Lifestyle information from YouTube influencers: Some consumption patterns
Abstract
Purpose: Despite lifestyle information needs being an important part of our daily lives, little is known about the role of common sources. Whilst magazines and television are traditional providers of lifestyle content, including for fashion, makeup, fitness, and cookery, they have been partly replaced by content-creating online influencers. Design/methodology/approach: To investigate this new resource, this article analyses comments on the videos of 223 UK female lifestyle influencers on YouTube for information about possible viewing patterns. Findings: Three quarters of comments are written during the week of the video being published, consistent with videos being consumed with an information browsing function, rather than treated as an information resource to be searched when needed. Commenting on the videos of multiple influencers occurred often, suggesting that many viewers are not loyal to a single influencer. Thus, influencers seem to primarily support active scanning rather than searching for specific information. Typical viewers of UK female lifestyle influencers can therefore expect to accumulate lifestyle ideas and knowledge for potential future use in addition to gaining timely suggestions for near future routine decision making. Practical implications: Public-facing information professionals, health professionals and counsellors may consider recommending selected videos or influencers to help with lifestyle concerns. Originality: This is the first large scale study of content-creating influencers as a lifestyle information resource.Citation
Thelwall, M. (in press) Lifestyle information from YouTube influencers: Some consumption patterns. Journal of Documentation, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2021-0033Publisher
EmeraldJournal
Journal of DocumentationType
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Emerald in Journal of Documentation on 26/05/2021, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2021-0033 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.ISSN
0022-0418ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1108/JD-02-2021-0033
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/