In and against the platform

Navigating precarity for Instagram and Xiaohongshu (Red) influencers

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6443376
AutoresJiali Fan (0000-0003-2521-6687, University of Cambridge, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume27
Fascículo12
Páginas6379-6395
Data de publicação2024-08-14
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448241270434
OpenAlexW4401620720
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas34

Existing scholarly discussions of the influencer industry often take a critical stance, marked by a narrow, westernised and homogenised theme of precarity. This raises the need to explore the empirical dynamics of precarity—how it is understood, managed, and ultimately lived for influencers from different social and cultural contexts. Based on in-depth interviews with 15 Instagram influencers and 12 from Xiaohongshu (Red), this article reveals that influencers adopt a positionality I term “in and against the platform.” This approach involves both collaboration with and resistance to platform rules and rituals, ultimately enabling influencers to establish a sustainable way of living amid precarity. I argue that this “in and against” framework as a condition of labour not only highlights the active agency and creativity often overlooked in academic discussions but also complicates our understanding of precarity, opening up new possibilities for coexistence with this condition

Agency (philosophy · Business · Creativity · Influencer marketing · Political science · Precarity · Public relations · Social media · Social science · Sociology · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology · Marketing