Branding strategies on Instagram among female freelance photojournalists

Abstract

Bibliographic note MAGNANI, Amanda (2022) Branding strategies on Instagram among female freelance photojournalists 59p. Master thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Supervisor doc. PhDr. Alice Němcová Tejkalová, Ph.D. Abstract As journalism jobs become more precarious and scarce, journalists, especially freelancers, resort to personal branding on social media. For female freelance photojournalists, the situation is even more appalling. Yet, no previous studies have been found to address their online branding. In response to this gap, this study aimed to understand how women freelance photojournalists build their brands on Instagram. In order to do that, this qualitative cross-cultural study resorted to semi-structured interviews with ten female freelance photojournalists from eight different countries and analysed the data collected through the use of grounded theory. The study resorted to Labrecque et al.'s (2011) understanding of online personal branding; Molyneux et al.'s (2017) branding levels and Shoemaker and Reese's (2016) hierarchy of influences model; and Hermida and Mellado's (2020) Mapping Forms of Journalistic Norms and Practices on Twitter and Instagram. Keywords Photojournalists; online personal branding; branding levels;...