Free to Be Bound: Labor Relations and Labor Process of Social Media Influencers

Yijin Zhang

doi:10.54254/2753-7048/8/20230193

Research Article

Open access

Published on 14 September 2023

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Zhang,Y. (2023). Free to Be Bound: Labor Relations and Labor Process of Social Media Influencers. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media,8,334-339.

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Free to Be Bound: Labor Relations and Labor Process of Social Media Influencers

Yijin Zhang *^,1,

¹ Syracuse University

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7048/8/20230193

Abstract

The rapid growth of social media has attracted an increasing number of user-producers who put effort into creating content and accumulating followers to become social media influencers. Influencers could trade their creativity, content, and popularity for monetary rewards from advertisers by producing and posting commercial content on their social media accounts. More and more employees choose to establish their social media accounts in their leisure time and generate fans via constant content production. It seems social media laborers have more flexibility in working hours and more ownership of their work, while they are facing a different form of capital control compared with traditional laborers. Through implying case study method analyzing a typical employee-turned-influencer labor process and labor relations with platforms and advertisers, this research unveils that platforms have prolonged exploitation periods and conducted invisible control of social media laborers through technology and algorithm, and social media laborers are facing dual exploitation from both platform capitalists and advertiser capitalists.

Keywords

digital labor, social media influencers, labor-capital relations, labor process

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Cite this article

Zhang,Y. (2023). Free to Be Bound: Labor Relations and Labor Process of Social Media Influencers. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media,8,334-339.

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About volume

Volume title: Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Psychology and Humanity Studies

Conference website: https://www.icsphs.org/

ISBN：978-1-915371-97-3(Print) / 978-1-915371-98-0(Online)

Conference date: 24 April 2023

Editor：Muhammad Idrees, Faisalabad Matilde Lafuente-Lechuga

Series: Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media

Volume number: Vol.8

ISSN：2753-7048(Print) / 2753-7056(Online)

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