The Influencer Theatre

Two phenomena have recently captured the imagination of internet scholars: the increasing salience of online, ‘participatory’ disinformation, and the widespread adoption of communication practices associated with the social media ‘influencer’. This chapter discusses how influencer culture and participatory disinformation have become intertwined, and provides the influencer theatre as a metaphor for thinking about their interplay. The influencer theatre is a spatialised way of thinking about the three parties crucial to influencer conduct – influencers, audiences, and platforms – via the metaphor of a staged, cooperative performance. This chapter highlights emerging strands of research at the intersection of influencer culture and disinformation, including studies on the essential structure of influencer-mediated disinformation campaigns, the role of gender in the reproduction of disinformation via influencers, and the structuring role of monetisation in the sustenance of influencer-based disinformation. It concludes by speculating on how emerging algorithmic technologies will interact with the influencer theatre, and particularly on these technologies’ capacities to reproduce disinformation originating in influencers.