Singaporean Influencers and Covid-19 on Instagram Stories

This essay considers how Influencers in Singapore were responding to COVID-19 on Instagram Stories. Specifically, this extract of the study focuses on six phenomena to have emerged including: Live chats and parasociality, communion and 'collective effervescence' (Durkheim 1912), branded content and topical coherence, persuasion and normalising practices, charity and the harnessing of a follow base, and infodemic and the amplification of causes. The paper then considers three major industry and systemic shifts in relation to the parasociality between Influencers and followers, the aesthetics of content from Influencers, and the accessibility of Influencers towards followers.