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Browsing by Author "Levesque, Nataly"

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    No filter: navigating well-being in troubled times as social media influencers
    (2023) Levesque, Nataly; Hachey, Alysha; Pergelova, Albena
    Social media influencers have the ability to impact the behaviours and attitudes of others (i.e., their followers), affecting people’s feelings of connectedness, and well-being. This has become particularly apparent during troubled times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the importance of relationships and social interactions for people’s well-being. However, less attention has been paid to influencers’ own well-being in a monetised attention economy, which imposes tensions between the desire for authenticity and the self-presentations of influencers in online interactions. Using in-depth interviews and netnography as methodology, in this study we examine how the decision to engage with the topic of COVID-19 on social media impacted influencers’ well-being during the pandemic. We build on self-determination theory to reveal how the contentious nature of the subject led to internal struggles of influencers’ self-presentation, and elucidate how influencers navigated the boundaries of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in a quest for well-being.