“CCP” versus “racist”: The construction of co-tellership in digital narratives of the London pianist incident

Drawing on mediated narrative analysis, this study examines the co-tellership dynamics in the Reddit narratives surrounding the “London Pianist Incident”, demonstrating how mediated narratives amplify and reshape ideological confrontations between exclusionary and inclusionary discourses online. Using Wmatrix to support a corpus-assisted identification of potential identity labels, the analysis shows that tellers strategically deploy labels, specifically “ccp” for tourists and “racist” for the pianist, to position social actors within competing geopolitical and moral frameworks. Platform affordances of Reddit, including nested comments, hyperlinks, emojis, and upvotes, actively mediate these narratives, redistributing content visibility and driving ideological labels from radicalised, peripheral positions to mainstream acceptance through repetitive sharing, commenting, remixing, and creation. Consequently, radicalised narratives are normalised, mediatising public perception of the incident. Nonetheless, counter-narratives emerged within nested comment sections and challenged dominant labelling, reflecting the contested nature of digitally mediated storytelling. The analysis demonstrates that social media both reflects and reshapes ongoing struggles between exclusionary and inclusionary stances, elucidating how everyday digital storytelling contributes to broader ideological conflicts.