The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the Attention Economy
Abstract
The popular photo-sharing app Instagram has created a new breed of celebrities: the Instafamous. This essay examines the phenomenon—from Singaporean socialites showing off shoe collections to high school sophomores with ten thousand followers—and its relationship to celebrity and tabloid culture.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction
Horton, D., & Richard Wohl, R. (1956) · Psychiatry · doi:10.1080/00332747.1956.11023049 · Cited by 4,380
Parasocial Interaction: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research
Giles, D. C. (2002) · Media Psychology · doi:10.1207/s1532785xmep0403_04 · Cited by 1,245
Digital photography: communication, identity, memory
van Dijck, J. (2008) · Visual Communication · doi:10.1177/1470357207084865 · Cited by 508
Research works printed but not linked: 28
- Alper Meryl . 2013. “War on Instagram: Framing Conflict Photojournalism with Mobile Photography Apps.” New Media and Society, September18. nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/16/1461444813504265. · DOI
- boyd, 2007, Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life, 119
- Braudy, 1986, The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History
- Chandler Lisa Livingston Debra 2010. “Reframing the Authentic: Photography, Mobile Technologies, and the Visual Language of Digital Imperfection.” Paper presented at the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory Contact (HASTAC) Sixth Global Conference, “Visual Literacies: Exploring Critical Issues”, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK, July 3. www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/chandlervlpaper.pdf.
- Fairchild, 2007, Building the Authentic Celebrity: The ‘Idol’ Phenomenon in the Attention Economy, Popular Music and Society, 30, 355, 10.1080/03007760600835306 · DOI
- Gamson, 2011, The Unwatched Life Is Not Worth Living: The Elevation of the Ordinary in Celebrity Culture, PMLA, 126, 1061
- Hearn, 2008, ‘Meat, Mask, Burden’: Probing the Contours of the Branded ‘Self’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 8, 197, 10.1177/1469540508090086 · DOI
- Kurzman, 2007, Celebrity Status, Sociological Theory, 25, 347, 10.1111/j.1467-9558.2007.00313.x · DOI
- Lair, 2005, Marketization and the Recasting of the Professional Self: The Rhetoric and Ethics of Personal Branding, Management Communication Quarterly, 18, 307, 10.1177/0893318904270744 · DOI · Paper page
- Lasén, 2009, Digital Photography and Picture Sharing: Redefining the Public/Private Divide, Knowledge, Technology and Policy, 22, 205, 10.1007/s12130-009-9086-8 · DOI
- Lee Dong-Hoo . 2005. “Women’s Creation of Camera Phone Culture.” Fibreculture Journal, no. 1. six.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-038-womens-creation-of-camera-phone-culture.
- Lee, 2010, Digital Cameras, Personal Photography, and the Reconfiguration of Spatial Experiences, Information Society, 26, 266, 10.1080/01972243.2010.489854 · DOI
- Marwick, 2013, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age
- Marwick Alice, 2011, I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience, New Media and Society, 13, 114, 10.1177/1461444810365313 · DOI · Paper page
- Marwick Alice, 2011, To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 17, 139, 10.1177/1354856510394539 · DOI · Paper page
- Mullen Jessica . 2010. “Lifestreaming as a Life Design Methodology.” MFA thesis, University of Texas at Austin. repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/ETD-UT-2010-05-1323/MULLEN-MASTERS-REPORT.pdf.
- Muntean Nick Petersen Anne Helen 2009. “Celebrity Twitter: Strategies of Intrusion and Disclosure in the Age of Technoculture.” M/C Journal12, no. 1. journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/194. · DOI
- Neff, 2005, Entrepreneurial Labor among Cultural Producers: ‘Cool’ Jobs in ‘Hot’ Industries, Social Semiotics, 15, 307, 10.1080/10350330500310111 · DOI
- Schwarz, 2010, On Friendship, Boobs, and the Logic of the Catalogue Online Self-Portraits as a Means for the Exchange of Capital, Convergence, 16, 163, 10.1177/1354856509357582 · DOI
- Senft, 2008, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks
- Senft, 2013, Microcelebrity and the Branded Self, 346, 10.1002/9781118321607.ch22 · DOI · Paper page
- Stone, 2006, Right to the Top”, Newsweek, 9, 38
- Sundén, 2003, Material Virtualities
- Tufekci, 2013, ‘Not This One’: Social Movements, the Attention Economy, and Microcelebrity Networked Activism, American Behavioral Scientist, 57, 848, 10.1177/0002764213479369 · DOI · Paper page
- Turner, 2004, Understanding Celebrity, 10.4135/9781446279953 · DOI
- Twenge, 2009, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
- Winston Johnny . 2013. “Photography in the Age of Facebook.” Intersect: The Stanford Journal of Science, Technology and Society6, no. 1: 1–11. ojs.stanford.edu/ojs/index.php/intersect/article/view/517.
