Authorship on Social Media

Authorship on Social Media: Influencers and Creative Identity examines if and in what ways social media creators can be seen as authors in their genre.

This book explores authorship in the work of social media content creators, especially female influencers. It investigates how traditional concepts of authorship in the creative industries can be understood and applied in a sector ruled by commercial imperatives and often seen as lacking space for creative distinctiveness. It first reviews what authorship means and how it is ascribed traditionally and in a digital environment. It then deploys authorship theory to closely analyze the output of creators from five different countries to explore how, despite the limitations imposed by platforms, intermediaries, advertisers, and the lifestyle genre, their content may express an individual creative identity.

The book is essential reading for students and researchers in the creative industries, authorship, social media, and digital cultures, offering a critical survey of scholarly approaches to social media creation and to the nature of authorship. Simultaneously, the book questions perceptions of who does and does not count as an author and contextualizes them in debates around the relationship between commerce and creativity and around popular cultural products made by and for a primarily female demographic. It builds on and contributes a new take on these debates by going beyond looking at influencers’ work as "personal branding," to identifying the ways in which an authorial signature may be possible. It, thus, extends our understanding of creativity on social media.