The Body of Influencers: From Intimate Communication to Character Creation

Abstract

This article analyzes how influenced persons can become influencers themselves by presenting their bodies on social media. Two hypotheses are discussed: in the first case, influenced persons engage themselves in intimate communication process, while in the second case, they create a digital character. The qualitative methodology is based on the voices of a sample of adolescents (15-25), and the results show that neither intimate communication nor persona creation are articulated goals by the influenced persons when sharing images of their bodies. Other avenues are therefore proposed to know how influencers build digital character, such as technological standards or cultural.