Pub Date : 2025-06-30DOI: 10.1177/20563051251353741
Burçin Sarı
Professions are neither isolated nor static entities; they operate within a dynamic system that is shaped by the internal and external forces. Today, a novel yet formidable external force is gradually permeating professional domains: influencer creep , driven by neoliberal self-branding rhetoric. This study investigates the diffusion of influencer creep into psychology, a field with strong legal, workplace, and public jurisdiction. Using a multi-method approach, we observed 100 Turkish psychologists’ Instagram practices over 6 months and conducted 20 semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal that Instagram has become an unexpected intermediary in the labor market for psychologists, intensifying to fulfill the three pillars of influencer creep: self-branding, optimization, and authenticity. Psychologists now strategically use the platform as a “visual curriculum vitae,” leveraging its affordances to craft micro-selling points for their self-brand. These efforts also involve negotiating with algorithms, constant optimization efforts, and projecting themselves authentically by trying not to compromise their professional demeanor. Based on these findings, we contend that influencer creep not only alters individual professional practices but also reconfigures the profession itself through four interrelated changes: (a) the expansion of audiences, shifting from small-scale, localized clients to large, mass followings; (b) the redefinition of traditional markers of expertise, where institutional credentials are increasingly replaced by platform-driven metrics; (c) the alteration of traditional gatekeeping structures, as algorithmic systems take on a more prominent role in determining professional recognition and influence; and (d) requiring a new set of skills such as content creation and algorithmic proficiency, often overshadowing conventional professional competencies.
{"title":"The Rise of Influencer Practices Among Psychologists: From Therapy Rooms to Instagram Reels","authors":"Burçin Sarı","doi":"10.1177/20563051251353741","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251353741","url":null,"abstract":"Professions are neither isolated nor static entities; they operate within a dynamic system that is shaped by the internal and external forces. Today, a novel yet formidable external force is gradually permeating professional domains: <jats:italic>influencer creep</jats:italic> , driven by neoliberal self-branding rhetoric. This study investigates the diffusion of influencer creep into psychology, a field with strong legal, workplace, and public jurisdiction. Using a multi-method approach, we observed 100 Turkish psychologists’ Instagram practices over 6 months and conducted 20 semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal that Instagram has become an unexpected intermediary in the labor market for psychologists, intensifying to fulfill the three pillars of influencer creep: self-branding, optimization, and authenticity. Psychologists now strategically use the platform as a “visual curriculum vitae,” leveraging its affordances to craft micro-selling points for their self-brand. These efforts also involve negotiating with algorithms, constant optimization efforts, and projecting themselves authentically by trying not to compromise their professional demeanor. Based on these findings, we contend that influencer creep not only alters individual professional practices but also reconfigures the profession itself through four interrelated changes: (a) the expansion of audiences, shifting from small-scale, localized clients to large, mass followings; (b) the redefinition of traditional markers of expertise, where institutional credentials are increasingly replaced by platform-driven metrics; (c) the alteration of traditional gatekeeping structures, as algorithmic systems take on a more prominent role in determining professional recognition and influence; and (d) requiring a new set of skills such as content creation and algorithmic proficiency, often overshadowing conventional professional competencies.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144515421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1177/20563051251351493
Chelsea Butkowski, Frances Corry
As long-standing social media platforms reinvent themselves and new platforms emerge, recent discourses about social media describe the platform landscape as marked by rising uncertainty and volatility. This article deconstructs popular media narratives of emerging, centralized social media platforms, including TikTok, BeReal, and Threads. Through a qualitative textual analysis of mainstream press discourses, we address the current existential juncture in the social media landscape by examining normative ideals of social media usage and the visions animated by these framings. Our study finds that social media’s imagined futures are refracted through the past, surfacing the fundamental importance of nostalgia in narratives of each platform’s emergence. We describe a persistent entanglement between the ongoing production of speculative discourses about future technologies and a yearning for affective experiences of bygone platforms through the concept of nostalgic anticipation. Nostalgic anticipation provides a framework for understanding how today’s narratives of technological change create idealized visions of a digital past while eliding critiques of the social media industry.
