Study of self branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter presented at De Montfort University, November 2011.

1. Self branding and micro-celebrity
in Twitter
Dr Ruth Page
University of Leicester
rep22@le.ac.uk

3. Social Media Statistics: Participatory
culture (Jenkins 1992, 2006)?
• By 2007, over 70 million blogs were indexed in
the blogosphere.
• In 2010, Facebook’s membership exceeded
500 million active users.
• In 2011, Twitter reported that over 140 million
tweets were being posted each day.
• More video content is uploaded to YouTube in
a 60 day period than the 3 major American TV
networks produced in 60 years.

4. Virtual ‘Linguistic Markets’ (Bourdieu
1977)

5. Self branding and micro-celebrity
• Discursive view of identity and interaction
(e.g. Bamberg et al 2006)
• Identity to be produced for consumption by
others (Marwick 2010)
• Interaction is designed to develop and
maintain a fan base (Senft 2008)
• Audience is managed through affiliative
techniques (Marwick and boyd 2011)

6. Visibility and Attention

7. Research Questions
• What are the linguistic practices which are
used in self-branding and micro-celebrity?
• Are they used in the same way by all
participant groups?
• What does this tell us about Twitter as a
linguistic market?

8. Twitter 101

9. Types of Tweet

10. #Hashtags in Twitter
• Originated as search terms used by updaters
– Folksonomy
• Aggregate tweets about a particular topic or
event (#scd, #xfactor, #occupy, #Libya)
• Idiomatic uses
– Internet memes (#fail)
– One-off creative expressions (#bbcwhatareyou)
• Hashtags increase visibility via trending topics

11. Previous research on #hashtags
• Diffusion across the Twitter network (Huang et
al. 2010)
• As a response to television events (Anstead
and O’Loughlin 2010)
• Backchannel at events (Reinhardt et al 2009)
• Conversational tagging (Honeycutt and
Herring 2009)
• Searchable talk (Zappavigna 2011)

12. But...
• What kinds of identities
are signalled through
hashtags?
• What kinds of
interactions provide the
co-text for the hashtag?
• Is this really
conversational?

13. Data sample
• 100 publically available Twitter accounts
– 40 corporations
– 30 celebrity practitioners
– 30 ‘ordinary’ accounts
• 90, 392 Tweets

14. Corporations
• travel:
– @bluejet, @luxorlv, @southwestair, @british_airways, @londonmidland, @connectbyhertz, @carnivalcruise
• entertainment:
– @directv, @marvel, @travelchannel, @tvguide
• charities:
– @redcross, @92Y
• food:
– @sainsburys, @waitroseuk, @tastidelite, @popeyeschicken, @starbucks, @dunkindonuts, @wholefoods, @uktesco,
@dunkindonuts
• technology:
– @emccorp, @itunesmusic, @dellcares, @costcomcares
• finance:
– @hoover, @hrblock, @zappos, @wachovia, @intuit
• sport:
– @chargers, @chicagobulls
• retail:
– @selfridges, @americanapparel, @karenmillen, @reiss, @marksandspencer, @rubbermaid, @johnlewisretail.

15. Celebrities
• Britney Spears, Ellen de
Generes, Ladygaga,
Oprah Winfrey, Demi
Moore, Lilly Allen, Paris
Hilton, Sarah Brown,
Dita von Teese, Holly
Willoughby, Dannii
Minogue, Mischa
Barton, Amanda
Holden, Amy Lee,
Katherine Jenkins
• Ashton Kutcher, Jimmy
Fallon, Shaquille O’neill,
Lance Armstrong,
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Stephen Fry, Dave
Matthews, Jonathan
Ross, Jamie Oliver, John
Cleese, Philip Schofield,
William Shatner, Andy
Murray, Charlie
Brookner, Boris Johnson

16. Types of tweet (as a %)

17. Relative frequency of hashtags in
updates
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
celebrity ordinary' corporate
Relativefrequency(permillionwords)
Types of account
Series1

18. Topic-based or evaluative tags
(as a % of all hashtags for each group)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
corporate celebrity ordinary
Topic based #
Evaluative #

19. Most frequent topic-based hashtags
(relative frequency per million words)

20. General observations
• ‘Ordinary’ accounts
– Politics (#ge2010), sport (#cricket, #rugby),
entertainment (#eurovision, #leadersdebate), events
(#twestival, #likeminds)
• Corporations
– company name or field of expertise (#emc,
#rubbermaid, #sales)
• Celebrities
– performances (#foodrevolution, #fallonmono) or
products (#projectd), and charity events
(#rewirepeace, #iwd)

21. Individuation and Affiliation

22. Hashtags, identity and affiliation
• Companies individuate their identity
– Company names #EMC, #rubbermaid, #Chargers
• ‘Ordinary’ accounts signal affiliation within a
professional field
– #law, #realbread, #synod
• Companies and celebrities emphasise their
roles as cultural producers
• ‘Ordinary’ accounts make visible their role as
engaged consumers of products (TV shows)

23. Hashtags and Speech Functions
0.0%
20.0%
40.0%
60.0%
80.0%
100.0%
120.0%
celebrity corporate ordinary
information
goods and service

