Mariah Wellman, assistant professor of communication arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago, spoke Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin about her research on how social media influencers are changing the public wellness industry. 2024 Science Communication Colloquium.
According to Wellman, the wellness industry is expected to grow from $5.6 trillion to more than $8 trillion worldwide by 2027. This includes several sectors across wellness. According to Wellman, fitness, exercise, medicine, supplements, spirituality, self-care, holistic health, massage, acupuncture, and Chinese medicine.
“Especially in the wellness industry, influencers are changing the way we get information,” Wellman said. “In recent years, we have begun to see that influencers do more than just promote products and services. They also promote customs, ideologies, and religious doctrines. [and] political rhetoric. ”
Wellman's research examines how social media influencers gain credibility within the multibillion-dollar wellness industry. Wellman said the components of credibility, platform politics, and authority combine to influence which influencers are visible and trusted by their audiences.
Influencer credibility, Wellman said, is more about performing in a way that meets audience expectations. Influencers need to be real enough, but not too real that they stop being inspirational. According to Wellman, influencers also do structured, flexible work that seeks to maintain an authentic persona while working with brands.
“They want to be able to cater to what their audience wants…but they also want to be able to still be well compensated,” Wellman said. Told. “So it's a big balancing act.”
Influencers both contribute to the growth of the wellness industry and grow with it, Wellman said. The influencer industry is becoming more professionalized as more businesses surround influencer culture. For example, between 2017 and 2019, Wellman said there was an increase in intermediaries connecting commercial brands and influencers.
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In general, the influence of social media is spreading to other industries as well, as there is an increasing need to present one's personal brand to the world. Wellman said this includes athletes, musicians, artists and politicians.
“They feel pressure to participate in social media and exert influence in similar ways,” Wellman said. “The way we move on the platform also creeps into different external realms.”
Based on source credibility theory, influencers gain credibility based on their sources. Expertise, credibility, charm, and more. Internet interactions have changed the way people understand trust, Wellman said.
“The Internet has become a space for people, especially those from marginalized groups, to share more embodied and intergenerational knowledge. [are] It’s about sharing embodied knowledge, which is just as valuable as institutionalized knowledge,” Wellman said.
Wellman said tensions between institutional experts and health influencers continue, and the line between misinformation and reliable knowledge can sometimes blur.
Wellman said the main point of discussion on this topic is to separate the role of institutional knowledge compared to lived lifestyle and generational knowledge.
“How can we use both to add more nuance to these spaces?” Wellman said. “I think in some cases it increases the amount of potential misinformation. But sometimes the institutional knowledge is wrong.”
The next speaker in this series will be Johns Hopkins University Professor Adam Seth Levine, who will deliver a talk titled “Policy Makers' Unmet Desire for Science” on March 6th at the University of California. is.
