Functional interlopers: Lifestyle journalists' discursive construction of boundaries against digital lifestyle influencers

Abstract

Guided by boundary work (Carlson, 2015; Carlson & Lewis, 2019), this study aims to better understand where lifestyle journalists situate digital lifestyle influencers within the field of lifestyle journalism, and what types of boundary-making strategies these journalists employ in reaction to such influencers. Through 37 interviews with lifestyle journalists from Singapore, the findings show that the journalists view the influencers as functional interlopers, and have an uneasy “frenemy” relationship with them. The interviewees engage in expansion, expulsion, and protection of autonomy boundary strategies (Carlson, 2015; Carlson & Lewis, 2019), but these are enacted at different times in response to different aspects of influencers. Overall, this study lends insight into how lifestyle journalists discursively construct the boundaries of their field against the incursion of digital lifestyle influencers.