Studies of meaningful work have proposed that work that holds personal significance and meaning can transcend pay. But how can workers who do not want, or cannot afford, to sacrifice pay for meaning commercialise their work to realise its market worth? We explore this question in the context of social media influencers who participated in the InfluencerPayGap community (an Instagram profile established in 2020 to expose pay disparities in the influencer industry). Combining concepts of worth from the meaningful work literature with a sociological theory of valuation, we identify three enrichment narratives engaged with by influencers to circumvent expectations of performing free labour. Besides illuminating how influencers construct and connect the personal worth of their work with its market worth, we show how these narratives of authenticity, relationality and quantification involve a ‘double loop of enrichment’. Consisting in the interplay between influencers’ own sense of the worth of their work and feedback from their followers and the algorithms of social media platforms, this loop can reinforce and transform but also undermine influencers’ perceptions of the worth and meaning of their work. Our findings contribute to a greater understanding of meaningful work and the valuation of work in non-traditional work contexts.

中文翻译：

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#Knowyourworth：影响者如何将有意义的工作商业化

对有意义的工作的研究表明，具有个人意义和意义的工作可以超越薪酬。但是，那些不想或无力为意义而牺牲报酬的工人如何才能将他们的工作商业化以实现其市场价值呢？我们在参与 InfluencerPayGap 社区（2020 年建立的 Instagram 个人资料，旨在揭露影响者行业中的薪酬差异）的社交媒体影响者的背景下探讨了这个问题。将有意义的工作文献中的价值概念与社会学价值理论相结合，我们确定了影响者所参与的三种丰富叙事，以规避对自由劳动的期望。除了阐明影响者如何构建其作品的个人价值及其市场价值并将其联系起来之外，我们还展示了这些关于真实性、关联性和量化的叙述如何涉及“丰富的双循环”。这种循环由影响者自己对其工作价值的感觉与其追随者的反馈以及社交媒体平台算法之间的相互作用组成，这种循环可以强化和改变但也破坏影响者对其工作的价值和意义的看法。我们的研究结果有助于更好地理解有意义的工作以及对非传统工作环境中工作的评价。