{"title":"Social Media’s Midlife Crisis? How Public Discourse Imagines Platform Futures","authors":"Chelsea Butkowski, Frances Corry","doi":"10.1177/20563051251351493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251351493","url":null,"abstract":"As long-standing social media platforms reinvent themselves and new platforms emerge, recent discourses about social media describe the platform landscape as marked by rising uncertainty and volatility. This article deconstructs popular media narratives of emerging, centralized social media platforms, including TikTok, BeReal, and Threads. Through a qualitative textual analysis of mainstream press discourses, we address the current existential juncture in the social media landscape by examining normative ideals of social media usage and the visions animated by these framings. Our study finds that social media’s imagined futures are refracted through the past, surfacing the fundamental importance of nostalgia in narratives of each platform’s emergence. We describe a persistent entanglement between the ongoing production of speculative discourses about future technologies and a yearning for affective experiences of bygone platforms through the concept of nostalgic anticipation. Nostalgic anticipation provides a framework for understanding how today’s narratives of technological change create idealized visions of a digital past while eliding critiques of the social media industry.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1177/20563051251347614
Siri Frisli
This study investigates COVID-19-related misinformation on Norwegian Twitter (X), using a mixed-method approach to analyze a large corpus of 426,000 Norwegian-language tweets posted over the course of 3 years, focusing on the interplay between discursive strategies, ideological dynamics, and power relations. The quantitative analysis uses Structural Topic Modeling (STM) to identify and map the prevalence of key discourses. The STM revealed how the COVID-19 misinformation on the platforms was mainly concentrated around two discourses: politics and health. A qualitative critical discourse analysis was used to explore how vaccine-related misinformation reinforced or challenged broader power dynamics and hegemonic ideologies around health, science, and freedom. Informed by the quantitative analysis, the discourse analysis focused on two prevalent misinformation topics, revealing how vaccine-critical discourses contest the authority of health institutions and the government by framing vaccines as dangerous, experimental, and illegal. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of how misinformation circulates and evolves in specific sociopolitical contexts. By analyzing the intersections of ideology, power, and discourse, the study highlights social media’s role in mediating public debates during health crises. The results emphasize that misinformation is not merely false or misleading information but a strategic challenge to hegemony, ideology, and power. Implications include the need for more nuanced approaches to combating misinformation, addressing its ideological and discursive appeal.
{"title":"Language, Power, and Misinformation: A Mixed-Method Analysis of COVID-19 Discourses on Norwegian Twitter","authors":"Siri Frisli","doi":"10.1177/20563051251347614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251347614","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates COVID-19-related misinformation on Norwegian Twitter (X), using a mixed-method approach to analyze a large corpus of 426,000 Norwegian-language tweets posted over the course of 3 years, focusing on the interplay between discursive strategies, ideological dynamics, and power relations. The quantitative analysis uses Structural Topic Modeling (STM) to identify and map the prevalence of key discourses. The STM revealed how the COVID-19 misinformation on the platforms was mainly concentrated around two discourses: politics and health. A qualitative critical discourse analysis was used to explore how vaccine-related misinformation reinforced or challenged broader power dynamics and hegemonic ideologies around health, science, and freedom. Informed by the quantitative analysis, the discourse analysis focused on two prevalent misinformation topics, revealing how vaccine-critical discourses contest the authority of health institutions and the government by framing vaccines as dangerous, experimental, and illegal. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of how misinformation circulates and evolves in specific sociopolitical contexts. By analyzing the intersections of ideology, power, and discourse, the study highlights social media’s role in mediating public debates during health crises. The results emphasize that misinformation is not merely false or misleading information but a strategic challenge to hegemony, ideology, and power. Implications include the need for more nuanced approaches to combating misinformation, addressing its ideological and discursive appeal.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1177/20563051251323028
Rachel Wood
How do Instagram sustainability influencers communicate criticisms of consumer culture, and try to promote more sustainable alternatives, in the context of a platform and industry that seeks to promote consumption by design? Drawing on an ethnography of Instagram influencers who advocate “zero waste” lifestyle politics, this paper argues that a “sustainability paradox” emerges from the impossibility of aligning environmental values with the commercial norms of the influencer industry. This paradox necessitates continuous negotiation and management for influencers, and routinely excludes them from pathways to paid work. As extensive research on influencer labor has shown, sustainability influencers are far from alone in being systematically marginalized from paid work because they are not “advertiser friendly” or “brand safe” according to the capitalist norms of social media platforms and the influencer industry. The paper makes two key arguments regarding the causes of, and solutions to, this problem. First, the “paradox” faced by sustainability influencers points to the irreparable unsustainability of the influencer industry and the environmentally destructive systems of production, promotion and consumption which it exists to promote. And second, solutions to the systemic problems of exploitative influencer labor cannot be found from tweaks to labor conditions in this unsustainable industry. Instead, the paper makes a case for the value of a “post-work” approach to influencer labor, which broadens critical and political imaginaries for what “influencing” might mean outside of exclusionary and environmentally catastrophic hegemonies of promotional labor and consumption.
