Introduction

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was making headlines for her style of communication. While she had previously been established as an ‘empathetic’ leader in her response to the Christchurch massacre in 2019, this time it was her casual but clear use of social media that was drawing global attention. After the announcement of the first lockdown in her nation, Ardern went on to Facebook Live to ‘check in with everyone’ (Khalil, 2020). Her casual attire after putting her toddler to bed and her ease of communication captured global attention when in fact she had been using Facebook on a regular basis prior to this event to communicate with her citizenry. During these appearances, she was ‘always smiling and sharing slivers of her personal life, but never underplaying the seriousness of the situation while answering people’s questions’ (Khalil, 2020). On a broader scale, politicians have been using social media for over a decade and this has changed how they engage with their followers and constituents (McGuire et al, 2020). What this also enables is ‘a more conversational, dialogic approach which allows leaders to present a human face to the crisis and engender personal relationships with followers’ (McGuire et al, 2020, p 364). At stake here is not just broader engagement using social media during a crisis but the specific approaches for doing so in relation to issues of migration that are critical and likely to produce emotive responses for migrant and non-migrant subjects alike.

This chapter examines the case study of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in particular her performance of empathy in the aftermath of a white supremacist attack on mosques in Christchurch. The purpose of this detailed discursive study of relevant news coverage and photographs is to illustrate: (1) a shift in the Western mediascape whereby political leaders, among others, are scrutinised not just for their private feelings in a public disaster but are also required to perform empathy alongside those most affected; (2) the emotional communities this leads to, which could be a building ground for solidarities with migrant communities in the future.