Social

Media
Influencers
Dr. Will Kurlinkus
 – Missing some major part of the paper: intro, lit review, body
complications, and conclusion
– Not doing point, evidence, analysis properly
Common – Disconnect between sections
– Not incorporating the appropriate amount of secondary citation in
Errors your lit review and using those QUOTES to analyze your body
paragraph info
– Not enough detailed description and quotes from your primary
sources
 1. What is your paper topic?
2. What specific are the examples you are analyzing?
3. What is the theoretical lens you’re examining your looking at
your examples through (influencers, microcelebrity, memory
Group Warm online, expertise, digital bodies, etc.)
4. What is the gap in research you are filling: why is your topic
Up unique and under researched.
5. Something unexpected about your topic
6. What are you considering for your theory narration.
What is authenticity and why is it so sought after in an age of
social media? How is it performed in your community?
What are influencers?
– influencers: “accumulate followings on social media platforms
through strategic content creation and navigate digital and
physical spaces crafting their own unique personal brand
predicated on conceptions of authenticity and credibility.” (173)
– Are influencers experts?
– clout: the power of social media influencers, the ability for them
to spread and share information, the number of followers,
essentially social capital
– Word of Mouth (WOM): info on what to do or buy spread by
stories (often of close others) rather than ads. Why does WOM
work better than ads?
What is the
influence
happening? How is
it working?
Our Article:
Bodybuilders vs.
Fitness Influencers
– All communities have notions of
authentic participation—who
are your communities authentic
members and how to they mark
themselves as real members.
– Rhetorical move of “not
sponsored”
– What it means to be
credible and authentic
shifts from community to
community. This is ethos.
– Bodybuilders (masculine
labor) vs. influencers
(feminized labor)
The Democratization
of Expertise
– What is expertise? How do we
know it?
– Because influencers, as we
talked about last time, rely on
countering true experts as
inauthentic they often find
themselves at odds with
science and fact.
– The democratization of
expertise that influencers
represent: is expertise
changing or have influencers
always existed?
Who are pre-internet
influencers? Fashion?
Art?
How do influencers
rhetorically
transform the
world? Make an
argument: Point,
evidence, analysis.
Sample
Theory
Narrations