- Zollman, 2013, Author interview, via e-mail, August, 28
Cited by
Schouten, A. P., Janssen, L., & Verspaget, M. (2020) · International Journal of Advertising · doi:10.1080/02650487.2019.1634898 · Cited by 1,422
Playing the visibility game: How digital influencers and algorithms negotiate influence on Instagram
Cotter, K. (2019) · New Media & Society · doi:10.1177/1461444818815684 · Cited by 1,025
Pictures speak louder than words: motivations for using Instagram
Lee, E., Lee, J.-A., Moon, J. H., & Sung, Y. (2015) · Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking · doi:10.1089/cyber.2015.0157 · Cited by 589
Highfield, T., & Leaver, T. (2016) · Communication Research and Practice · doi:10.1080/22041451.2016.1155332 · Cited by 542
When less is more: the impact of macro and micro social media influencers’ disclosure
Kay, S., Mulcahy, R., & Parkinson, J. (2020) · Journal of Marketing Management · doi:10.1080/0267257x.2020.1718740 · Cited by 508
Against Meritocracy: Culture, power and myths of mobility
Littler, J. (2017) · doi:10.4324/9781315712802 · Cited by 347
Why we post selfies: Understanding motivations for posting pictures of oneself
Sung, Y., Lee, J.-A., Kim, E., & Choi, S. M. (2016) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.03.032 · Cited by 312
Nesi, J., Choukas-Bradley, S., & Prinstein, M. J. (2018) · Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review · doi:10.1007/s10567-018-0262-9 · Cited by 266
Arriagada, A., & Ibáñez, F. (2020) · Social Media + Society · doi:10.1177/2056305120944624 · Cited by 238
“Authenticity—though a fraught concept—tends to rely upon the impression of realness to construct a sense of intimacy and connection with their followers (Abidin, 2016; Marwick, 2015).”
BackgroundSocial Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media.
Metzler, H., & Garcia, D. (2024) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916231185057 · Cited by 204
“On Facebook and especially Instagram, self-presentation is more central than group competition (Cingel et al., 2022; Midgley, 2019; Storr, 2018), leading, for example, to microcelebrities (Marwick, 2015).”
BackgroundO’Meara, V. (2019) · Social Media + Society · doi:10.1177/2056305119879671 · Cited by 161
Celebrity 2.0: Lil Miquela and the rise of a virtual star system
Drenten, J., & Brooks, G. (2020) · Feminist Media Studies · doi:10.1080/14680777.2020.1830927 · Cited by 143
An exploratory study of ‘selfitis' and the development of the Selfitis Behavior Scale
Balakrishnan, J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2018) · International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction · doi:10.1007/s11469-017-9844-x · Cited by 134
Modeling and Understanding Visual Attributes of Mental Health Disclosures in Social Media
Manikonda, L., & De Choudhury, M. (2017) · Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3025453.3025932 · Cited by 116
A Shoppable Life: Performance, Selfhood, and Influence in the Social Media Storefront
Hund, E., & McGuigan, L. (2019) · Communication, Culture and Critique · doi:10.1093/ccc/tcz004 · Cited by 82
Lowe-Calverley, E., & Grieve, R. (2021) · Body Image · doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.10.003 · Cited by 78
Tourism netnography: how travel bloggers influence destination image
Gholamhosseinzadeh, M. S., Chapuis, J.-M., & Lehu, J.-M. (2023) · Tourism Recreation Research · doi:10.1080/02508281.2021.1911274 · Cited by 77
Shin, E., & Lee, J. E. (2021) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.04.022 · Cited by 66
Fox, J., Vendemia, M. A., Smith, M. A., & Brehm, N. R. (2021) · Body Image · doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.11.011 · Cited by 64
Seeing the street through Instagram. Digital platforms and the amplification of gentrification
Bronsvoort, I., & Uitermark, J. L. (2022) · Urban Studies · doi:10.1177/00420980211046539 · Cited by 60
Vendemia, M. A., DeAndrea, D. C., & Brathwaite, K. N. (2021) · Body Image · doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2021.03.017 · Cited by 58
Internet Celebrities’ Impact on Luxury Fashion Impulse Buying
Chen, M., Xie, Z., Zhang, J., & Li, Y. (2021) · Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research · doi:10.3390/jtaer16060136 · Cited by 56
Mears, A. (2023) · Social Media + Society · doi:10.1177/20563051231193027 · Cited by 52
Georg Franck’s ‘the economy of attention’: mental capitalism and the struggle for attention
van Krieken, R. (2019) · Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1177/1440783318812111 · Cited by 40
Tweeting ourselves to death: the cultural logic of digital capitalism
Törnberg, P., & Uitermark, J. (2022) · Media, Culture & Society · doi:10.1177/01634437211053766 · Cited by 33
Kerr, H., Booth, R., & Jackson, K. (2020) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/16540 · Cited by 31
Branded childhood: Infants as digital capital on Instagram
Ågren, Y. (2023) · Childhood · doi:10.1177/09075682221129367 · Cited by 31
Dutta, K., Sharma, K., & Goyal, T. (2021) · Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes · doi:10.1108/whatt-09-2020-0123 · Cited by 30
Mapping the transnational imaginary of social media genres
Hallinan, B., Kim, B., Scharlach, R., Trillò, T., Mizoroki, S., & Shifman, L. (2023) · New Media & Society · doi:10.1177/14614448211012372 · Cited by 24
Sánchez-Amboage, E., Castellanos-García, P., & Crespo-Pereira, V. (2024) · Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services · doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.103735 · Cited by 21
Learning to Like the Likes and the Hate: The Labor of Internet Fame in the New Attention Economy
Mears, A., & Beauvais, T. (2026) · Social Problems · doi:10.1093/socpro/spaf028 · Cited by 14
Cabbuag, S. I., & Abidin, C. (2025) · International Journal of Cultural Studies · doi:10.1177/13678779241302826 · Cited by 5
Cabbuag, S. I. (2026) · Journal of Applied Youth Studies · doi:10.1007/s43151-026-00215-3
Metadata
- Authors
- Marwick, A. E.
- Venue
- Public Culture
- Publisher
- Duke University Press
- Published
- 2015-01-01
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 137-160
- ISSN
- 0899-2363 (ISSN-L)
- 1527-8018
- OpenAlex
- W1984733378
- Cited by
- 1,040
- References
- 3
- FWCI
- 120.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.