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Aesthetics of Food: the Role of Visual Framing Strategies For Influence Building on Instagram
Shuhan Yang, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Jonathan Schroeder, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Duygu Akdevelioglu, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA

Driven by attention economy, images posted on Instagram encourage capital-seeking behavior of influencers, which in turn may bring
them financial and social success. We introduce a framework that explains the effectiveness of visual framing strategies. We also
provide a perspective on aesthetics of food to historically contextualize contemporary food imagery.

[to cite]:
Shuhan Yang, Jonathan Schroeder, and Duygu Akdevelioglu (2020) ,"Aesthetics of Food: the Role of Visual Framing Strategies
For Influence Building on Instagram", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 48, eds. Jennifer Argo, Tina M.
Lowrey, and Hope Jensen Schau, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 874-879.

[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2659789/volumes/v48/NA-48

[copyright notice]:
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 Monetizing the Megaphone: How Consumers and Firms
Use Platforms to Conquer the Attention Economy
Chair: Zeynep Arsel, Concordia University, USA
Discussant: Ashlee Humphreys, Northwestern University, USA

Paper #1: Problematizing the Megaphone: The Very Difficult The final paper explores how platform content is shaped by
Journey to Becoming an Influencer memes that are also controlled and seeded by firms. The authors
Thanh Nguyen, Concordia University, Canada show how memes are actively initiated, surveilled, and leveraged by
Pierre-Yann Dolbec, Concordia University, Canada firms. They show how companies use sponsored hashtags to entice
consumers to engage with brand content through three types of call
Paper #2: Aesthetics of Food: The Role of Visual Framing
to action, where paid influencers take the lead, followed by everyday
Strategies for Influence Building on Instagram
(unpaid) consumers amplifying the message.
Shuhan Yang, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Together, the papers in this session tackle the following ques-
Jonathan Schroeder, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
tions:
Duygu Akdevelioglu, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
1. How do consumers position themselves as influencers in
Paper #3: Orchestrating Pet Influencers: Rhetorical and Visual the attention economy?
Strategies in Creating Mediated Platform Content 2. How do consumers invest in and deploy resources to
Ghalia Shamayleh, Concordia University, Canada strengthen their positioning?
Zeynep Arsel, Concordia University, Canada 3. How do consumers use platforms’ expressive capacities to
Paper #4: Marketing Memeification on TikTok: Initiating and create engagement?
Leveraging Consumer Creativity for Commercial Means 4. How do consumers interact with firms to convert attention
Jenna Drenten, Loyola University Chicago, USA to value and revenues?
Pilar Castro González, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Spain The session provides a meeting point for scholars using dif-
ferent methods (quantitative and qualitative) and complementary
SESSION OVERVIEW perspectives to understand social media. It investigates the role of
Platforms have allowed ordinary consumers to monetize their different actors that participate in the influencer business: pets, firms,
creative and expressive pursuits. This session brings together four and consumers—as both creators and audiences. All papers are in ad-
papers that inquire about the tricky, increasingly complex, and multi- vanced stages with empirical work completed. Papers also use mixed
actor world of influencer business and provide conceptual and em- methods which will attract broader attention. Due to the significance
pirical contributions to understand social media consumption. and relevance of the substantive context, we expect a range of ACR
Monetization of influence provides fruitful areas of inquiry for members to show interest in the session.
researchers. Among these, we uncover 1) entrepreneurial pursuits of
ordinary consumers to become influencers, 2) the dialectical tensions Problematizing the Megaphone: The Very Difficult
between promotion and expression in online content, 3) interactions Journey to Becoming an Influencer
and relations between the audience, influencers, and firms, 4) codi-
fication and framing of content to meet audience and firm expec- EXTENDED ABSTRACT
tations. Collectively, the papers in this session provide distinctive If we were to listen to the depiction of influencers in the main-
insights into these issues. stream press and some academic articles, we might conclude that
The first paper revisits the megaphone effect and provides a re- persistent efforts from meritocratic consumers will lead to them be-
vision to the theory by demonstrating the struggles of ordinary con- coming influencers. Duffy and Wissinger (2017) refer to this mythol-
sumers in their quest for becoming influencers. By acknowledging ogized portrait of the path to become an influencer as ‘glamorized.’
their struggles, this paper provides a needed corrective to the myth In reality, becoming an influencer is a difficult project that is unlikely
of meritocratic and serendipitous journey of becoming and being an to yield results (Duffy 2016). Despite this acknowledgment of the
influencer. Findings are expanded to explain why consumers leave struggles inherent to becoming and being an influencer, we know
fields more generally. surprisingly little of what exactly these struggles are and how they
The second paper provides a mixed method analysis of food affect ordinary consumers’ quest for influence. These are the two re-
images on Instagram and explores how different visual framing strat- search questions we answer in this project.
egies contribute to the engagement strategies of top-ten food influ- These research questions are important for many reasons.
encers. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, the authors Centrally, there were more than 3.7 million ads by influencers on
show distinct patterns of representation of food using strategic com- Instagram in 2018, and 90% of Instagram campaigns in 2018 used
position and visual framing. These patterns also reflect long-standing micro-influencers—influencers that have somewhere between 1000
distinctions between the raw and the cooked. and 100 000 followers (HubSpot, July 15th, 2019; Wired, Apr 22nd,
The third paper investigates the phenomenon of pet influencers. 2019). Micro-influencers represent about 25% of the Instagram user
Through studying account managers who generate platform content base, or about 250 million people (Mention.com 2018). These de-
around the performances of their pets, the authors uncover visual and velopments are giving ordinary consumers—consumers who do not
rhetorical strategies of their engagement. The participants implement possess a privileged position in social fields (McQuarrie, Miller,
anthropomorphism through intertextual manipulation of the visual and Phillips 2013)—increasing opportunities to capitalize on their
and textual content and orchestration of realistic or fantasy perfor- (micro) influence. This has translated into an increasing number
mances. of ordinary consumers wanting to become influencers: More than
75% of people aged between 5 and 38 state wanting to become one

