Session Chair: D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
Presentation 1
NAVIGATING THE GRAY: THE ECONOMIC UNDERBELLY OF TIKTOK'S SIDE HUSTLES
Massimo Terenzi
University of Urbino, Italy
This study investigates the nexus between the attention economy and digital disinformation on TikTok, drawing from Esposito's adaptation of Luhmann’s system theory to the digital age and Swartz's exploration of the socio-economic layers of digital transactions. It zeroes in on cryptocurrency scams as a case study to illuminate how disinformation is propagated for economic gain, using TikTok's API for comprehensive analysis. The research employs advanced data analytics to examine how digital platforms, via algorithmic filtering, shape the flow and influence of content, thereby enabling the proliferation of disinformation markets. By thematic clustering of problematic Facebook narratives and identifying scam-specific jargon, this study pinpoints tactics used on TikTok related to the 2024 Bitcoin halving. It scrutinizes how manipulators exploit technical and platform-specific vulnerabilities for profit, integrating Luhmann's double contingency theory to elucidate the feedback loops that enhance content virality and algorithmic dissemination. This theoretical framework illuminates the complex interplay between user interactions and algorithmic preferences, which, in turn, feed into the economics of disinformation markets. The research underscores the strategic manipulation of digital platforms to foster disinformation, spotlighting the role of algorithms and user engagement in the commodification of attention within these markets. Through this lens, the study aims to provide insights into the operational dynamics of disinformation markets, offering a nuanced understanding of how digital misinformation is not merely a byproduct of technological advancement but a structured market leveraging the inherent vulnerabilities of digital platforms and their users.
Presentation 2
The Limits of Virality: Music Creators and Platform Negotiation in Later Stage TikTok
Alexandria Arrieta
University of Southern California, United States of America
The lifespan of virality on TikTok has become increasingly short and operates at a smaller-scale as the platform has become more and more fragmented by algorithmic segmentation. In the midst of this, music creators are grappling with what it means to be successful in this later stage of the platform. For this study, I conducted 26 semi-structured interviews with music artists and creators on TikTok about how the platform has affected the way they work and create music. I found that their approaches of optimization were heavily impacted by their personal and career goals. Many had found that the creation of viral content based on memes and covers that afforded constant visibility didn’t result in the monetary or music career milestones that they desired, so they had to use different approaches. I would like to characterize this new period of online musical labor as a period defined by platform negotiation, in which creators are recognizing that visibility is not always desirable and make decisions about how much to optimize their content for the platform based on their brand and career goals. As they engage in relational labor to support continued work, music creators cannot simply rely on the tenets of platform optimization in order to be successful. This paper examines the ways in which music creators grapple with these challenges and how musical labor is changing online.
Presentation 3
Infrastructuring Trends: Templates, Samples, and the Making of the Short Video Format on TikTok
Stephen Yang
University of Southern California, United States of America
"Format" denotes a whole range of rules, standards, and protocols that affect the look, feel, experience, and workings of a medium (Sterne 2012). Introduced by Vine and popularized through TikTok, short-form video as a cultural format is emblematic of the accelerating conditions of present-day digital culture. This project examines TikTok's infrastructural integration of proxy-based creation via editing templates, audio samples, and filters. Through an app walkthrough (Light et al. 2018) of TikTok that sensitizes the notion of "infrastructural inversion" (Bowker 1994), I highlight how TikTok materially configured templates, samples, and filters as the proxies of trends. On the one hand, as boundary resources (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2013), these proxies incentivize creators to quickly replicate the trends they see. On the other hand, these proxies are user-generated, and they are figured as the means through which people create trends. By undergirding the circulation and the proliferation of trends, templates, samples, and filters configured short video as a cultural format that is intrinsically tied to trend-making. I highlight the ambivalence of speed in such platform-dependent imbrication of creativity and commerce. On the one hand, the infrastructural integration of proxy-based creation can be attributed to platforms’ capitalist-driven incentives that seek to accelerate content creation. Yet I highlight how it is only against a somewhat accelerated tempo that proxies of trends (templates, samples, filters) become viable means of creative expression, which gave rise to trend makers (i.e. templates, samples, and effects designers) as the new creative class alongside short video creators.
Presentation 4
COMMERCIAL BREAKS ON INSTAGRAM STORIES: TELEVISION HERITAGE ON BRAZILIAN DIGITAL INFLUENCERS’ CONTENT AND IMPACTS ON AUTHENTICITY WORK
Issaaf Karhawi
Universidade Paulista (UNIP), Brazil
Digital influencers grapple with communal and commercial content on their digital platforms. The hybridization of commercial and personal spaces has sparked debates about the paradox of authenticity (Zhao, 2021). There is a perception that developing an authentic self is crucial for commercial success. However, authenticity poses a contradiction: it brings influencers closer to market logic but distances them from audience recognition (Arriagada & Bishop, 2021), risking the loss of the “contract of trust with their followers” (Abidin & Ots, 2016, p.160) when integrating commercial brands into their social media posts. This authentic/commercial binary results in “authenticity work” (Banet-Weiser, 2021). Influencers often strive to make commercial content as personal as possible, with natural insertions into their routines.
This research identifies a movement contrary to making the commercial space natural and authentic. Brazilian influencers have adopted “commercial breaks” to announce advertising partnerships on Instagram stories overtly. This intentional interval aims to insert advertising outside of the ongoing daily stories, breaking the pattern of seamless integration. This study marks the beginning of an exploration into these strategies, aiming to formulate hypotheses regarding why digital influencers incorporate the “commercial break” into their advertising and the associated benefits for authenticity when disclosing commerciality. Conducted through a preliminary analysis spanning three years (2021-2023) of non-participant observation, the study focused on monitoring 12 Brazilian digital influencers from various niches on Instagram stories. The research has yielded some inferences, as the influencers benefited from this “programming” approach on Instagram reminiscent of practices in legacy media and interruption-based advertisements.
