Menu
Dr. Sophie Bishop will discuss her research on influencer culture in the UK. Dr. Bishop researches how creative work and promotional cultures are increasingly shaped by social media platforms, and the implications for labour, representation and discrimination.
She is the Specialist Advisor for the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into influencer culture. On 21 March 2021, The United Kingdom Parliament Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has launched an inquiry examining “the power of influencers on social media, how influencer culture operates, and will consider the absence of regulation on the promotion of products or services, aside from the existing policies of individual platforms.” The ‘Influencer culture’ inquiry is a major investigation into contemporary cultural policy in the UK and globally. Dr. Bishop will present her own research relevant to influencer culture in the UK, but she will not speaking on behalf of parliament or the inquiry
Dr. Sophie Bishop is a Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries at Sheffield University Management School . Her current projects include studying the experiences of creative workers, who labour within rapidly changing digital industries (particularly alongside understandings of ‘algorithms’). In addition to beauty influencers, she researches how platformisation affects other creative practioners like artists, actors and tattoo artists. She also co-runs ‘Algorithmic Autobiographies and Fictions’ a project that encourages participants to use their ad data as a creative prompt for fiction writing and artistic interpretation.”
This event is organized by the Machine Agencies working group of the Speculative Life cluster at the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology at Concordia University in Montreal.