Disabled influencers on Instagram: exploring digital celebrity and marginalised identities

ABSTRACT

This article illuminates the nexus of social media, celebrity, and marginalised identities by examining the phenomenon of disabled influencers. Since the late 2010s, disability representations in media, culture, and public discourse have increasingly moved away from stigmatising stereotypes. Disabled influencers have emerged as new voices in this landscape but, so far, exploration of their work has been limited. To address this gap, this study explores how 15 diverse fashion influencers with visible impairments address disability in their personal brands, whether they frame themselves as advocates for disability rights, and investigates their relationships with both followers and commercial brands. Through a content analysis of one year worth of Instagram posts (N = 1,429) and profile information, we outline the strategies these influencers use to make disability central to their online personas, explore their multi-layered relationship with brands, identify their distinct but somewhat limited voice in disability advocacy, and highlight their engagement strategies with digital publics. Drawing on disability and celebrity scholarship, this work provides insights on how the use of participatory platforms like Instagram intersects with the changing demands and expectations of celebrity, generating both opportunities and constraints for traditionally marginalised groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Disability
• influencers
• marginalisation
• identity
• Instagram

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Engagement Rate (ER) is the ‘currency’ of social media marketing and is used to demonstrate an influencer’s community loyalty. ER is usually calculated by dividing the number of user interactions with an influencer’s content by the number of their followers. To determine the ERs (Table 1), we used NotJustAnalytics software (https://business.notjustanalytics.com/), which provides ranges to identify profiles that are above or below average based on total follower count. The average rates used were: 5.7% between 1,000–5,000 followers; 4% between 5,000–10,000 followers; 2.4% between 10,000–100,000 followers; and 1.7% for over 100,000 followers.

2. For carousel photos, the first photo was coded.

3. Chi-sq. (4, N = 300) = 15.6

4. Chi-sq. (1, N = 300) = 5.05

5. Chi-sq. (2, N = 300) = 26.2

6. Chi-sq. (1, N = 300) = 35.9

7. Chi-sq. (2, N = 300) = 12.5

8. Chi-sq. (1, N = 300) = 13.2

9. Chi-sq. (4, N = 300) = 15.6

10. Chi-sq. (16, N = 300) = 37.1

11. Chi-sq. (2, N = 300) = 10.4

12. Chi-sq. (2, N = 300) = 9.16

13. Chi-sq. (1, N = 300) = 28.9

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Filippo Trevisan

Filippo Trevisan is Associate Professor of Public Communication and Deputy Director of the Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP) at American University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Disability Rights Advocacy Online: Voice, Empowerment and Global Connectivity (Routledge, 2017) and has published widely on technology, disability, and political participation in communication, political science, and disability studies journals. Email: [email protected].

Manuela Farinosi

Manuela Farinosi is Associate Professor of Sociology of Communication and Director of the Laboratory for Research on New Media (NuMe), at the University of Udine (Italy). She researches social and cultural aspects of digital technologies and online platforms. Among her most recent publications is Deconstructing the stigma of ageing: The rise of the mature female influencers in the European Journal of Cultural Studies. Email: [email protected].