Abstract

This project sits at the intersection of three axes: (a) influencers as the increasing focus of minors’ attention and trust online, (b) sponsored content about eating habits and physical appearance produced by these influencers, and (c) minors’ ability to discern and identify the persuasive intent of said content. The usefulness of analyzing the interplay of these three axes lies in the impact that consumption of this content has on minors’ self-esteem and on the adoption of certain habits that can directly impact their personal well-being. For this reason, this project seeks to provide insight into the social imaginary that influencers’ sponsored speech creates in minors regarding their physical appearance. To this end, a qualitative study with 12 focus groups of minors aged 11–17 years of age who reside in Spain was proposed. Notable among the key results was that the interviewees recognize that they primarily receive commercial messages about food and products related to physical appearance, such as makeup or clothing, from influencers; likewise, they are aware of persuasive tactics used on social networks, such as the construction of a perfect, aspirational world, which minors absorb and accept as part of the digital environment and end up incorporating into their behavior on social networks. This research aims to help demonstrate that teaching critical thinking is a long-term cultural investment that would make the citizens of tomorrow aware, engaged, and active.

Abstract

In the digital world, social media have become important for people with disabilities in terms of communication and visibility. They have also become the ideal place for activism, as they allow the self-representation of disability by the content creators themselves. This social group, traditionally segregated and discriminated against, has seen in these platforms a tool to promote social inclusion and confront the dominant discourse. This paper explores the social media Instagram as a space for communication and visibility of instagrammers with disabilities from Europe and Latin America. The main objective of the research is to analyse the publications of Spanish-speaking influencers with physical disabilities to establish if there are similar characteristics or if there are significant differences in the uses they make of Instagram’s functions and how disability is represented in their profiles. Through quantitative, descriptive, and statistical research, a content analysis was carried out of 400 publications corresponding to 10 Instagram profiles, all of them of microinfluencers and macroinfluencers with physical disabilities who had different types of business collaborations. The results show that disability is visible in 85% of the publications, whether in the photos or videos shared, in the text of the post, hashtags or emoticons, although it predominates to a greater extent in audiovisual content. In advertising, mentions or tags of brands stand out, much more than paid collaboration, which appears as a minority compared to other forms of promotion. The degree of influence is decisive for interactions in the form of likes and views per video or reels. Finally, the use of hashtags on inclusion and social awareness reinforces the importance of these platforms for the social integration of people with disabilities.