May 23, 2024 by filippotrevisan

New Article on Instagram Influencers with Disabilities in Celebrity Studies

Manuela Farinosi (University of Udine, Italy) and I have a new article out in Celebrity Studies: “Disabled influencers on Instagram: exploring digital celebrity and marginalised identities” (part of a special issue on Social Media Influencers edited by Rebecca Feasey). Here below is the abstract and you can access the full-text article at this link (if you can’t access it through your library and need a free copy, please just reach out and I’ll be glad to share one with you).

This article illuminates the nexus of social media, celebrity, and marginalised identities by examining the phenomenon of disabled influencers. Since the late 2010s, disability representations in media, culture, and public discourse have increasingly moved away from stigmatising stereotypes. Disabled influencers have emerged as new voices in this landscape but, so far, exploration of their work has been limited. To address this gap, this study explores how 15 diverse fashion influencers with visible impairments address disability in their personal brands, whether they frame themselves as advocates for disability rights, and investigates their relationships with both followers and commercial brands. Through a content analysis of one year worth of Instagram posts (N = 1,429) and profile information, we outline the strategies these influencers use to make disability central to their online personas, explore their multi-layered relationship with brands, identify their distinct but somewhat limited voice in disability advocacy, and highlight their engagement strategies with digital publics. Drawing on disability and celebrity scholarship, this work provides insights on how the use of participatory platforms like Instagram intersects with the changing demands and expectations of celebrity, generating both opportunities and constraints for traditionally marginalised groups.

March 28, 2020 by filippotrevisan

New Article on Social Media, Disability, and Mental Health in Elections

I’m delighted to share my latest open access article ‘Do you want to be a well-informed citizen, or do you want to be sane?’ Social Media, Disability, Mental Health and Political Marginality, which was published earlier this month in Social Media + Society. The article reviews evidence from focus groups with voters with disabilities to explore their experience with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. From this, social media platforms emerge as both empowering tools and sources of mental health problems for this traditionally marginalized group in an increasingly polarized political context such as the U.S.

This article is part of a forthcoming special issue on Social Media and Marginality expertly edited by Katy Pearce, Amy Gonzales, and Brooke Focault-Welles.

Here is a copy of the abstract, for the full open access article click here.

This article examines the experiences of people with disabilities, a traditionally marginalized group in US politics, with social media platforms during the 2016 presidential election. Using focus groups with participants with a wide range of disabilities, the significance of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook is discussed. Results highlight ambivalent experiences with these platforms, which support some elements of political inclusion (more accessible and more relevant election information) but at the same time also exacerbate aspects of marginality (stress, anxiety, isolation). Four coping strategies devised by participants to address digital stress (self-censorship, unfollowing/unfriending social media contacts, signing off, and taking medication) are illustrated. The relationship between these contrasting findings, social media design and affordances, as well as potential strategies to eliminate an emerging trade-off between discussing politics online and preserving mental health and social connectedness for people with disabilities are discussed.