Grief labour on Instagram
Resilient influencers and platformed grief
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6443876 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anu A Harju (0000-0002-8407-3981, University of Helsinki), Linda Pentikäinen (0009-0004-3638-6942, University of Helsinki) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 76-92 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Nordic Journal of Media Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2003-184X • E-ISSN: 2003-184X |
| Publisher | De Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.2478/njms-2025-0005 |
| OpenAlex | W4410584667 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 38 |
Drawing on the postfeminist notion of resilience, in this article we explore female influencers in grief who, after losing their spouse, share their practices of grieving on Instagram. We examine how, in the narrations of grief, the grieving self is constructed as a resilient subject able to move forward in the “grief journey” through exercising control at the site of the self. The article shows how reconciling the strain of coping with loss with influencer culture and platform requirements demands significant affective labour. We argue that such grief labour, a concept we introduce in this article, is rooted in the neoliberal regime of control targeted at the self. Utilising a digital media ethnographic design and multimodal content analysis, this study sheds light on influencers’ complex affective practices of resilience in the context of death; furthermore, the study advances knowledge on the normative aspects of platformed grief and further elaborates on the commercialisation of personal grief in the current platform economy
Business · Complicated grief · Context (archaeology · Coping (psychology · Disenfranchised grief · Grief · Influencer marketing · Normative · Political science · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Spouse · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
Western Attitudes toward Death
New mourners, old mourners
Crying on YouTube
Capitalizing intimacy
Ethnography for the Internet
Reflections on internet research ethics from language-focused research on web-based mourning
Funeral and Instagram
Situating Ethics in Online Mourning Research
Destigmatising Infant Loss With Photography and Hashtags on Instagram
Multimodal content analysis
Vulnerable” resilience
Feeling grateful, kind, and empowered
Beauty surveillance
The politics of vulnerability in the influencer economy
Ambivalent influencers
On not taking the self seriously
Looking on the bright side
Grief hypejacking
The affective, cultural and psychic life of postfeminism
Social Media Ethnography
Self-branding, 'micro-celebrity' and the rise of Social Media Influencers
Co-opting Small Stories on Social Media
Governing the Resilient Self
Constructing the Platform-Specific Self-Brand
Do not Click 'Like' When Somebody has Died
From Mediatized Emotion to Digital Affect Cultures
The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |