Monetising the Dividual Self: The Emergence of the Lifestyle Blog and Influencers in Malaysia

· Anthropology of Media Book 8 · Berghahn Books
Ebook
236
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Combining theoretical and empirical discussions with shorter “thick description” case studies, this book offers an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers – precursors to current social media “microcelebrities” and “influencers.” It tracks the transformation of personal blogs, which attracted readers with spontaneous and authentic accounts of everyday life, into lifestyle blogs that generate income through advertising and foreground consumerist lifestyles. It argues that lifestyle blogs are dialogically constituted between the blogger, the readers, and the blog itself, and challenges the assumption of a unitary self by proposing that lifestyle blogs can best be understood in terms of the “dividual self.”

About the author

Julian Hopkins is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. He has been researching the social and cultural implications of the internet and social media since the turn of the century, using a combination of ethnographic and sociological research methods.

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