Expertise and Knowledge in the Age of Personalized Media: The Case of @anysports.faceonline Blog in the Period from 2018 to 2019

Abstract

Digital age, that we are living in, enables us to instantly access great volumes of various information. The way we acquire, create and distribute knowledge is a subject to continuous transformation caused by the rapid growth of digital content and tools. Nowadays, more and more people give their own contribution in digital knowledge environment by producing and sharing their digital content. This thesis considers the impact that digital culture has put on the way we consume and create knowledge and establish the image of trustworthy expert in a certain field.

This research is a case study of the Instagram account @anysports.faceonline. It represents a qualitative research aiming to analyze visual rhetoric and knowledge representation in the @anysports.faceonline blog in order to examine the mechanics of impression management, concerning the establishment and gaining acknowledgement of professionalism / expertise within online environment. By visual rhetoric is meant, in the first place, a form of visual communication the influencer uses. It involves the visual structure, displaying of information, color usage and designing of self-representation. Moreover, this research is not constrained in cultural history only, it refers to other fields such as psychology, sociology, marketing, media and gender studies. However, in order to explain the chosen visual strategies, the object of the research is, firstly, put into a broad cultural context.