Self branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter

Dr Ruth PageUniversity of Leicester

rep22@le.ac.uk

Social Media Statistics: Participatory culture (Jenkins 1992, 2006)?

• By 2007, over 70 million blogs were indexed in the blogosphere.

• In 2010, Facebook’s membership exceeded 500 million active users.

• In 2011, Twitter reported that over 140 million tweets were being posted each day.

• More video content is uploaded to YouTube in a 60 day period than the 3 major American TV networks produced in 60 years.

Virtual ‘Linguistic Markets’ (Bourdieu 1977)

Self branding and micro-celebrity

• Discursive view of identity and interaction (e.g. Bamberg et al 2006)

• Identity to be produced for consumption by others (Marwick 2010)

• Interaction is designed to develop and maintain a fan base (Senft 2008)

• Audience is managed through affiliative techniques (Marwick and boyd 2011)

Visibility and Attention

Research Questions

• What are the linguistic practices which are used in self-branding and micro-celebrity?

• Are they used in the same way by all participant groups?

• What does this tell us about Twitter as a linguistic market?

Twitter 101

Types of Tweet

#Hashtags in Twitter

• Originated as search terms used by updaters– Folksonomy

• Aggregate tweets about a particular topic or event (#scd, #xfactor, #occupy, #Libya)

• Idiomatic uses – Internet memes (#fail)– One-off creative expressions (#bbcwhatareyou)

• Hashtags increase visibility via trending topics

Previous research on #hashtags

• Diffusion across the Twitter network (Huang et al. 2010)

• As a response to television events (Anstead and O’Loughlin 2010)

• Backchannel at events (Reinhardt et al 2009)• Conversational tagging (Honeycutt and

Herring 2009)• Searchable talk (Zappavigna 2011)

But...

• What kinds of identities are signalled through hashtags?

• What kinds of interactions provide the co-text for the hashtag?

• Is this really conversational?

Data sample

• 100 publically available Twitter accounts– 40 corporations– 30 celebrity practitioners– 30 ‘ordinary’ accounts

• 90, 392 Tweets

Corporations• travel:

– @bluejet, @luxorlv, @southwestair, @british_airways, @londonmidland, @connectbyhertz, @carnivalcruise

• entertainment: – @directv, @marvel, @travelchannel, @tvguide

• charities: – @redcross, @92Y

• food: – @sainsburys, @waitroseuk, @tastidelite, @popeyeschicken, @starbucks, @dunkindonuts, @wholefoods, @uktesco,

@dunkindonuts

• technology: – @emccorp, @itunesmusic, @dellcares, @costcomcares

• finance: – @hoover, @hrblock, @zappos, @wachovia, @intuit

• sport:– @chargers, @chicagobulls

• retail: – @selfridges, @americanapparel, @karenmillen, @reiss, @marksandspencer, @rubbermaid, @johnlewisretail.

Celebrities

• Britney Spears, Ellen de Generes, Ladygaga, Oprah Winfrey, Demi Moore, Lilly Allen, Paris Hilton, Sarah Brown, Dita von Teese, Holly Willoughby, Dannii Minogue, Mischa Barton, Amanda Holden, Amy Lee, Katherine Jenkins

• Ashton Kutcher, Jimmy Fallon, Shaquille O’neill, Lance Armstrong, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Fry, Dave Matthews, Jonathan Ross, Jamie Oliver, John Cleese, Philip Schofield, William Shatner, Andy Murray, Charlie Brookner, Boris Johnson

Types of tweet (as a %)

Relative frequency of hashtags in updates

celebrity ordinary' corporate0

2000

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Series1

Types of account

Rela

tive

freq

uenc

y (p

er m

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ords

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Topic-based or evaluative tags(as a % of all hashtags for each group)

corporate celebrity ordinary0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

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Topic based #Evaluative #

Most frequent topic-based hashtags(relative frequency per million words)

General observations

• ‘Ordinary’ accounts – Politics (#ge2010), sport (#cricket, #rugby), entertainment

(#eurovision, #leadersdebate), events (#twestival, #likeminds)

• Corporations – company name or field of expertise (#emc, #rubbermaid,

#sales)• Celebrities – performances (#foodrevolution, #fallonmono) or products

(#projectd), and charity events (#rewirepeace, #iwd)

Individuation and Affiliation

Individuation

Affiliation

Hashtags, identity and affiliation

• Companies individuate their identity– Company names #EMC, #rubbermaid, #Chargers

• ‘Ordinary’ accounts signal affiliation within a professional field– #law, #realbread, #synod

• Companies and celebrities emphasise their roles as cultural producers

• ‘Ordinary’ accounts make visible their role as engaged consumers of products (TV shows)

Hashtags and Speech Functions

celebrity corporate ordinary0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

120.0%

informationgoods and service

Grammatical Context of Hashtags

Declaratives: Broadcast breaking news

• #EMC Blogger Report is out! http://bit.ly/i5Mo9V Top stories today via @storagezilla @michelleflynn @chuckhollis @sakacc– EMCcorp, Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:03

• #EMC cements in lead as #storage market grows http://t.co/HRg95jw /via @ZDnetUK– EMCcorp, Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:31

Imperatives: encourage engagement

• #FOODREVOLUTION ARMY!! 2 your battle stations. SIGN the petition http://bit.ly/JOfoodrev Please POST ths ON yr FACEBOOK & RT.– Jamie Oliver, Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:31

• HI GUYS enjoy the show tonight see the kids of America make a difference #FoodRevolution 8pm till 10pm ABC USA nice one jamieox– Jamie Oliver, Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:47

Questions: Audience Response

• What is an illegal "imNigrant" Gordon?? #leadersdebate– Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:17

• Darn, I am falling asleep. Anyone else bored and tired by it all? #leadersdebate– Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:49

• I'm asian and female -how come I haven't met DC this week? #LeadersDebate– Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:58

Conversational tagging?

• Hashtags used to promote visibility in updates 10 times more frequently than in addressed messages

• Talking about something is not the same as talking with someone

• Ambient affiliation is non-reciprocal– Using a hashtag to make the tweet (and hence the

tweeter) visible, does not mean that the tweeter will also search for new people to follow too.

Synthetic Personalisation (Fairclough 1989)

‘a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people handled ‘en masse’ individually’ (p.62)

• Personalization – Terms of address– Positioning/alignment– Positive politeness

• Synthetic in so far as this is not genuine, but maintains distribution of power in discourse

Modified Retweets

• When one member forwards a message from someone else to all their ‘followers’

• Reconfigures email forwarding• Involves two participants– Original author– Person who forwards + adds new material

• Turn-taking represented in reverse order– [Retweeter’s comment] RT [original message]

An example

Distribution of modified retweets

Celebrity Corporate Ordinary0

1000

2000

3000

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5000

6000

Material added by celebrities

• Typically, added material is an evaluative assessment– Outraged. RT @Laurapalooza: Staff at the MEN aren't

letting people into the arena with cans in their hair. So many sad Little Monsters :(

– Lady gaga: Wed, 02 Jun 2010 • Used to express stance towards reported events• Or alignment with the original tweeter

– That is SO you! :-) RT @fifi_box: locked myself out, credit cards cancelled, flat tyre now my phone just died...someone please put the voodoo doll down!!

– DanniiMinogue: Wed, 28 April 2010

Material added by corporations

• Good idea! You can also recycle them! RT @aplusmhs: @OrganizeAtlanta @Rubbermaid we put our shreddings in the compost #rubbermaid– Rubbermaid, Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:45

• CONGRATS! RT @David_Strebel Just passed the #EMC ISM exam. First EMC exam under my belt– EMC Corp, Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:09

Reinforcing positive endorsement

• Thanks very much! RT @comedyfoodgirl I love @WaitroseUK Brilliant choice, they're the supermarket who treat farmers properly– WaitroseUK, Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:16

• Glad we could help! RT @danimyersPR: Thanks @RedCross for free lunch and water while I was cleaning up the mess from the #Sedalia #Tornado!– Redcross, Fri, 27 May 2011 19:08

Material added by ‘ordinary’ updaters

• Oh joy. RT @robmacpherson lady in co-op says they stock asparagus from Thailand & Peru because the conditions there are better #seasonalfood

• #Fail RT @sbuxRYRY @nickolaimathews working every night all weekend!!

• What a pile of shite!!! RT @tom_watson: [Daily Mail Alert] Cam the comeback Kid: http://bit.ly/a1eLys

From conversations to broadcasts

• Modified retweets are broadcasts of conversational snippets disseminated to millions, not dyadic turns between peers

• Simulates solidarity rather than creating it: A return to mass broadcasting, not participation

• A strategy of containment, which acknowledges the power of the Twitter audience but uses this to shore up the hierarchy of mainstream celebrity as elite persons

Conclusions

Corporations and Celebrities• Promote visibility of identity

through #• Individuate company names or

celebrity products made visible by hashtags

• Use declarative and imperative forms to broadcast news and encourage audience interaction

• Use synthetic personalisation to project positive affiliation with audience

‘Ordinary’ updaters• Affiliate with topics of

general interest in Twitter• Affiliate with fields of

professional expertise• Use questions to interact

with other audience members

• Employ a range of evaluation which critique as well as aligns with RT messages

Participatory culture and/or linguistic market?

• Although Twitter allows apparently direct access to corporations and celebrity practitioners, this does not erode offline hierarchies based on status and economic power

• Audiences may be participatory but they are still positioned as audiences

• Interaction takes place, but this is not always conversational, may be non-reciprocal or shaped by synthetic personalization