24. Grammatical Context of Hashtags

25. Declaratives: Broadcast breaking news
• #EMC Blogger Report is out!
http://bit.ly/i5Mo9V Top stories today via
@storagezilla @michelleflynn @chuckhollis
@sakacc
– EMCcorp, Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:03
• #EMC cements in lead as #storage market
grows http://t.co/HRg95jw /via @ZDnetUK
– EMCcorp, Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:31

26. Imperatives: encourage engagement
• #FOODREVOLUTION ARMY!! 2 your battle
stations. SIGN the petition http://bit.ly/JOfoodrev
Please POST ths ON yr FACEBOOK & RT.
– Jamie Oliver, Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:31
• HI GUYS enjoy the show tonight see the kids of
America make a difference #FoodRevolution 8pm
till 10pm ABC USA nice one jamieox
– Jamie Oliver, Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:47

27. Questions: Audience Response
• What is an illegal "imNigrant" Gordon??
#leadersdebate
– Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:17
• Darn, I am falling asleep. Anyone else bored
and tired by it all? #leadersdebate
– Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:49
• I'm asian and female -how come I haven't met
DC this week? #LeadersDebate
– Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:58

28. Conversational tagging?
• Hashtags used to promote visibility in updates
10 times more frequently than in addressed
messages
• Talking about something is not the same as
talking with someone
• Ambient affiliation is non-reciprocal
– Using a hashtag to make the tweet (and hence the
tweeter) visible, does not mean that the tweeter
will also search for new people to follow too.

29. Synthetic Personalisation (Fairclough
1989)
‘a compensatory tendency to give the
impression of treating each of the people
handled ‘en masse’ individually’ (p.62)
• Personalization
– Terms of address
– Positioning/alignment
– Positive politeness
• Synthetic in so far as this is not genuine, but
maintains distribution of power in discourse

30. Modified Retweets
• When one member forwards a message from
someone else to all their ‘followers’
• Reconfigures email forwarding
• Involves two participants
– Original author
– Person who forwards + adds new material
• Turn-taking represented in reverse order
– [Retweeter’s comment] RT [original message]

31. An example

32. Distribution of modified retweets
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Celebrity Corporate Ordinary

33. Material added by celebrities
• Typically, added material is an evaluative assessment
– Outraged. RT @Laurapalooza: Staff at the MEN aren't
letting people into the arena with cans in their hair. So
many sad Little Monsters :(
– Lady gaga: Wed, 02 Jun 2010
• Used to express stance towards reported events
• Or alignment with the original tweeter
– That is SO you! :-) RT @fifi_box: locked myself out, credit
cards cancelled, flat tyre now my phone just
died...someone please put the voodoo doll down!!
– DanniiMinogue: Wed, 28 April 2010

34. Material added by corporations
• Good idea! You can also recycle them! RT
@aplusmhs: @OrganizeAtlanta @Rubbermaid
we put our shreddings in the compost
#rubbermaid
– Rubbermaid, Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:45
• CONGRATS! RT @David_Strebel Just passed
the #EMC ISM exam. First EMC exam under my
belt
– EMC Corp, Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:09

35. Reinforcing positive endorsement
• Thanks very much! RT @comedyfoodgirl I love
@WaitroseUK Brilliant choice, they're the
supermarket who treat farmers properly
– WaitroseUK, Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:16
• Glad we could help! RT @danimyersPR:
Thanks @RedCross for free lunch and water
while I was cleaning up the mess from the
#Sedalia #Tornado!
– Redcross, Fri, 27 May 2011 19:08

36. Material added by ‘ordinary’ updaters
• Oh joy. RT @robmacpherson lady in co-op
says they stock asparagus from Thailand &
Peru because the conditions there are better
#seasonalfood
• #Fail RT @sbuxRYRY @nickolaimathews
working every night all weekend!!
• What a pile of shite!!! RT @tom_watson:
[Daily Mail Alert] Cam the comeback Kid:
http://bit.ly/a1eLys

37. From conversations to broadcasts
• Modified retweets are broadcasts of
conversational snippets disseminated to millions,
not dyadic turns between peers
• Simulates solidarity rather than creating it: A
return to mass broadcasting, not participation
• A strategy of containment, which acknowledges
the power of the Twitter audience but uses this
to shore up the hierarchy of mainstream celebrity
as elite persons

38. Conclusions
Corporations and Celebrities
• Promote visibility of identity
through #
• Individuate company names or
celebrity products made
visible by hashtags
• Use declarative and imperative
forms to broadcast news and
encourage audience
interaction
• Use synthetic personalisation
to project positive affiliation
with audience
‘Ordinary’ updaters
• Affiliate with topics of
general interest in Twitter
• Affiliate with fields of
professional expertise
• Use questions to interact
with other audience
members
• Employ a range of
evaluation which critique as
well as aligns with RT
messages

39. Participatory culture and/or linguistic
market?
• Although Twitter allows apparently direct access
to corporations and celebrity practitioners, this
does not erode offline hierarchies based on
status and economic power
• Audiences may be participatory but they are still
positioned as audiences
• Interaction takes place, but this is not always
conversational, may be non-reciprocal or shaped
by synthetic personalization