Advances in Consumer Research

874 Volume 48, ©2020
 Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 48) / 875

(DailyMail, May 22nd, 2017; People, Nov 5th, 2019). The glamorized ney to propose an alternative to the dominant theorization of how
picture of influencers is thus problematic, as it represents a highly consumers become influencers. Instead of consumers taking risks
biased understanding of this role and the path to become an influ- when sharing their passion in a consumption, and how they accumu-
encer. Theoretically, this is a glaring omission in a rapidly rising and late followers by doing so (see Erz and Christensen 2018; McQuar-
important role of the digital economy. Practically, this mythologized rie, Miller, and Phillips 2013), we suggest conceptualizing at least a
understanding of what is required to become an influencer can lead segment of influencers as digital entrepreneurs whose journey to be-
consumers to pursue an identity project that is bound to fail. come influencers is active and intentional; For example, they readily
We answer our research questions by analyzing repeat inter- create a brand from the get-go, strategically think about their market
views with 23 micro-influencers with different followings: (1) less positioning, and use numerous market resources (e.g., buying fol-
than 10k followers, (2) between 10k and 50k followers, and (3) lowers) to achieve their objective. Lastly, we generalize the struggles
between 50k and 100k followers. We complement these interviews we identify to any consumer highly involved in some consumption
with all Instagram posts and a month of Instagram Stories from our activity (e.g., see Stebbins 1982 on serious leisure) to provide three
participants, as well as archival data in the form of articles for and on main reasons why they leave consumption fields.
influencers (166 pages).
We leverage McQuarrie, Miller, and Phillips (2013) work and Aesthetics of Food: The Role of Visual Framing
concentrate on three main stages that explains the movement of Strategies for Influence Building on Instagram
an ordinary consumer to online influencer: acquiring an audience,
maintaining and expanding an audience, and deriving benefits from EXTENDED ABSTRACT
an audience. Social media produces a megaphone effect that offers a mass
When entering the field and starting to acquire an audience, audience to ordinary consumers (McQuarrie and Phillips 2013). Im-
ordinary consumers face struggles associated with the breadth of ages of food dominate social media, which has revolutionized the
expertise required to perform their role and the work demanded to world of gastronomy and food (Allué 2013). Food is a central part
better their expertise to do so. For example, consumers realize that, of defining identity, as well as shaping collective, cultural identities
in addition to being proficient in successfully making risky taste (Lupton 1996). The transformative, aesthetic aspects of food often
displays (McQuarrie, Miller, and Phillips 2013), they also need to reflect social status and prestige. Food and eating, beyond survival
know how to use the Instagram algorithm to their advantage, create and sustenance, can be understood as an aestheticized expression of
thematically related images (vs. only one risky display of taste), and identity, status, and taste. Such taste expressions can be regarded as
do proper make-up and poses. a taste regime that helps to explain how individuals gain cultural
When maintaining and expanding their audience, consumers capital in the marketplace – often via social media (Arsel and Bean
need to address changes in their audience expectations, which now 2013). By posting food images and seeking feedback from followers
demand continuous content creation. We show how consumers take through the “likes”, the influencers provide repeated stimuli to con-
two strategies to address this: they broaden their expertise to mul- trol followers’ behavior. Owing to the value creation effect, influenc-