{"title":"A Post-Work Approach to Influencer Labor: The Paradox of Sustainability Influencers","authors":"Rachel Wood","doi":"10.1177/20563051251323028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251323028","url":null,"abstract":"How do Instagram sustainability influencers communicate criticisms of consumer culture, and try to promote more sustainable alternatives, in the context of a platform and industry that seeks to promote consumption by design? Drawing on an ethnography of Instagram influencers who advocate “zero waste” lifestyle politics, this paper argues that a “sustainability paradox” emerges from the impossibility of aligning environmental values with the commercial norms of the influencer industry. This paradox necessitates continuous negotiation and management for influencers, and routinely excludes them from pathways to paid work. As extensive research on influencer labor has shown, sustainability influencers are far from alone in being systematically marginalized from paid work because they are not “advertiser friendly” or “brand safe” according to the capitalist norms of social media platforms and the influencer industry. The paper makes two key arguments regarding the causes of, and solutions to, this problem. First, the “paradox” faced by sustainability influencers points to the irreparable <jats:italic>unsustainability</jats:italic> of the influencer industry and the environmentally destructive systems of production, promotion and consumption which it exists to promote. And second, solutions to the systemic problems of exploitative influencer labor cannot be found from tweaks to labor conditions in this unsustainable industry. Instead, the paper makes a case for the value of a “post-work” approach to influencer labor, which broadens critical and political imaginaries for what “influencing” might mean outside of exclusionary and environmentally catastrophic hegemonies of promotional labor and consumption.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1177/20563051251351390
Samantha James
As K-pop fans around the world participate in their fan communities in hybrid online-offline contexts, their sense of connection with artists and one another is shaped by their unique position in-between co-creators and resistors within the platform ecosystem. This article draws upon 10 months of fieldwork from 2022 to 2023 to offer a framework for how fans navigate platformization and offers a theoretical contribution to platform studies by advancing the theory of affective participation from the in-between. As a process, platformization involves the shifting of everyday experiences from offline interaction to technologically mediated interaction. For K-pop fans, platform infrastructures change participation in the realm of quantification and identification. This project delves into the relationship between K-pop fans and power structures within this contemporary capitalist system. I argue that, although fans work to creatively subvert systems of power within platformization, through navigation practices such as gatekeeping insider knowledge, community policing, and self-cooptation, they reinvent community structuring systems that serve to benefit K-pop industry leaders and platform owners. However, their creative platform use illuminates a potential for affective participation in the in-between —simultaneously subverting and supporting industry expectations. Fans’ unique relationship with industry leaders and one another demonstrate the contradictory textured affective sensations which allow them to participate in fandom in unique ways. By offering this textured approach to affective participation, this article provides meaningful footing for future research on contemporary participation in global platformized contexts.
{"title":"Affective Participation From the In-Between: The Platformization of K-Pop Fandom","authors":"Samantha James","doi":"10.1177/20563051251351390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251351390","url":null,"abstract":"As K-pop fans around the world participate in their fan communities in hybrid online-offline contexts, their sense of connection with artists and one another is shaped by their unique position <jats:italic>in-between</jats:italic> co-creators and resistors within the platform ecosystem. This article draws upon 10 months of fieldwork from 2022 to 2023 to offer a framework for how fans navigate platformization and offers a theoretical contribution to platform studies by advancing the theory of affective participation from the in-between. As a process, platformization involves the shifting of everyday experiences from offline interaction to technologically mediated interaction. For K-pop fans, platform infrastructures change participation in the realm of quantification and identification. This project delves into the relationship between K-pop fans and power structures within this contemporary capitalist system. I argue that, although fans work to creatively subvert systems of power within platformization, through navigation practices such as gatekeeping insider knowledge, community policing, and self-cooptation, they reinvent community structuring systems that serve to benefit K-pop industry leaders and platform owners. However, their creative platform use illuminates a potential for affective participation in the <jats:italic>in-between</jats:italic> —simultaneously subverting and supporting industry expectations. Fans’ unique relationship with industry leaders and one another demonstrate the contradictory textured affective sensations which allow them to participate in fandom in unique ways. By offering this textured approach to affective participation, this article provides meaningful footing for future research on contemporary participation in global platformized contexts.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-26DOI: 10.1177/20563051251346888
Anja Stevic, Angela Y. Lee, Sunny Xun Liu, Jeffrey Hancock
We advance communication theory on the relationship between online dating and psychological well-being with a nationally representative, two-wave panel survey of dating app users ( N = 521) that investigates individuals’ motives for dating and their perceived success. Results from an autoregressive structural equation model revealed people felt lonelier when they used dating apps for social approval, but not when they used them to pursue relationships. Perceived success was linked to psychological well-being: people felt lonely and less satisfied when they believed they were not attracting partners and better well-being when they felt successful. Gender differences were observed where women reported being more successful and less lonely but also more anxious about dating than men. However, men were observed to have higher life satisfaction when experiencing higher success. Our findings contribute evidence for the importance of motivations and perceptions in communication technology use and psychological well-being.
