Justice behind the virtual mask: The influence of race of the virtual influencer and the creator on promoting the Black Lives Matter movement

Abstract

The rise of virtual influencers is reshaping the landscape of social media, extending even to the promotion of social causes. Yet, lingering doubts persist regarding the authenticity of their motives. This research delves into the impact of both the racial identities of virtual influencers and those of their creators when linked to the support of racial movements. In terms of source credibility, results find that a creator’s racial background, but not that of a virtual influencer, plays a substantial role, and an interaction effect between these factors was identified. The results also show that individuals’ assessments of a virtual influencer and their message are influenced by the perceived social agency. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Keywords

Black Lives Matter computers are social actors norm of self-interest social agency social movements virtual influencers virtual race

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Berryman

Abidin

Leaver

(2021) A topography of virtual influencers. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12145

Blistein

(2022) White guy involved with controversial A.I. rapper FN Meka frequently used the N-word in old hardcore band lyrics. Rolling Stone, 28 September. Available at: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/anthony-martini-fn-meka-e-town-concrete-n-word-lyrics-1234598912/ (accessed 3 November 2023).

Casaló

Flavián

Ibáñez-Sánchez

(2017) Antecedents of consumer intention to follow and recommend an Instagram account. Online Information Review 41(7): 1046–1063.

Choudhry

Han

, et al. (2022) I felt a little crazy following a “doll.” Investigating real influence of virtual influencers on their followers. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6: 1–28.

Christopher (2020) Virtual influencers speak out in response to the murder of George Floyd. Virtual Humans, 5 June. Available at: https://www.virtualhumans.org/article/virtual-influencers-speak-out-in-response-to-the-murder-of-george-floyd (accessed 19 March 2024).

Coscarelli

(2022) Capitol drops “virtual rapper” FN Meka after backlash over stereotypes. The New York Times, 23 August. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/arts/music/fn-meka-dropped-capitol-records.html (accessed 28 November 2023).

Cropanzano

Goldman

Folger

(2005) Self-interest: defining and understanding a human motive. Journal of Organizational Behavior 26(8): 985–991.

Czopp

Monteith

Mark

(2006) Standing up for a change: reducing bias through interpersonal confrontation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90(5): 784–803.

Drenten

Brooks

(2020) Celebrity 2.0: Lil Miquela and the rise of a virtual star system. Feminist Media Studies 20(8): 1319–1323.

10.

Earl

Maher

Pan

(2022) The digital repression of social movements, protest, and activism: a synthetic review. Science Advances 8(10): eabl8198.

11.

Fast

Schroeder

(2020) Power and decision making: new directions for research in the age of artificial intelligence. Current Opinion in Psychology 33: 172–176.

12.

Fox

Ahn

Janssen

, et al. (2015) Avatars versus agents: a meta-analysis quantifying the effect of agency on social influence. Human–Computer Interaction 30(5): 401–432.

13.

Gamberini

Chittaro

Spagnolli

, et al. (2015) Psychological response to an emergency in virtual reality: effects of victim ethnicity and emergency type on helping behavior and navigation. Computers in Human Behavior 48: 104–113.

14.

Gambino

Fox

Ratan

(2020) Building a stronger CASA: extending the computers are social actors paradigm. Human-Machine Communication 1: 71–85.

15.

Goffman

(1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

16.

Hatfield

Ahn

Klein

, et al. (2022) Confronting whiteness through virtual humans: a review of 20 years of research in prejudice and racial bias using virtual environments. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 27(6): zmac016.

17.

Hayes

(2018) Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press.

18.

Hiort

(2022) Why diversity and inclusivity in virtual influencers matter. Virtual Humans, 4 January. Available at: https://www.virtualhumans.org/article/why-diversity-and-inclusivity-in-virtual-influencers-matter (accessed 19 March 2024).

19.

Hong

(2024) Machines As Social Entities (MASE) scale: validation of a new scale measuring beliefs in the sociality of intelligent machine agents. Social Science Computer Review 42: 65–83.

20.

Hong

Williams

(2019) Racism, responsibility and autonomy in HCI: testing perceptions of an AI agent. Computers in Human Behavior 100: 79–84.

21.

Imam

(2020) OTEC launches virtual animals on YouTube to give endangered species a voice. Virtual Humans, 20 November. Available at: https://www.virtualhumans.org/article/otec-launches-virtual-animals-on-youtube-to-give-endangered-species-a-voice (accessed 19 March 2024).

22.

Jablonski

(2021) Skin color and race. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 175(2): 437–447.

23.

Kidd

McIntosh

(2016) Social media and social movements. Sociology Compass 10(9): 785–794.

24.

Kim

Shoenberger

(2023) The next hype in social media advertising: examining virtual influencers’ brand endorsement effectiveness. Frontiers in Psychology 14: 1089051.

25.

Leaver

Highfield

Abidin

(2020) Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

26.

Lee

Sudarshan

Sussman

, et al. (2022) Why are consumers following social media influencers on Instagram? Exploration of consumers’ motives for following influencers and the role of materialism. International Journal of Advertising 41(1): 78–100.