tiple fields (e.g., from fashion to food, travel, and design), or deepen ers are becoming a taste maker, and building an informal social norm
their expertise in their focal field of interest (e.g., from fashion stylist (Hackman 1992) which will influence how followers perceive food.
to critic, historian, and tailor). This increases demands in terms of Food serves as a powerful system of communication. Food and
consumer expertise, which exponentially heightens the involvement eating connect consumers to their biological and cultural heritage
required to continue pursuing their quest for influence. We also find (Allen 2012). Food is the basis of many consumer habits and rituals
that consumers become objectified by their audience, which brings (Marshall 2005). The aesthetics of food consumption can be traced
its own set of struggles associated with addressing negative and un- back to Epicureanism, an individualistic and communal philosophy
wanted comments and requests. that emphasizes the central role of pleasure, laying the foundation
Lastly, when converting their audience into benefits, consum- for aesthetic appreciation, including appreciation of food and taste.
ers need to understand how to position themselves effectively in the French writer Brillat-Savarin introduced the idea of you are what
market for influencers (i.e., have an effective positioning from the you eat, and articulated a philosophical approach to cooking (Brillat-
perspective of brands who might hire them), how to develop their Savarin 2009). During the twentieth century, food marketing has
unique brand, and how to deal with commercial clients. Here again, shifted from nutrition appeals to more hedonic taste appeals. Intrin-
we find that consumers are often ill-equipped to address the scope of sic motivation such as seeking leisure becomes the main purpose
tasks asked from them, which have become increasingly removed of participating in online interaction. Perceived enjoyment derived
from what led them to start wanting to be an influencer in the first from the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the technology accep-
place. tance model (TAM) significantly influence online community’s loy-
Each of these stages come with its own set of difficulties, which alty (Hsu and Lu 2007), this study, was inspired by these theories to
leads influencers to abandon their project. At least in our sample, explain how influencers apply visual framing strategies as intrinsic
these difficulties led to more than half our participants (13 out of motivation on technology use. To better understand influence mar-
23) to discontinue their influencer activities. And the number of fol- keting in the context of how technology interacts with gastronomy, it
lowers did not play a role in convincing influencers to continue their is essential to analyze online images that connect taste consumption
quest: We have many instances of Instagram influencers with more with visual consumption (Schroeder 2002).
than 50 000 followers who abandoned their quest, for example, be- Among different social media platforms, Instagram special-
cause converting their audience was deemed too difficult. izes in efficiently distributing visual rhetoric on a personal or global
Our work contributes to the literature on influencers and con- scale to its over 500 million daily active users (Statista 2018). Food
sumer involvement in a consumption field. First, the struggles we influencers create an informal social norm via the repeat use of a
identify lead us to provide an important revision as to how ordinary circle loop starting from food preparation decision to feedback col-
consumers become influencers (cf. Erz and Christensen 2018; Mc- lection and post recreation. This value creation process prompts the
Quarrie, Miller, and Phillips 2013). Second, we use this revised jour- influencer to become a taste maker considering the preferences of
876 / Monetizing the Megaphone: How Consumers and Firms Use Platforms to Conquer the Attention Economy

