The Universitat de València presents the challenges faced by content creators at a conference on influencers

The Chair for Collaborative Economy and Digital Transformation of the Universitat de València (UV), in collaboration with the innovation centre ‘Las Naves’ of the València City Council, has held a conference on the figure of the influencer, a new profile that has been experiencing an exponential growth in recent years in a context of massive digitalisation.

The event took place at ‘Las Naves’ and was attended by experts in advertising and marketing, as well as learning first-hand about the experience of some content creators. In addition, the conference also served to present the report ‘Being an influencer today: possibilities and obstacles of a new source of employment’.

Thus, the event focused on mental health issues, working conditions or the challenges faced by influencers. To this effect, content creator Miriam Jiménez highlighted the harassment and hatred faced by influencers, especially women, since they are the ones who receive cyberbullying to a greater extent. “It is clear that women get bullied much more, especially if you get involved in political or controversial issues, because the response is not a political counter-argument, but rather ‘under what table did you go to get there’”, Jiménez lamented.
The event was also attended by Rubén Ranz, coordinator of the UGT’s digital platforms, who spoke on the trade union side. The expert highlighted two issues that, in his opinion, are fundamental in the mediation between content creators and platforms: the recognition of the work of the influencer as a job and the need for a human negotiation between platforms and content creators, beyond the algorithm.

For his part, Adrián Mora, a specialist in digital communication and content creator, wanted to claim that there is a professionalisation in the figure of the influencer: “There are people who have studied a degree and who have taken advantage of digital tools to talk about it and do what they like for a living”, said Mora.

All these issues are reflected in the report presented by the co-director of the chair and professor of Labour and Social Security Law, Adrián Todolí, and the consultant and professor of Organisational Psychology, Luminița Pătraș. This document was created with the aim of analysing the working conditions of content creators, in which 31 interviews were collected. “While conducting the research, I felt the need for content creators to be heard, and in the end it was not me who thanked them, but they were the ones who thanked me for the opportunity to speak”, said the co-author of the document.

For his part, the co-director of the chair was in charge of presenting the recommendations enumerated in the report to alleviate these problems based on the results obtained. Thus, two issues were underlined. On the one hand, the need to denounce and curb gender discrimination and harassment suffered by women influencers. On the other hand, Todolí also highlighted the false illusion of freedom in this new source of employment: “There is a lack of transparency in the way the algorithm works, no regulation of working conditions and no protection against harassment”, summed up the co-author.

The debate also focused on the advertising and marketing fields. In this regard, Isabel López, representative of the advertising agency ‘WeAddYou’, explained that “influencers reach places where brands do not, they understand conversations much better and are much more agile when it comes to creating content”. In addition, the round table on advertising also stressed the need to apply the sector's current regulations to this new form of employment.

The event also featured a speech by Marta Chillarón, director of the innovation centre ‘Las Naves’. “A tool such as the Chair for Collaborative Economy and Digital Transformation that we are promoting together with the Universitat de València is fundamental for our centre. We found it very interesting to have this document on grassroots influencers, which allows us to address the new reality of this profession”.