Posted on Behalf of Dr. Louisa Ha, Professor of Research Excellence, Bowling Green State University
Special Issue Call for Papers
Social Media Influencers, Emotions and Global Communication
Full Paper Submission Deadline: July 1, 2024
Guest Editor: Adrian Scribano, Director of the Centre for Sociological Research and Studies and Principal Researcher at the National Scientific and
Technological Research Council, Argentina
Social Media Influencers are a new genre of online opinion leaders and celebrities that gain their fame on social media through their content posting and ability to attract large number of followers. As of 2023, the global social media influencer marketing revenue is estimated to be US$21.1 billion (Influencer Marketing Hub). While there are many research studies on the roles social media influencers play in marketing products as sponsored endorsers or electronic word-of-mouth (Ha & Yang, 2023), there is a lack of research on these influencers in the Global South especially African and Latin America and cross-national comparisons of their effects in non-commercial contexts such as activism, education, public health, public policy, political candidates and state endorsement.
Social media influencers as a new career, also raised questions about the nature of digital labor and how it exhibits similar and different forms across different social media platforms in different countries. The different types of influencers as individuals or groups call for a new conceptualization of digital labor. These is also very little research on whether the paradigm of influencer credibility, expertise, authenticity, homophily and parasocial relationship and influencer trust can be applied in different products and countries. In this context emerges a complex relationship with emotions, sensation and the skill of an influencer. Became influencers implied the development of the skill to manage emotions. Today it's not possible to think of an influencer without a politics of sensibility.
Within this context, the theme issue intends to draw insights from multiple disciplines and explore the dynamic relations between emotions, social media influencers and global communication in the digital era, with the theme on Social Media Influencers, Emotions and Global Communication. We welcome manuscript submissions related to (but not limited to) the following topics.
1. Social Media Influencers as Promoters and Sellers of Commercial Products and Services of Global Brands
2. Social Media Influencers as Activists or Advocates in the Global South or Global North
3. Social Media Influencers as Online Opinion Leaders
4. How Social Media Influencers Earn and Lose Trust of their Followers
5. Cross-National Comparison between Social Media Influencers in the Global South and the Global North
6. Comparison of Different Influencer Genres such as family influencers, child influencers, life-style influencers
7. Comparison of Platforms Used by Influencers Across Countries
8. Virtual influencers and the Role of AI in Influencer Content Creation
9. Measurement of Social Media Influencers' Influence
10. Identification of Regional and Global influencers with Computational Analysis
11. Social Media Influencers as State/Government Endorsers
12. The Role of Social Media Influencers in Politics and Political Campaigns
13. Minority Social Media Influencers such as Ethnic Minority, LGBTQ+, Disabled, etc.
14. Digital Labor of Social Media Influencers, emotions and the Creator Economy
15. Live Streaming of Social Media Influencers and Live Interaction between Consumer and Influencers
16. Ethical Issues of Social Media Influencers such as Deinfluencing and Endorsement of Illegitimate Products and Organizations
17. Social Media Influencers and Emotions in the Global South and the Global North
Full paper submissions are to be in English and no longer than 25 pages of text.
Paper format please refer to the OMGC citation style with structured abstract at https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/omgc/html?lang=en#submit
Submit full manuscript to: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/omgc
Select themed issue: Social Media Influencers and Global Communication
Inquiries: OMGC@shisu.edu.cn
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Tom Mankowski
ICA
Washington DC
United States
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