive approach that relies on relevant theories which guided our research forward. The theories we have used are based on leadership and followership. As a result, we came to the conclusion that the public figures we have studied are inspirational leaders that affects their followers by power and influence. We could also see power and influence used the other way around as well. Followers could also affect the public figure they are following by using their power and influence on them. However, we can see that it is different from platform to platform, and it also depends on who the leader is, what type of person the follower is and how they chooses to identify with the public person. Based on our study, we have come to the conclusion that this type of relationship can also can be inspired by and implement in an organization, where you usually can see leadership and followership, for example between a manager and an employee.

Vilken roll spelar offentliga personer i Cancerfondens externa kommunikation på Instagram, och vilka tänkbara identiteter kan detta generera i? Vi har gjort en kvalitativ retorisk undersökning med material insamlat från Cancerfondens Instagram, där specifikt inlägg med offentliga personers medverkan studerats. I analysen diskuteras materialet utifrån tre identitetskategorier som var särskilt utmärkande bland inläggen: Familj, Det vardagliga livet och Det hälsosamma livet. Vi presenterar ett resultat som tyder på att offentliga personer har en central roll i skapandet av relationer till en tänkt publik, vilket i sin tur kan genereras i olika identiteter. Cancerfondens kommunikativa arbete tolkas ha ett genomgående fokus med syfte att skapa en gemenskapskänsla i deras relationer med hjälp av de offentliga personerna. Denna relation tycks styras mer eller mindre av en medieframställd bild av den offentliga personen, som dessutom ska gestalta en “vanlig” människa. Det gör att vi kritiserar hur trovärdig och äkta denna relation faktiskt är.