“TAKING OFF THE LITTLE SHOES AND PUTTING THE FEET ON THE FLOOR”: HOW A DIGITAL INFLUENCER IS FORMED
digital influencer; feminism; Facebook
This work wants to understand the construction of digital influencers. To reach this goal, we analyzed, stressed and discussed the concept of digital influencer from the theoretical perspective of authors who research this concept (KARHAWI,Issaaf, 2017) confronting it with opinion leader (LAZARSFELD; BERELSON; GAUDET, 1948). For the accomplishment of the research we take as object in the empirical analysis the videos made by the journalist Maíra Azevedo, known in the digital platforms as Tia Má, published in her fanpage in the Facebook, that address feminist and gender issues. We have analyzed how Tia Má talk about feminism and how she fits into that debate, as well as verified which themes she chooses in her videos, analyzing how she treats them. Since Primavera das Mulheres, a period of feminist protests that broke out across the country in 2015 driven by digital platforms, several digital influencers are being relevant to the discussion of issues like feminism and racism. Tia Má is one of those personalities that appeared on the web whose message had national reach, including, today, beyond the digital platforms, traditional media. As a methodology for the analysis of the 45 videos published between 2016 and 2018 in her Facebook´s fanpage, that compose the sample, we usedthe concept of addressing modes (ELLSWORTH,Elizabeth, 2001) in order to understand how Tia Má addresses her audience and why the audience is interpellated by her videos. As a result, we find that Tia Má uses personal experiences and humor as strategies for transferring knowledge linked to the feminist production, especially of black feminists, by inserting herself in the debate on feminism (s), gender and race in order to criticize and deconstruct sexist and racist ideas.