L’influence sociale sur Instagram : l’influence contrôlée des usagères et usagers ordinaires
This master's thesis explores how social influence of influencers on Instagram is received. There are more than 1600 influencers working on social media, in many fields such as fashion, sports or art in Quebec. Several works in communication observe this Web phenomenon with regard to their marketing strategies or from the point of view of the communicator. In contrast, I analyse the reception of content from these influential people by ordinary people on Instagram, whom I refer to as ordinary users. To do this, I conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with young adults between 18 and 25 years old in which I asked them questions about their use of the platform, their relationship with influencers, and how they think they react to the influence. In light of these interviews, I identified different types of social influence on Instagram. Social influence on Instagram is therefore made up of two other types of influence: controlled influence and unperceived influence, which are themselves broken down into marketing and non-marketing influence. However, controlled influence stood out in most interviewees' speech, i.e. they know they are being influenced but can choose to submit to it or not.. Controlled influence shows a tension ‘‘dialectic of powers’’ on Instagram between influencers and their followers (Breton & Proulx, 2006).
Instagram influence Influencers reception ordinary users social media social influence