All One Hundred Views Are Not Equally Worthy: Relational Assessment of Influence in the Creator Economy

• In Event: Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 8. Influencers & families

Abstract

From bookers to talent managers, cultural intermediaries and their evaluation of the “right fit” has engendered social consequences such as reproducing class hierarchies. With the platformization of cultural production, scholars have shifted the focus from human intermediation to platform intermediation, examining how platforms reproduce social inequalities by assessing “right content” for audiences. Yet we know little about how human intermediaries continue to play a considerable role in reproducing social inequalities in cultural production through evaluation, even in contexts where platforms are the primary intermediaries. I examine this question with a qualitative case study on influencer marketing agencies’ selection of the “right” influencer for brands’ marketing campaigns. To analyze agencies' decision-making processes and their consequences, I draw on semi-structured interviews with 60 individuals, such as talent managers, influencer marketers, and content creators, and ten weeks of participant observation at an influencer marketing agency in Turkey. I argue that influence assessment becomes a relational process in which relationships between brands and agencies shape the selective incorporation of metrics and classed interpretation of influencers’ self-presentation. I extend the literature by showing how relational evaluations of human intermediaries can reproduce social inequalities through restricted market access, even in contexts in which platforms are the primary intermediaries.

Author

• Elif Birced, MIT