“visual consumers”. In the historical view, this online food images Our analytical categories of raw and cooked food draw inspira-
sharing is different from classical business model using their unique tion from anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss’s influential work on
virtual “words”. It is a complex practice that has relational, social, the raw and the cooked as basic categories for understanding human
and cultural significance. However, the visual aspect of these prac- culture (1983). Perhaps inadvertently, it appears that influencers’
tices, especially as it related to influencer marketing often remains social media posts reflect fundamental, long-standing distinctions
understudied. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify fram- of the raw and the cooked. Of course, raw food, when appearing
ing strategies that influence consumer engagement on social media. on Instagram, is generally highly aestheticized. However, we find
The behavior of highlighting certain facets and concealing others is this distinction meaningful, and useful for understanding some ba-
a central tenet of framing theory (Entman 1993). Framing affects sic elements of food posting. Moreover, these factors including so-
how audiences interpret and react to scenarios, images, and text. By cial norm, perceived enjoyment, and cultural intermediaries have a
taking advantages of various rhetoric tools like symbols, metaphors, significant effect shaping followers’ behavior via the value creation
and depictions, visual imagery operates as a framing device (Rodri- process. Our framework emphasizes the importance of how food can
guez and Dimitrova 2011). be accommodated within the framework of a meal, and how taste
The research questions this paper aims to answer are: could be used as an approach to describe aesthetic norms. The inter-
• RQ1:What do the top ten most-followed food channel Ins- action between real-life meal gatherings and social media creates a
tagram influencers post on their accounts? combined type of “commensal” experience, one that fosters a sense
• RQ2:What framing strategies do the top ten most-followed of community, despite occurring online (Bouvier 2018). Food rep-
food channel Instagram influencers use to visually repre- resents an ideal way to achieve such a sense. This study represents
sent food posts to facilitate consumer engagement? a step toward a more cogent understanding of food influencers on
Instagram, informed by historical discussion of aesthetics and taste.
The Instagram accounts for this study were selected based on
In addition to implications such as the visual framing effects of ad-
a formal ranking by Statista, which is an online statistic, market re-
vertising for influencer marketing, future studies may investigate and
search, and business intelligence portal that provides access to data
the role of food influencers as ‘cultural intermediaries’ as described
from market and opinion research institutions. Statista presented the
Bourdieu (1984) to help us explain the set of activities and profes-
most-followed food influencers on Instagram in the United States
sions in the creation of markets and consumption economies like
as of January 2018 (Statista 2018). Based on the reliable external
how music bloggers mediate and orient consumer taste (Arriagada
assessment data, this study used content analysis to investigate how
and Cruz 2014).
different categories of visual framing mutually or independently
contribute to the popularity of these top ten food influencers.
Orchestrating Pet Influencers: Rhetorical and Visual
Using the food-related images posted by these food influenc-
ers from January 1 to December 31, 2017, and selected images that Strategies in Creating Mediated Platform Content
received more than 10,000 “likes” on the influencer`s account. The
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
ten influencers included two men and eight women; one of the ac-
As we are writing this, one of the most popular influencers in
counts did not indicate gender. Images were randomly selected in
the world is not a person but a cat with 4.3 million followers on
each influencers’ Instagram, one image per month, obtaining a total
Instagram. Nala is an 8-year-old cat who became Instagram famous
of N = 120 posts.
after her human companion created the account to share images with
Content analysis views data such as images, text, and expres-
her family who resides overseas. Nala’s audience has expanded to
sions to be seen and interpreted for their meanings (Krippendorff
other platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, where she
2012). We also combined qualitative content analysis with frequency
has 2.6M followers, 27K subscribers, and 24.9K followers, respec-
and Chi Square-tests. We developed a codebook of attributes after
tively, creating a multi-platform megaphone.
observing most of the images and divided them into two parts: in-
Despite the prevalence of pet influencers, there is a paucity of
fluencers and food. The coding categories are partially based on the
studies on the subject matter. While influencers or microcelebrities
Duncan (1990) study, which offers a visual analysis using contextual
who manage their own accounts have been explored by scholars
readings of visual photographic imagery. Images were analyzed in
(Abidin, 2015, 2016, 2018; Khamis, Ang, & Welling, 2017; Mar-
13 nominal categories. Acceptable levels of inter-coder reliability
wick, 2013, 2015; McQuarrie et al., 2012; Senft, 2008, 2013)—also
via Krippendorff’s alpha were achieved and ranged from 0.86 to 1.0
see papers in this session—, the mediated nature of pet influencers,
for each variable tested.
particularly the ways humans orchestrate their animal companions
The findings show distinct patterns in how food is represented
performatively, manage their online presence, and capitalize on the
in Instagram posts. Food influencers prefer to post images about
attention for their pets require further attention. This is important be-
cooked food, without little decoration, using high contrast colors and
cause what sets apart the phenomenon from others is its two bound-
close-up shots. Most posts do not include “background” elements
ary conditions: 1) The duality and mutuality of presence of human
such as clothing, facial expression, or proximity to influencers.
account managers alongside their pets in social media performances,
Random placement and casual layout are more of a reflection of the
and 2) The second-degree performance and sociality that is mediated
influencer’s own leisure lifestyle; strategies also reflect influencers’
through the pets and with other pet companions. These boundary
social network identity construction. Raw food images were found
conditions allow contextualizing a new theorization of the triadic
to be associated with cluttered composition and far away shoots,
and mediated relationship between humans, their animal compan-
whereas cooked food images were associated with high contrast and
ions, and their audience in platforms.
close-up, especially the top-down camera angle. Cooked food im-
Our method is a combination of interviews and Netnographic
ages serve as a justification agent for consumers, “thereby reducing
observations. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 pet
the conflict associated with the subsequent indulgent consumption
account managers with at least 500 followers. We also analyzed the
experience and increasing taste perceptions” (Poor, Duhachek, and
content of pet influencer posts for visual and textual content. Lastly,
Krishnan 2013, 124).
through a public pet account, we participated in introspective en-
 Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 48) / 877

