Digital Media Literacy: Understanding Self-Presentation & Self-Disclosure in Influencer Culture (COM 655)

Participatory platforms like Instagram and Twitter have given way to the rise of influencer culture and marketing, with the preverbal “everyman” rising as opinion leaders in growing industries. “Influencer marketing involves marketing products and services to those who have a sway over the things other people buy (Kádeková and Holienčinová, p. 91).” As influencer culture grows, the understanding of what influencers can do but the advantage of leveraging those recourses is more important than ever to those in the marketing industry.

I will be focusing on self-presentation in the computer mediated communication, as influencers utilize the selective release of information and mediated impression management to build their larger audiences. In exploring the strategies popularized by these influencers can point practitioners towards up and coming trends set by these trailblazers. Understanding the process of developing in content, the strategy in content promotion, and the ability to resonate with audiences is information that most practitioners assume true but don’t necessarily understand. The goal of my digital media and literacy project is to help explore how self-presentation and participatory media have contributed to influencer culture as a marketing trend. “Considering the growth of online social interactions and their impact on people’s personal and social lives, it is worthwhile to examine self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication (p. 156).”

The intended audience for my digital media literacy project is for professionals in the marketing and communication fields who may be new to the idea of influencer marketing and the culture that has emerged from it. Ideally, exploring the ideas of self-presentation, including mediated impression management, will help open these audiences to common and authentic ways influencers emerge in the digital space and how the industry can use these trends to their advantage.