phd project

analysing virtual influencers:

celebrity, authenticity & identity on social media

I’m a PhD candidate in Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, working under the supervision of Prof. Tama Leaver and Prof. Crystal Abidin. I study virtual influencers, their role and impact in the visual social media landscape, and the industry that surrounds them. My research is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

project abstract

My PhD project examines the emergent phenomenon of “virtual influencers”: characters native to social media without a singular referent in the offline world, usually designed to promote brands, products and/or messages, and recognisable for their animated and/or computer-generated appearance. Since the late 2010s, virtual influencers have appeared online with increasing frequency, populating an array of social media platforms, and cultivating increasingly intricate online footprints. The most popular virtual influencers have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, and secured partnerships with global brands, representing a new iteration of “celebrity-commodity” (Turner et al., 2000) manufactured for, circulated within, and consumed on social media. Combining digital ethnography, interviews, press and archival research, this project will contribute to the foundation of knowledge about this emerging cohort of social media entities, mapping the evolution of the virtual influencer phenomenon and the industrial mechanisms supporting it.

 

For a quick overview of my project, you can view my 3-minute #AoIR2021 presentation “A Topography of Virtual Influencers” (co-authored with A/Prof. Crystal Abidin and Prof. Tama Leaver) below, or read the abstract here.

 
 
 
 

If you’d like to hear about the project in more depth, you can view my presentation “Visual Methodologies for Analysing Virtual Influencers”, presented at the Visualising What’s Social: Research and Methodological Approaches ICA Pre-Conference (Paris & Online, 26 May 2022).

Or listen to my episode of the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab) podcast (Season 1, Episode 4):

More outputs based on my PhD research:

  • Berryman, Rachel, Crystal Abidin, and Tama Leaver. “The Inhabited Spaces of Virtual Influencers.” Urban-Digital Spectacle Workshop, London & Online. 8-9 June, 2022.

  • Berryman, Rachel. “Always, Anywhere, with No Complaints: Idealising the Virtual Influencer Body.” CSAA 2021: Bodies in Flux, Edith Cowan University, Perth. 28-30 June, 2022.

Have a question about my project? Please get in touch!