gagement with the practice. We performed iterative and inductive content are internet memes—defined as “(a) a group of digital items
analytical procedures in analyzing our data. sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/ or stance,
Our findings first demonstrate that Instagram is home to a which (b) were created with awareness of each other, and (c) were
loosely networked bundle of micro-communities of cat accounts, circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many us-
centered around feline appreciation and fandom. These connected ers” (Shifman, 2014, p. 41). Internet memes are a form of cultural
micro-communities are built around hashtags singling out breeds, rhetoric (Grundlingh, 2018; Milner, 2013) and are unique given “the
colors, and micro-interests with frequent overlaps and blurring of speed of their transmission and the fidelity of their form” (Davidson,
community boundaries. Through a shared language (now coined 2012, p. 122). Internet memes can build report with online consum-
as Meowlogisms by Podhovnik, 2018), collective celebration of ers and foster consumer engagement (Gelb, 1997). Previous research
milestones, and collective action to support each other such as fun- highlights the convivial nature of internet memes, which act as a
draising, pet account managers (PAMs) exemplify the three tenets type of digital leisure shared by internet insiders (Bauckhage, 2011).
of community (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001): consciousness of kind, However, this form of leisure can also represent a lucrative opportu-
rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility. nity for influencers and brands alike through monetizing the attention
Second, we show that within this nexus of micro-communities, economy (Drenten, Gurrieri, and Tyler, 2020; Soha and McDowell,
PAMs are motivated to create and maintain engagement for two pri- 2016). Most research to date explores how consumers create memes,
mary reasons: connections or fame. These findings mirror and revise separate from marketing intervention. In contrast, our study explores
existing typologies on social media communities (Kozinets 1999; brand-generated internet memes. We ask, how do brands create and
Martineau and Arsel 2017). capitalize upon internet memes for commercial means?
Third, we show that regardless of their goals, PAMs create an- To explore our research question, we turn to the context of Tik-
thropomorphic performances for their pets through intertextual sto- Tok, a social media platform (formerly Musical.ly) which allows us-
rytelling, switching back and forth between engaging with the pets ers to create and share short-form videos, using a library of “sounds”
through proxy conversations and engaging with their human com- (e.g., music, user-generated sounds, television/movie clips). With
panions more directly. over 1.5 billion app downloads and nearly 105 million in January
Our data shows that storytelling can be either realistic (staying 2020 alone, TikTok is rapidly growing (Sensor Tower, 2019; 2020).
within the boundaries of the sociomaterial capacities of animals), For this study, we specifically focus on sponsored hashtags, a paid
or fantastical (expressing imaginary or impossible situations). When advertising placement option in which brands pay for custom spon-
choosing to make posts on their accounts, PAMs can simply display sored hashtags to drive engagement in marketing campaigns. Spon-
the raw images they capture by camera, such as their cat sitting on sored hashtags are placed on the app’s discovery-oriented ‘for you
a couch, or they can decide to superimpose the original image onto page’ to engage consumers immediately upon opening the TikTok
another one which showcases different settings or characters, such app. Data collection began in April 2019 and was conducted by a
as their cat playing golf. Additionally, the same can occur for the cross-cultural research team. The researchers identified sponsored
textual content: it could simply reflect the literal or figurative content hashtags via daily monitoring of the ‘for you page’ on TikTok and
