AI Virtual Influencers: The Future of Influencer Marketing
Presentation at BCMCR Research Seminar 18 Feb 2015
1. The social media use of
creative and cultural workers
Karen Patel
2. This presentation
• My research – questions, scope, literature, method
• The ‘N’ word
• Performance of expertise
3. Questions
• What is the role of social media use in the everyday lives of creative
and cultural workers?
• How is expertise performed on social media?
• What can these insights tell us about the culture of the creative
industries?
4. Aims
• Provide an insight into how creative and cultural workers use social
media and the role it plays in their everyday lives
• Relate these insights to the wider context of the creative industries
and contribute to knowledge about creative work
• Contribute to social media methods and knowledge about ethical
concerns in social media research
• Add to current knowledge about expertise in the creative industries
5. Why?
• The working conditions of people
employed in the ‘creative industries’ as
an ongoing area of debate in creative
industries/cultural policy scholarship,
issues such as precarity and labour
(McRobbie, 2002; Hesmondalgh and
Pratt, 2005; Oakley, 2011)
• Similar debates about social media use in
terms of identity, privacy, digital labour
(Gregg 2014; Fuchs 2015) and
exploitation of users by corporations
(Andrejevic 2012; Arvidsson and Colleoni,
2012)
7. Scope and potential methods
• Birmingham as case study city
• Around 15-20 interviews
• Diary of social media use
• Relational discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) of social media posts
• Pilot study with artist
8. “The continuance of certain neoliberal logics is apparent in which
markets are used to organise almost everything, including expertise.
This introduced new forms of expert relations and interests, such as the
pursuit of value and profit, to the work of cultural organisations.”
(Prince, 2014:12)
Neoliberalism
10. Performance of expertise
Used with permission from Rachel Marsden
• Fairclough’s relational discourse analysis (2003)
• Language of the expert, authoritative, presenting information
• Association – people and companies associated with
• Cover (2012) identifies identity ‘performances’ occurring through
association and tagging
Explain what relational discourse analysis is – used by Fairclough to look at expertise and identity of politicians.
Why Birmingham?
From my own experience as a practitioner in Birmingham’s creative industries, social media is an important tool.
Performativity concerned with signifying and enacting through words (Butler). Callon applied this to performativity of the economy, in that economic discourses and devices help to frame economic behaviour.
Callon’s approach can be useful for looking at performativity within the economy, and Nixon utilised elements of this with Bourdieu’s approach to social formation, taste and class dispositions (HOW) in looking at cultural intermediaries, who are considered ‘experts’ in their field. Such approaches useful for situating my findings within the wider context of the cultural and creative industries, economy and markets (neoliberalism) which is also where I’m looking at cultural political economy.
Goffman’s approach to performance has been applied when looking at self presentation online, Goffman claims that the user is actively aware of the audience when presenting themselves
Linkages also between performativity and identity through work of du Gay, especially his critique of Butler’s performative agency and the work of Callon in approaches to personhood (define what personhood is)
All of these approaches could be of value to my work.
Explain this person is a pilot study
Brief analysis here using aspects of relational discourse analysis
Fairclough points out how expertise is increasingly broadcasted through mediated communication and mass media. I’m looking to treat social media as a form of this mediated communication.
Fairclough’s relational discourse analysis used to look at experts and the language of the expert – authoritative, presenting information. Also important to take into account practice (e.g. Prince’s practices of assemblage?) and associations (boyd and Heer, Fairclough mentions it also.
Use of words such as ‘specialist’. Description of what she does and her associations. However, not quite the information giving, authoriatitiveness which Fairclough talks about. Emphasis on her personal development and journey as a practitioner and academic.
Self-branding through hashtag - #wordgirl a hashtag she regularly uses. Identity. #PhD also there.
Cover (2012) claims that identity ‘performances’ occur through associations and tagging, yet this can sometimes be at odds with stable identity narrative
Hashtags used in a form of self branding, categorising? #PhD and #wordgirl
Medium specific conventions such as hashtags in Twitter, what about conventions for other platforms?
Finding out more about the role of this requires mixed method approach including diary and interviews.