Johanna Arnesson (Umeå universitet, Ruotsi):
Influencer Relations: Navigating People, Politics, and Platforms
The talk explores relational dynamics of influencer culture and influencer politics on digital platforms. Relationships are fundamental to the creation and success of influencers, with the most obvious being the bond between influencers and their audiences. When talking of, and researching, social media influencers, we often emphasize the parasocial relationships fostered by content creation and interactions on apps and platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, X, Twitch and personal blogs. For some followers, influencers become role models, akin to a ‘big sister’, ‘bro’, or guide – someone to be inspired by and aspire to. Importantly, these relations can also be monetized, as the size and engagement of an influencer’s audience attract marketers and collaboration partners.
The relational dynamics between influencers and followers also play a crucial role in political contexts. The strong bond between influencer and follower can be viewed as both a promise and a threat, depending on perspective and how the political impact of influencers is perceived. It can make political content more relatable and accessible, but it can also obscure ideological dimensions and potentially depoliticize messages. Relational dynamics often underpin politicization of influencer content and collaborations, which can be initiated by fans as well as critics. In addition, political influencers must navigate relationships with other micro-celebrities within a specific ‘network of influence’, as well as journalists, politicians, communication managers, agents, collaboration partners, and the platforms themselves. Socio-technical relationships with digital platforms are crucial for all influencers, particularly how they navigate digital cultures, algorithms and platform affordances.
As researchers interested in this phenomenon, we must also reflect on our relationships with the influencers we study, the sociocultural and political context they inhabit and promote, and the fluid boundaries between personal and political spheres.
- Johanna Arnesson holds a PhD in Journalism, Media, and Communication from the University of Gothenburg. She currently works as an assistant professor in Media and Communication Studies at Umeå University. She is also an affiliated researcher at Humlab, an interdisciplinary research environment and technical infrastructure within the digital humanities at the Faculty of Arts, Umeå University. Her research focuses on intersections of commercial promotion and political communication, especially in digital media. She also has an interest in popular culture and internet histories.
Joëlle Basque (Université TÉLUQ, Kanada):
Exploring Identity Matters in the Communicative Constitution of Organization
Identity has become a prominent topic in organizational studies, with an increasing number of studies focusing on it since Albert and Whetten’s (1985) influential definition of identity as the central, enduring, and distinctive attribute of an organization. In this presentation, I will explore the apparent dichotomy between cognitive and discursive perspectives on identity. I will then address the critical tension in identity research between viewing identity as a fixed entity and understanding it as a dynamic process, arguing that this tension can be resolved through a communicative theorization of identity construction.
Drawing on the CCO (Communicative Constitution of Organization) framework, I will demonstrate how concepts such as materialization and identification, when revisited from this perspective, offer a novel understanding of identity. Introducing the concept of identity matters, this presentation will examine the implications of studying identity from a communicative standpoint and the insights we can gain by adopting this approach. Examples will be drawn from my research and my personal experiences with identity work.
- Joëlle Basque is assistant professor in the Département Sciences humaines, Lettres et Communications at Université TELUQ. She obtained her PhD in organizational communication at Université de Montréal in 2013, and was Research Fellow at HEC Montréal from 2013 to 2017. Her research focuses on discursive approaches to organizational communication, individual and organizational identity, and practice theories of strategy and organizational change. She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of the Communicative Constitution of Organization (2022). Her work has appeared in Organization Studies, M@n@gement, as well as The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Business and Management Research Methods and The Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy.