Heroes, idols, and youth influencers

Cultural industries and identity models in TikTok

Authors

  • Pilar Lacasa Universidad de Alcalá / Universidad Internacional de la Rioja
  • Noelia Carbonell-Bernal Universidad Internacional de la Rioja
  • Silvia Duran-Bonavila Universidad Internacional de la Rioja
  • Paloma Contreras-Pulido Universidad Internacional de la Rioja

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37467/revtechno.v11.4391

Keywords:

TikTok, Heroes, Idols, Influencers, Big data, Content analysis, Popular culture

Abstract

This study explains on how the TikTok platform can contribute to developing different identity models among teenage fans mediated by cultural industries. The theoretical models are those that focus on popular culture (Fiske, 1989) and, more recently, in the TikTok study (Abidin, 2021). The methodology combines big and small data analysis, inspired by the content analysis techniques, and looking at multimodal discourses. The results show different dimensions from which cultural industries build the identity of heroes, idols, or influencers. The focal points of the conclusions are the challenges posed to research by studying this social network.

References

Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: understanding fame online (1st edition). Emerald Publishing.

Abidin, C. (2021). Mapping Internet Celebrity on TikTok: Exploring Attention Economies and Visibility Labours.

Cultural Science Journal 12(1), 77-103. https://culturalscience.org/articles/10.5334/csci.140/

Abidin, C., Brown, M. L., Aziz, F., Bishop, S., Cirucci, A. M., de Seta, G., Lana, L. C. d. C., Limkangvanmingkol, V., Marwick, A. E., Mavroudis, J., Pande, R., Senft, T. M., Simsek, B., & Zhang, G. (2019). Microcelebrity around the globe: approaches to cultures of internet fame (1st edition). Emerald Publishing Ltd.

Adams, N. (2019, June 12). No more tradeoffs: The era of big data content analysis has come. Sage Ocean. Tools and Technology. https://cutt.ly/oKdYY3A

Alinejad, D. (2018). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. New Media & Society, 20(1), 428-431. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817733962c

Bhandari, A., & Bimo, S. (2022). Why’s Everyone on TikTok Now? The Algorithmized Self and the Future of Self- Making on Social Media. Social Media + Society, 8(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221086241

Bocco, F., Gatica, J. B., Ferreyra Roque, K. A., & Piraino, N. (2021). Acerca del uso empático de las redes sociales: Instagram y TikTok en adolescentes entre 12 y 13 años https://cutt.ly/PGgMjDa

Boyd, D. (2002). Faceted identity: Managing representation in a digital world. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Boyd, D. (2011). Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications’. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A networked self: identity, community and culture on social network sites (pp. 39-58). Routledge.

Branco, A. U., & Valsinger, J. (Eds.). (2012). Cultural psychology of human values. Information Age Pub.

Bucknell Bossen, C., & Kottasz, R. (2020). Uses and gratifications sought by pre-adolescent and adolescent TikTok consumers. Young Consumers, 21(4), 463-478. https://doi.org/10.1108/YC-07-2020-1186

Carlsen, H. B., & Ralund, S. (2022). Computational grounded theory revisited: From computer-led to computer- assisted text analysis. Big Data & Society, 9(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221080146

Ceci, L. (2022, April 8). TikTok- Statistics & Facts. Global Survey. Statista, https://cutt.ly/hGl0pGB

Chang, V. (2018). A proposed social network analysis platform for big data analytics. . Technological Forecasting and Social Change(130), 57-68 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.11.002

Charmaz, K., & Thornberg, R. (2021). The pursuit of quality in grounded theory. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 305-327. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1780357

Cornelio, G. S., & Roig, A. (2020). Mixed methods on Instagram research: Methodological challenges in data analysis and visualization. Convergence, 26(5-6), 1125-1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856520941613

Creamer, E. G. (2022). Advancing grounded theory with mixed methods. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Ditchfield, H. (2019). Behind the screen of Facebook: Identity construction in the rehearsal stage of online interaction. New Media & Society, 22(6), 927-943. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819873644

Dyer, H., & Abidin, C. (2022, in press). Understanding Identity and Platform Cultures. . In W. Housley, A. Edwards,

R.Beneito-Montagut, & R. Fitzgerald (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Digital Society. Sage Publications.https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/84930/

Fairchild, C. (2007). Building the Authentic Celebrity: The “Idol” Phenomenon in the Attention Economy. Popular Music and Society, 30(3), 355-375. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760600835306

Farquhar, L. (2012). Performing and interpreting identity through Facebook imagery. Convergence, 19(4), 446- 471. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856512459838

Fiske, J. (1989). Understanding popular culture. Unwin Hyman.

Finan, D. (2021). Idols you can make: The player as auteur in Japan’s media mix. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211015625

Franco, Z. E., Allison, S. T., Kinsella, E. L., Kohen, A., Langdon, M., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2016). Heroism Research: A Review of Theories, Methods, Challenges, and Trends. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 58(4), 382-396. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167816681232

Goffman, E. (1990). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.

Haste. (2020, April 23). Difference Between Celebrity and Influencer. Pediaa.Com https://bit.ly/3mmnkK9

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2019). The cultural industries (4rd Edition.). SAGE.

Hogan, B. (2010). The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(6), 377-386. https://doi. org/10.1177/0270467610385893

Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Harvard University Press.

Hunting, K. (2021). Critical content analysis: a methodological proposal for the incorporation of numerical data into critical/cultural media studies. Annals of the International Communication Association, 45(1), 39-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2021.1910061

Jaramillo-Dent, D., Contreras-Pulido, P., & Pérez-Rodríguez, A. (2022). Immigrant Influencers on TikTok: Diverse Microcelebrity Profiles and Algorithmic (In)Visibility. Media and Communication, 22(10), 1. https://doi. org/10.17645/mac.v10i1.4743

Kaplan, A. (1943). Content Analysis and the Theory of Signs. Philosophy of Science, 10(4), 230-247. http://www. jstor.org/stable/184268

Katayama, R. (2021). Idols, celebrities, and fans at the time of post-catastrophe. Celebrity Studies, 12(2), 267-281. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2021.1912255

Kennedy, M. (2020). ‘If the rise of the TikTok dance and e-girl aesthetic has taught us anything, it’s those teenage girls rule the internet right now’: TikTok celebrity, girls and the Coronavirus crisis. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(6), 1069-1076. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420945341

Kim, S.-Y. (2018). K-pop live: fans, idols, and multimedia performance. Stanford University Press.

Kitchin, R. (2014). Big Data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts. Big Data & Society, 1(1), https://doi. org/10.1177/2053951714528481

Kohen, A. (2014). Untangling heroism: classical philosophy and the concept of the hero. Routledge. Krippendorff, K. (2018). Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology (Fourth Edition). SAGE.

Lacasa, P. (2020). Adolescent fans. Practices, discourses, and communities. Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/ b14291

Livingstone, S., & Pothong, K. (2022). Imaginative play in digital environments: designing social and creative opportunities for identity formation. Information, Communication & Society, 25(4), 485-501. https:// doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2046128

Ma, L., & Zhang, Y. (2022). Three Social-Mediated Publics in Digital Activism: A Network Perspective of Social Media Public Segmentation. Social Media + Society, 8(2), https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221094775 Martínez-Borda, R., Lacasa, P., & Castillo, H. (2021). Big and small data: Watching and discussing television series on streaming. Cuadernos.Info Comunicación y medios en Iberoamérica, 49, 331-335. https://doi.

org/10.7764/cdi.49.27297

Morse, J. M. (2021). Developing grounded theory: the second generation revisited (Second edition). Routledge. Oliva, M. (2019). From the literary field to reality TV: The perils of downward celebrity migration. European

Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(1), 18-34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549419861633

Omnicore. (2022, March, 13). TikTokby the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts. https://www.omnicoreagency. com/tiktok-statistics/

Papacharissi, Z. (2011). A networked self. In A networked self: identity, community and culture on social network sites (pp. 304-318). Routledge.

Perez, S. (2020, June 14). Kids now spend nearly as much time watching TikTok as YouTube in US, UK and Spain. https://cutt.ly/4KvbZnj

Philip, T. M., & Gupta, A. (2020). Emerging Perspectives on the Co-Construction of Power and Learning in the Learning Sciences, Mathematics Education, and Science Education. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 195-217. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X20903309

Qian, X. (2022). Three narrative patterns of the city image visually presented on Instagram under the influence of self-presentation. Media, Culture & Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437211069968

Russell, A., & Itzler, J. (2020). The influencer code: how to unlock the power of influencer marketing. Hatherleigh Press.

