Digital leadership charisma: (Re)producing charismatic authority through meme ecologies

This paper develops a theory of digital leadership charisma by explaining how charisma is (re)produced in and through meme ecologies. Building on Weber’s theory of charismatic authority and Lee’s concept of digital charisma, we conceptualize meme ecologies as distributed sociomaterial environments in which users, leaders, institutional actors, algorithms, AI-generated content, and platform architectures jointly participate in the production, amplification, contestation, and stabilization of charisma. We identify three complementary mechanisms through which this process unfolds, including simulation leading to mythmaking, intertextual processes, and platform affordances. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for studying charisma in digitally mediated environments.