University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Communication

The practice of celebrity endorsement has been widely adopted in advertising industries around the world. In the Chinese advertising world, celebrity endorsement has been a commonly used strategy since 2010. Celebrities from the entertainment and sports industries have been frequently employed to promote messages about advertised brands or products. This is a traditional way of celebrity endorsement. Recently, however, the development of new media has led to the emergence of self-made micro-celebrities, termed 'online influencers' in this dissertation. Facing the popularity of online influencers in the digital world, marketing communication practitioners have started using them to advertise brands and products, and to engage target audiences in advertisements. A new way of celebrity endorsement has developed. As a result, advertisers need to make decisions on whether to adopt traditional celebrity endorsement or online influencer endorsement. In this regard, it is necessary to figure out which celebrity endorsement method, traditional celebrity or online influencer endorsement, is more persuasive. Our study aims to explore how celebrity-audience relational motives (information, entertainment, and involvement motives) interact with celebrity endorser's typology (traditional celebrities or online influencers) to determine the persuasiveness of celebrity endorsement appeals in advertising. The study's conceptual framework hypothesized that celebrity-audience relational motives play a determining role in the audiences' attitudes toward celebrities, whereas celebrity typology adjusts the impact of celebrity-audience relational motives on the audience's attitude toward celebrities. Also, it was theorized that audiences' attitudes toward celebrities would influence the persuasiveness of advertisements containing celebrity endorsements. In this causal relationship, the celebrity-product fit moderates its impact. A mixed methodology was applied in this dissertation. The first method used was qualitative personal interviews, conducted with 15 Chinese respondents between August 2018 and February 2019. This exploratory study's purpose was to get audience's insights on their perceptions of traditional celebrity and online influencer endorsement, and to develop a conceptual framework based on the empirical data. Results in the first exploratory study revealed that compared with online influencers, a much closer relationship was found between interviewees and traditional celebrities. Also, the overall affective evaluation of traditional celebrities and their endorsement appeal was found to be more positive than that of online influencers. The second study confirms that celebrity-audience relational motives significantly determine the audience's attitude toward celebrity endorsers. The stronger the relational motives are, the more positive audience's attitude could be. Besides, celebrity typology effectively moderates the impact of entertainment motive on attitude toward celebrity endorsers. Moreover, if audiences evaluated celebrity endorsers positively, the persuasiveness of advertising with celebrity endorsement would be significantly improved on both affective and behavioral levels. Furthermore, the celebrity-product fit further enhances the advertising persuasiveness. Based on the findings, theoretical and marketing communication implications are suggested to enlighten communication practitioners on how to select celebrity endorsers and what factors to consider to guarantee the persuasiveness of advertising through celebrity endorsement appeals.

Social media influencers are online content creators who seek audience support, form relationships with their audiences, and shape audience interests, opinions, and behavior. Not only is the influencer economy a cultural market in its own right, but it is also increasingly shaping other cultural industries as influencers serve as cultural gatekeepers who filter cultural products for their audiences (Hirsch, 1972). As social media influencers become powerful gatekeepers and producers, the relational nature of their activities and performance is reshaping norms in cultural industries overall. Lay audiences gain more influence and agency as their evaluations and support are critical for influencer survival and success. Then how has the evaluative landscape in cultural industries changed, and what are the broader social implications of these changes? In this dissertation, I outline the rise of social media influencers both as gatekeepers and producers in cultural markets and argue that scholarship in management and sociology must examine the unique ways in which these influencers’ activities differ from their predecessors’. Chapter 1 defines social media influencers and describes their activities and market dynamics by comparing and contrasting them to their traditional counterparts. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between influencer-audience relational interactions and performance outcomes, focusing on influencers’ role as cultural gatekeepers. Chapter 3 looks at the effects of race and race-based social movements on influencer-audience interactions, highlighting influencers’ role as cultural producers. In all three chapters, the focus is on the sociological theory of relational work, which is the process through which economic actors balance the transactional and social components of their relationships (Zelizer, 2012; Bandelj, 2020). Social media influencers serve as an ideal type to demonstrate how relational work contributes to market value and performance, given the tight balance between their relational and transactional activities. I use mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze channel-, video-, and comment-level data on 1,167 BookTubers (YouTube influencers who evaluate books). I find that social media influencers indeed serve as trusted gatekeepers for their audiences, and that audiences demand not only evaluative content, but also intimate relationships with influencers. Influencers use audience interactions as relational work efforts to build trusting relationships with audiences and gain their support, but this effect is moderated by the perceived trustworthiness of the influencer. The effectiveness of influencer relational work also varies by race, and relational work thus reproduces racialized logics that underlie cultural markets. In sum, this dissertation not only highlights the rise of an important new market actor, but also contributes to theories on how relational work shapes and is shaped by inequality.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-08-15T12:22:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Valéria C. Aprobato.pdf: 7448032 bytes, checksum: 95a59b3b1aae952911a6429fdeb4533e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T12:22:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Valéria C. Aprobato.pdf: 7448032 bytes, checksum: 95a59b3b1aae952911a6429fdeb4533e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-29 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / What are the discourses on digital social networks that circulate around the themes of the search for the perfect body and eternal youth? In the context of the numerous publications on beauty, health and good shape present in cyberspace (Leão), this thesis is based on the hypothesis that there is a complex social imaginary being built in the networks and that it is possible to map the affections, practices and the logics that compose this imaginary. The research method involved: theoretical research (reading of texts and bibliographical review of the literature); empirical research composed by: (1) analysis of speeches present in celebrity networks; (2) questionnaires and interviews with followers of selected social networks; (3) cartography. The chosen corpus consists of "Instagram" pages by Jane Fonda, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bela Gil, Bella Falconi and Kéfera. The theoretical foundation is composed by Foucault (discourses of power, biopolitics and subjectivity); Leão (network culture, mitoanalysis and cartography as a method for researching media imagery); Spinoza (affections); Flusser and Proser (cultural studies on the notions of gluttony and vanity). As results achieved, we could verify that the desire’s discourses for perfect body and eternal youth shelter three mythical matrices of collective construction of subjectivities (heroic, transgressive and transformative). Thus, we understand that the present thesis is a contribution to the studies of the media imaginaries that populate the networks’ discourses about perfect body and eternal youth and that the use of the discourse mapping method was productive for the construction of an understanding of these complex subjectivities / Quais são os discursos nas redes sociais digitais que circulam em torno dos temas da busca do corpo perfeito e da eterna juventude? No contexto das inúmeras publicações sobre beleza, saúde e boa forma presentes no ciberespaço (Leão), a presente tese de doutorado parte da hipótese de que existe imaginário social complexo sendo construído nas redes e que é possível realizar uma cartografia dos afetos, das práticas e das lógicas que compõem esse imaginário. O método de pesquisa envolveu: pesquisa teórica (leitura de textos e revisão bibliográfica da literatura); pesquisa empírica composta por: (1) análise de discursos presentes nas redes de celebridades; (2) questionários e entrevistas com seguidores das redes sociais selecionadas; (3) cartografia. O corpus escolhido é composto por páginas do Instagram de Jane Fonda, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bela Gil, Bella Falconi e Kéfera. A fundamentação teórica é composta por Foucault (discursos de poder, biopolítica e subjetividade); Leão (cultura das redes, mitoanálise e cartografia como método de pesquisa de imaginários midiáticos); Spinoza (afetos); Flusser e Proser (estudos culturais acerca das noções de gula e vaidade). Como resultados alcançados, pudemos verificar que os discursos de desejos de um corpo perfeito e eterna juventude abrigam três matrizes míticas de construção coletiva de subjetividades (heroica, transgressora e transformativa). Assim, compreendemos que a presente tese é uma contribuição para os estudos dos imaginários midiáticos que povoam os discursos sobre corpo perfeito e eterna juventude nas redes e que a utilização do método da cartografia de discursos foi produtiva para a construção de um entendimento dessas complexas subjetividades