van Eldik Anne K, Kneer Julia, Lutkenhaus Roel O, Jansz Jeroen
Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Center for Media & Health, Gouda, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2019 Dec 19;10:2876. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02876. eCollection 2019.
Influencers belong to the daily media diet of many adolescents. As role models, they have the potential to play a crucial role in the identity construction of their viewers. In the age of social media, such role models may now be found more locally - in the same city - and perhaps with more diverse backgrounds. This may be particularly valuable to adolescents growing up in super-diverse cities, as they are surrounded by a multitude of groups and identities during a life phase in which they have to make sense of who they are and where they belong. Despite the heterogeneity of these identities, there is one thing all have in common: the city they live in. With the city as a common framework, local influencers may be important role models for these adolescents, particularly in negotiating their urban identity. This paper aims toward mapping the ways in which social media can play a role in the negotiation of urban identity among youngsters by investigating how YouTube influencers from a super-diverse city are related to each other online, and how their content relates to the (super-diverse) city of Rotterdam. Findings show that in their videos and on their channel pages, influencers mainly affiliate themselves with the city through having the city as the background and context of the videos, through their involvement with cultural trends (e.g., soccer, hip-hop) that link to the city, and through their affiliation with other local influencers. We argue that influencers may therefore provide their viewers with content that may potentially help their local viewers strengthen their urban identity.
有影响力的人是许多青少年日常媒体消费的一部分。作为榜样，他们在观众的身份建构中可能发挥关键作用。在社交媒体时代，这样的榜样现在可能更多地出现在本地——同一个城市——而且背景可能更加多样化。这对于在超级多元化城市中成长的青少年可能特别有价值，因为在他们必须弄清楚自己是谁以及属于哪里的人生阶段，他们被众多群体和身份所包围。尽管这些身份具有异质性，但有一点是共同的：他们居住的城市。以城市为共同框架，本地有影响力的人可能是这些青少年的重要榜样，尤其是在他们塑造城市身份方面。本文旨在通过调查来自超级多元化城市的YouTube有影响力的人在网上如何相互关联，以及他们的内容与鹿特丹（这个超级多元化）城市的关系，来描绘社交媒体在年轻人城市身份塑造中可以发挥作用的方式。研究结果表明，在他们的视频和频道页面中，有影响力的人主要通过将城市作为视频的背景和环境、通过参与与城市相关的文化潮流（如足球、嘻哈）以及通过与其他本地有影响力的人建立联系来与城市建立联系。我们认为，有影响力的人因此可能为他们的观众提供有可能帮助当地观众强化其城市身份的内容。
