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Abstract
Purpose: Considering the growing relevance of the digital influencers on the consumer practices and the emergence of Brazil as one of main popular culture market in the world, the study aims to understand how Brazil popular culture digital influencers channels produce paratexts that complement and broaden the consumption experience of media texts.
Theoretical framework: Digital influencers are articulated as consumption mediators through the notions of marketplace ideologies and agencies established by media discourses, grounded by the Foucauldian Theory of Knowledge and the Theory of Paratextuatlity.
Design/methodology/approach: Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis the research analyzes 4,006 video thumbnails posted between January 2017 and July 2019 from the top-five Brazilian YouTube channels specialized on popular culture and the entertainment industry.
Findings: The identified discursive formations points to three ideological positions took by the digital influencers channels: as press, resonating the entertainment industry analytically; as fans, touting popular culture to a captive audience; and as promoters, assuming a marketing role in demand development. Altogether, these discourses evidence an episteme founded on a market agency.
Research, Practical & Social implications: The study proposes an important theoretical insight, since digital influencers evidence an overlap of roles performed as market agents (e.g., consumers, producers, mediators), which are often well demarcated by the literature. Specifically, evokes an ethical reflection on such conduct and reverberates their practice on the authoring of popular culture, bringing light to both social and practical concerns about it. Furthermore, the study also presents as practical implication the importance of influencers in influencing consumption practices through their discourses.
Originality/value: The study addresses the conception of paratextual production as an interdisciplinary theoretical dialogue for the Consumer Culture Theory research tradition.
Key words: digital influencers; paratext; marketplace ideologies; media; Foucauldian Discourse Analysis.
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