Please join us at 18:00 on December 7 for Christian S. Ritter's talk "The Rise and Fall of Travel Influencers: Living with Platform Metrics."
To attend the talk, please register here: https://ej.uz/nmbi
About the talk
A plethora of pictorial and audiovisual material about tourist destinations circulates on digital platforms. Geared toward immediate monetization, the storytelling of travel influencers is deeply entangled with the numbering regimes ingrained in digital labor. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in numerous tourist destinations popular on the Internet, I assess how platform metrics transform the professional trajectories of travel influencers. Elucidating the cultural life of numbers inherent in digital platforms, this investigation advances understandings of the dynamic interplay between platform metrics and career development in the influencer industry. It furthermore brings to light how travel influencers embody a strong sense of self-evaluation while cementing their online status. The evidence from an ethnographic case study of ‘influencer events’ in Estonia suggests that platform metrics shape the career advancement of travel influencers and their sense of achievement.
About the researcher
Christian S. Ritter is a lecturer and research fellow at the Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture, Tallinn University. His research interests primarily include digital platforms, science and technology studies, contemporary mobilities, cultures of expertise, and digital labor. In 2013, Christian completed his PhD at Ulster University, UK. Prior to his research fellowship at Tallinn University, he acted as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the department of social anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2016-2018). He also worked as a research fellow at the Istanbul Studies Center, Kadir Has University (2014-2016).
Event language: English