27.

Lim

Lee

(2023) “You are a virtual influencer!”: understanding the impact of origin disclosure and emotional narratives on parasocial relationships and virtual influencer credibility. Computers in Human Behavior 148: 107897.

28.

Lou

Kiew

STJ

Chen

, et al. (2023) Authentically fake? How consumers respond to the influence of virtual influencers. Journal of Advertising 52: 540–557.

29.

Maree

(2017) The social media use integration scale: toward reliability and validity. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 33(12): 963–972.

30.

McLuhan

(1994) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

31.

Meyer

Jepperson

(2002) The “actors” of modern society: the cultural construction of social agency. Sociological Theory 18(1): 100–120.

32.

Miller

(1999) The norm of self-interest. American Psychologist 54(12): 1053–1060.

33.

Miller

Effron

(2010) Psychological license: when it is needed and how it functions. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 43: 115–155.

34.

Moustakas

Lamba

Mahmoud

, et al. (2020) Blurring lines between fiction and reality: perspectives of experts on marketing effectiveness of virtual influencers. In: 2020 international conference on cyber security and protection of digital services (cyber security), Dublin, 15–19 June, pp. 1–6. New York: IEEE.

35.

Nafees

Cook

Nikolov

, et al. (2021) Can social media influencer (SMI) power influence consumer brand attitudes? The mediating role of perceived SMI credibility. Digital Business 1(2): 100008.

36.

Nah

(2022) The appeal of “real” in parasocial interaction: the effect of self-disclosure on message acceptance via perceived authenticity and liking. Computers in Human Behavior 134: 107330.

37.

Nakamura

(2013) Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge.

38.

Nass

Moon

(2000) Machines and mindlessness: social responses to computers. Journal of Social Issues 56(1): 81–103.

39.

Nass

Steuer

Tauber

(1994) Computers are social actors. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (eds Adelson

Dumals

Olson

), Boston, MA, 24–28 April, pp. 72–78. New York: ACM.

40.

Pang

(2022) Mask as identity? The political subject in the 2019 Hong Kong’s social unrest. Cultural Studies 36(4): 624–643.

41.

Park

Nan

Park

, et al. (2021) Computers as social actors? Examining how users perceive and interact with virtual influencers on social media. In: 2021 15th international conference on ubiquitous information management and communication (IMCOM), Seoul, South Korea, 4–6 January, pp. 1–6. New York: IEEE.

42.

Park

Sung

(2023) The interplay between human likeness and agency on virtual influencer credibility. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 26: 764–771.

43.

Peck

Seinfeld

Aglioti

, et al. (2013) Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias. Consciousness and Cognition 22(3): 779–787.

44.

Ratner

Miller

(2001) The norm of self-interest and its effects on social action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(1): 5–16.

45.

Rennie

(2023) Meet Miquela: the A.I. (artificial influencer) who’s now worth $125 million. Medium, 7 July. Available at: https://medium.com/illumination/meet-miquela-the-a-i-artificial-influencer-whos-now-worth-125-million-879e4da7baf0#:~:text=Yes%2C%20you%20read%20that%20right,and%20trailblazer%20of%20modern%20technology (accessed 28 November 2023).

46.

Saxena

(2023) Can virtual fashion influencers advocate for sustainability? Green Is the New Black, 13 March. Available at: https://greenisthenewblack.com/can-virtual-fashion-influencers-advocate-for-sustainability/ (accessed 28 November 2023).

47.

Selvanathan

Lickel

Dasgupta

(2020) An integrative framework on the impact of allies: how identity-based needs influence intergroup solidarity and social movements. European Journal of Social Psychology 50(6): 1344–1361.

48.

Shen

(2010) Mitigating psychological reactance: the role of message-induced empathy in persuasion. Human Communication Research 36(3): 397–422.

49.

Shoenberger

Kim

(2023) Explaining purchase intent via expressed reasons to follow an influencer, perceived homophily, and perceived authenticity. International Journal of Advertising 42(2): 368–383.

50.

Silver

Tatler

Chakravarthi

, et al. (2021) Social agency as a continuum. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 28(2): 434–453.

51.

Stein

Priska

Nora

(2024) Parasocial interactions with real and virtual influencers: the role of perceived similarity and human-likeness. New Media & Society 26: 3433–3453.

52.

Stevens

(2021) Blackfishing on Instagram: influencing and the commodification of Black urban aesthetics. Social Media + Society 7(3): 1–15.

53.

Waite

(2022) Who is FN Meka, the AI rapper cancelled for digital blackface? Dazed, 26 August. Available at: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/56833/1/who-is-fn-meka-the-ai-rapper-cancelled-for-digital-blackface-capitol-gunna (accessed 18 March 2024).

54.

Yang

Chuenterawong

Lee

, et al. (2023) Anthropomorphism in CSR endorsement: a comparative study on humanlike vs. cartoonlike virtual influencers’ climate change messaging. Journal of Promotion Management 29(5): 705–734.