{"title":"Of Loving and Losing: The Influence of Dating App Motivations and Perceived Success on Psychological Well-Being","authors":"Anja Stevic, Angela Y. Lee, Sunny Xun Liu, Jeffrey Hancock","doi":"10.1177/20563051251346888","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251346888","url":null,"abstract":"We advance communication theory on the relationship between online dating and psychological well-being with a nationally representative, two-wave panel survey of dating app users ( <jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 521) that investigates individuals’ motives for dating and their perceived success. Results from an autoregressive structural equation model revealed people felt lonelier when they used dating apps for social approval, but not when they used them to pursue relationships. Perceived success was linked to psychological well-being: people felt lonely and less satisfied when they believed they were not attracting partners and better well-being when they felt successful. Gender differences were observed where women reported being more successful and less lonely but also more anxious about dating than men. However, men were observed to have higher life satisfaction when experiencing higher success. Our findings contribute evidence for the importance of motivations and perceptions in communication technology use and psychological well-being.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-25DOI: 10.1177/20563051251348122
Jessica S. Robles
Social media has had a significant impact on the increasing visibility of mental health. This article draws on a digital ethnographic approach and discourse analysis of posts to the microblogging site X (formerly Twitter) to examine uses of and metacommunication about the language of mental health. The analysis traces and snapshots how mental health language is being used to construct mental health, mental illness, and related subjects as a meaningful social object by participants on social media. The results focus on a particular practice around contesting the language and meaning of mental health designations, identities and language as a form of communication ritual that produces normative metadiscourse about mental health, what it means, and how we should understand and talk about it.
{"title":"The Social Construction of Mental Health Facts in Social Media Language","authors":"Jessica S. Robles","doi":"10.1177/20563051251348122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251348122","url":null,"abstract":"Social media has had a significant impact on the increasing visibility of mental health. This article draws on a digital ethnographic approach and discourse analysis of posts to the microblogging site X (formerly Twitter) to examine uses of and metacommunication about the language of mental health. The analysis traces and snapshots how mental health language is being used to construct mental health, mental illness, and related subjects as a meaningful social object by participants on social media. The results focus on a particular practice around contesting the language and meaning of mental health designations, identities and language as a form of communication ritual that produces normative metadiscourse about mental health, what it means, and how we should understand and talk about it.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-25DOI: 10.1177/20563051251340579
Rahul Mukherjee
Local short video platforms in India such as Moj and Josh have encountered mixed success in wooing talented creators and new users to their platforms. Some of the challenges they have faced suggest the limits of aspirational politics which is entangled with aspects of authenticity and relatability as well as the political economy of start-up apps and platform capitalisms. I endeavor to understand TikTok’s success in India and also comprehend in what ways Indian short video platforms tried to replicate TikTok’s algorithmic logics and creator/talent acquisition strategies within the cultural context of vernacular creativity in India. The article connects discussions of the popularity of short video platforms with recruitment strategies to tap influential content creators in provincial India. The article contends that while theorizing aspirational politics, it is not enough to study (in isolation) how creators aspire to be more successful and gain more followers and influence. Aspirations are also actively fashioned and nurtured by the platform’s talent scouts, content directors, and studio heads. The Indian government along with corporations also creates aspirational discourses. I conceptualize aspirational politics and entrepreneurial limits in these slippages and ruptures across individual desires and state-corporate-platform discourses of aspiration and entrepreneurship.