Sagiv, L., & Schwartz, S. H. (2022). Personal Values Across Cultures. Annual Review of Psychology, 73(1), 517-546. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-020821-125100

Santos-Lopes-de-Oliveira, M.-C., Uchoa-Branco, A., & Ferraz-Dourado-Castillo, S. (Eds.). (2020). Psychology as a Dialogical Science: Self and Culture Mutual Development. Springer.

Sarwatay, D., & Raman, U. (2022). Everyday negotiations in managing presence: young people and social media in India. Information, Communication & Society, 25(4), 536-551. https://doi.org/10.1080/136911 8X.2021.1988129

Schechner, R. (2020). Performance studies: an introduction (Fourth edition. ed.). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Schellewald, A. (2021). Communicative Forms on TikTok: Perspectives From Digital Ethnography. International Journal of Communication; Vol 15 (2021). https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/16414/3389 Schellewald, A. (2022). Theorizing “Stories About Algorithms” as a Mechanism in the Formation and Maintenance of Algorithmic Imaginaries. Social Media + Society, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221077025 Schwartz, R., & Halegoua, G. R. (2014). The spatial self: Location-based identity performance on social media. New Media & Society, 17(10), 1643-1660. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814531364

Serafini, F., & Reid, S. F. (2019). Multimodal content analysis: expanding analytical approaches to content analysis.

Visual Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357219864133

Stevens, J. R., & St. John, B. (2020, 2020/10/01). Corporate Affirmations of Self-Identity and Mutual Self-Help: Transmedia Rhetorics of Marvel Rising. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 44(4), 376-395. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859920924383

Sullivan, M. P., & Venter, A. (2010, 2010/09/16). Defining Heroes Through Deductive and Inductive Investigations.

The Journal of Social Psychology, 150(5), 471-484. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224540903366602 Tarozzi, M. (2020). What is grounded theory? Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350085275

Thumim, N. (2012). Self-representation and digital culture. Palgrave Macmillan.

Tsaliki, L. (2022, 2022/03/12). Constructing young selves in a digital media ecology: youth cultures, practices and identity. Information, Communication & Society, 25(4), 477-484. https://doi.org/10.1080/136911 8X.2022.2039747

Vares, T., & Jackson, S. (2015, 2015/10/02). Reading celebrities/narrating selves: ‘tween’ girls, Miley Cyrus and the good/bad girl binary. Celebrity Studies, 6(4), 553-567. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2015.10 21822

Vázquez-Herrero, J., Negreira-Rey, M.-C., & López-García, X. (2020). Let’s dance the news! How the news media are adapting to the logic of TikTok. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884920969092

Woo, S. E., Tay, L., & Proctor, R. W. (2020). Big data in psychological research. American Psychological Association. Xu, L., Yan, X., & Zhang, Z. (2019). Research on the Causes of the “Tik Tok” App Becoming Popular and the Existing Problems. Journal of Advanced Management Science, 7(2), 59-63. https://doi.org/10.18178/joams.7.2.59-63

Yesiloglu, S., & Costello, J. (2021). Influencer marketing: building brand communities and engagement (1st Edition).

Routledge.

Zeng, J., Abidin, C., & Schäfer, M. S. (2021). Research Perspectives on TikTok & Its Legacy Apps| Research Perspectives on TikTok and Its Legacy Apps—Introduction. International Journal of Communication; Vol 15 (2021). https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/14539/3494

Zhang, Z. (2020, March 1). Infrastructuralization of Tik Tok: transformation, power relationships, and platformization of video entertainment in China. Media, Culture & Society, 43(2), 219-236. https://doi. org/10.1177/0163443720939452

Zhurovsʹkyĭ, M. Z., & Zaychenko, Y. P. (2020). Big data: conceptual analysis and applications. Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-14298-8

Downloads

Published

2022-12-28

How to Cite

Lacasa, P., Carbonell-Bernal, N., Duran-Bonavila, S., & Contreras-Pulido, P. . (2022). Heroes, idols, and youth influencers: Cultural industries and identity models in TikTok. TECHNO REVIEW. International Technology, Science and Society Review Revista Internacional De Tecnología, Ciencia Y Sociedad, 12(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.37467/revtechno.v11.4391

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2022): Monograph: "What is new in Social Networking 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0?"

Section

Research Articles (Special Issue)

License

Those authors who publish in this journal accept the following terms:

  1. Authors will keep the moral right of the work and they will transfer the commercial rights.
  2. After 1 year from publication, the work shall thereafter be open access online on our website, but will retain copyright.
  3. In the event that the authors wish to assign an Creative Commons (CC) license, they may request it by writing to publishing@eagora.org