In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands
Despite the staggering uptick in social media employment over the last decade, this nascent category of cultural labor remains comparatively under-theorized. In this article, we contend that social media work is configured by a visibility paradox: While workers are tasked with elevating the presence...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cogitatio
2022-01-01
|
| Series: | Media and Communication |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4460 |
| _version_ | 1818176554193125376 |
|---|---|
| author | Brooke Erin Duffy Megan Sawey |
| author_facet | Brooke Erin Duffy Megan Sawey |
| author_sort | Brooke Erin Duffy |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite the staggering uptick in social media employment over the last decade, this nascent category of cultural labor remains comparatively under-theorized. In this article, we contend that social media work is configured by a visibility paradox: While workers are tasked with elevating the presence—or visibility—of their employers’ brands across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, their identities, and much of their labor, remain hidden behind branded social media accounts. To illuminate how this ostensible paradox impacts laborers’ conditions and experiences of work, we present data from in-depth interviews with more than 40 social media professionals. Their accounts make clear that social media work is not just materially concealed, but rendered socially invisible through its lack of crediting, marginal status, and incessant demands for un/under-compensated emotional labor. This patterned devaluation of social media employment can, we show, be situated along two gender-coded axes that have long structured the value of labor in the media and cultural industries: a) technical‒communication and b) creation‒circulation. After detailing these in/visibility mechanisms, we conclude by addressing the implications of our findings for the politics and subjectivities of work in the digital media economy. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T20:18:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-041dd52d0cb848a691c2efb55e77e775 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2183-2439 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T20:18:02Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | Cogitatio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Media and Communication |
| spelling | doaj.art-041dd52d0cb848a691c2efb55e77e7752022-12-22T00:52:08ZengCogitatioMedia and Communication2183-24392022-01-01101778710.17645/mac.v10i1.44602333In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the BrandsBrooke Erin Duffy0Megan Sawey1Department of Communication, Cornell University, USADepartment of Communication, Cornell University, USADespite the staggering uptick in social media employment over the last decade, this nascent category of cultural labor remains comparatively under-theorized. In this article, we contend that social media work is configured by a visibility paradox: While workers are tasked with elevating the presence—or visibility—of their employers’ brands across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, their identities, and much of their labor, remain hidden behind branded social media accounts. To illuminate how this ostensible paradox impacts laborers’ conditions and experiences of work, we present data from in-depth interviews with more than 40 social media professionals. Their accounts make clear that social media work is not just materially concealed, but rendered socially invisible through its lack of crediting, marginal status, and incessant demands for un/under-compensated emotional labor. This patterned devaluation of social media employment can, we show, be situated along two gender-coded axes that have long structured the value of labor in the media and cultural industries: a) technical‒communication and b) creation‒circulation. After detailing these in/visibility mechanisms, we conclude by addressing the implications of our findings for the politics and subjectivities of work in the digital media economy.https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4460cultural productiondigital mediagenderinvisibilitylaborsocial mediatechnologywork |
| spellingShingle | Brooke Erin Duffy Megan Sawey In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands Media and Communication cultural production digital media gender invisibility labor social media technology work |
| title | In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands |
| title_full | In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands |
| title_fullStr | In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands |
| title_full_unstemmed | In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands |
| title_short | In/Visibility in Social Media Work: The Hidden Labor Behind the Brands |
| title_sort | in visibility in social media work the hidden labor behind the brands |
| topic | cultural production digital media gender invisibility labor social media technology work |
| url | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4460 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT brookeerinduffy invisibilityinsocialmediaworkthehiddenlaborbehindthebrands AT megansawey invisibilityinsocialmediaworkthehiddenlaborbehindthebrands |