of the actual image, such as: “my cat sits on the counter,” or integrate created a database of sponsored hashtags and accompanying visu-
intertextual narratives which may expand the literal object: “my cat al- and text-based content. Data collection resulted in a sample of
slayed the dragons and conquered the seven kingdoms.” These story- 102 sponsored hashtags from 87 companies, such as Nike, Chipotle,
telling techniques frame their pet as not only having human emotion- Burberry, and other multinational brands. Data were managed and
ality and physicality but also allows the PAMs leverage on shared analyzed through qualitative social media methods (Sloan and Quan-
tropes and narratives such as the case of Game of Thrones to boost Haase, 2017), using both Nvivo 12 Plus software and manual coding.
engagement and familiarity. Textual cues are frequently supported Preliminary findings offer a framework of marketing memei-
by visual manipulation, such as editing images to make the cat look fication wherein brands initiate the reproduction of content through
like a knight. Lastly, PAMs deliberately choose the account’s voice three types of calls to action: impersonation, transformation, and
(human versus cat) to supplement this storytelling. Building on the self-expression. Marketing memeification unfolds on a continuum
patterning of these strategies, we develop a typology of PAM ac- of individual creativity in which consumers are increasingly encour-
count management styles. aged to insert their own creative ideas when developing content in
Our work aims to contribute to a growing body of literature on conjunction with a sponsored hashtag. In each case, paid influenc-
performances in social media (Abidin, 2017; boyd, 2011; Burgess ers set the exemplary creative standard, while everyday consumers
and Green, 2008; García-Rapp, 2017; Marwick, 2013; Strangelove, engage with marketing memeification as a form of unpaid consumer
2010; Senft, 2013). We show how social media enables performa- leisure. Our study suggests TikTok is unique in using sounds, or son-
tive mediated interactions and mediated connections between hu- ic anchors, to drive the marketing memeification process.
mans through their pet companions, how animals are orchestrated First, brands initiate marketing memeification through imper-
for attention economy, and how this shifts humans’ connections with sonation-based calls to action, which require little to no individual
their pets and other humans. Furthermore, we develop a typology of creativity. Impersonation involves movement-oriented actions (e.g.,
performative orchestration of Instagram pets. Our typology also pro- dance, lip-sync) with specific guidelines for the performance. For
vides firms tools for identifying and recruiting the most appropriate example, to advertise Season 3 of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of
influencer based on their performance style. Sabrina, the media company created the #StraightToHell hashtag ac-
companying a short, easy to replicate dance with the song “Straight
Marketing Memeification on TikTok: Initiating and to Hell” by Sabrina Spellman as the sonic anchor. Through imper-
Leveraging Consumer Creativity for Commercial Means sonation, consumers are mobilized to recreate content, exemplified
by influencers, directly as it is shown. While some users may per-
EXTENDED ABSTRACT form the dance moves differently, due to ability and style, the brand-
In a saturated digital advertising space, brands increasingly de- related hashtag does not directly invoke creativity.
sire ‘viral’ content (Berger and Milkman, 2012). One form of viral
878 / Monetizing the Megaphone: How Consumers and Firms Use Platforms to Conquer the Attention Economy

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transmission of cultural content. At a meso-level, this transmission monetization of attention. Gender, Work & Organization,
process is propelled by sonic anchors (e.g., songs) which work to 27(1), 41-66.
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actively initiated, surveilled, and leveraged for commercial means. work in the social media age: fun, free, and ‘just being me.’
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