{"title":"Aspirational Politics of Talent Acquisition: Entrepreneurial Limits and Indian Short Video Platforms","authors":"Rahul Mukherjee","doi":"10.1177/20563051251340579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251340579","url":null,"abstract":"Local short video platforms in India such as Moj and Josh have encountered mixed success in wooing talented creators and new users to their platforms. Some of the challenges they have faced suggest the limits of aspirational politics which is entangled with aspects of authenticity and relatability as well as the political economy of start-up apps and platform capitalisms. I endeavor to understand TikTok’s success in India and also comprehend in what ways Indian short video platforms tried to replicate TikTok’s algorithmic logics and creator/talent acquisition strategies within the cultural context of vernacular creativity in India. The article connects discussions of the popularity of short video platforms with recruitment strategies to tap influential content creators in provincial India. The article contends that while theorizing aspirational politics, it is not enough to study (in isolation) how creators aspire to be more successful and gain more followers and influence. Aspirations are also actively fashioned and nurtured by the platform’s talent scouts, content directors, and studio heads. The Indian government along with corporations also creates aspirational discourses. I conceptualize aspirational politics and entrepreneurial limits in these slippages and ruptures across individual desires and state-corporate-platform discourses of aspiration and entrepreneurship.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-20DOI: 10.1177/20563051251339035
Anaëlle J. Gonzalez, Isra Irmak Akgün, Laura Vandenbosch
Despite the popularity of social media influencers (SMIs), little is known about how their content reflects and conveys certain values, leaving a gap in understanding their role as value intermediaries. This content analysis examined the representation of Schwartz values in the Instagram profiles of 59 of the most followed Western SMIs, celebrities, and athletes. Relying on 1256 posts and 2936 stories, the study documented the prevalence of values, modalities of representations (multimodal complexity and post-caption congruence), and differences between SMIs, athletes, and celebrities. Results revealed that 60.3% of the content portrayed at least one value, with achievement, benevolence, and hedonism being the most frequent. Multilevel analyses indicated that SMIs and athletes were more likely to post hedonism and benevolence, while celebrities were more likely to share universalism than SMIs. Most values were represented through low to medium levels of multimodal complexity, and only 15.3% showed post-caption congruence. These findings underscore the need to document how global digital platforms and actors mediate value representation, as they have the potential to shape audience values and cultural norms.
{"title":"The Values of Fame: Exploring the Visual and Textual Representations of Basic Values in Influencers’ Instagram Content","authors":"Anaëlle J. Gonzalez, Isra Irmak Akgün, Laura Vandenbosch","doi":"10.1177/20563051251339035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251339035","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the popularity of social media influencers (SMIs), little is known about how their content reflects and conveys certain values, leaving a gap in understanding their role as value intermediaries. This content analysis examined the representation of Schwartz values in the Instagram profiles of 59 of the most followed Western SMIs, celebrities, and athletes. Relying on 1256 posts and 2936 stories, the study documented the prevalence of values, modalities of representations (multimodal complexity and post-caption congruence), and differences between SMIs, athletes, and celebrities. Results revealed that 60.3% of the content portrayed at least one value, with achievement, benevolence, and hedonism being the most frequent. Multilevel analyses indicated that SMIs and athletes were more likely to post hedonism and benevolence, while celebrities were more likely to share universalism than SMIs. Most values were represented through low to medium levels of multimodal complexity, and only 15.3% showed post-caption congruence. These findings underscore the need to document how global digital platforms and actors mediate value representation, as they have the potential to shape audience values and cultural norms.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144335015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-15DOI: 10.1177/20563051251348922
Yueming Luo, Yu-Leung Ng
Sharing memes has emerged as a prevalent form of social grooming behavior on digital platforms, yet research has largely focused on the content of internet memes rather than the behavior of sharing them. This study explores whether sharing memes with different humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor styles) relates to subjective well-being through the mediating roles of online bonding and bridging social capital. Using survey data from a representative sample of 1000 participants in the United States, the findings showed that affiliative and aggressive meme-sharing were positively associated with psychological well-being and positive feelings via enhanced online bonding social capital. The findings could contribute to a deeper understanding of social and psychological implications of engaging with memes in online communication.
{"title":"Exploring the Mediating Role of Online Social Capital in the Association Between Sharing Memes Using Four Humor Styles and Subjective Well-Being","authors":"Yueming Luo, Yu-Leung Ng","doi":"10.1177/20563051251348922","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251348922","url":null,"abstract":"Sharing memes has emerged as a prevalent form of social grooming behavior on digital platforms, yet research has largely focused on the content of internet memes rather than the behavior of sharing them. This study explores whether sharing memes with different humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor styles) relates to subjective well-being through the mediating roles of online bonding and bridging social capital. Using survey data from a representative sample of 1000 participants in the United States, the findings showed that affiliative and aggressive meme-sharing were positively associated with psychological well-being and positive feelings via enhanced online bonding social capital. The findings could contribute to a deeper understanding of social and psychological implications of engaging with memes in online communication.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"207 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144290157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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