Like a natural mom: social media influencers and digital maternal ambivalence in Italy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Italian social media influencers whose celebrification is inextricably linked to their performances as mothers. Mom influencers are situated within an economy of visibility that functions to centralise the maternal body in processing marketing models and adopting specific trends and norms of the so-called platformisation of cultural production. I situate these content creators in the context of the ideology of intensive motherhood and the new momism, both of which are discursive ideologies framed in a neoliberal economic system. Through a multimodal analysis of three case studies’ Instagram posts, this paper aims to provide a new framework for understanding the self-branding of Italian mom influencers, interrogating how they operate in what I label as a digital maternal ambivalence. This framework acknowledges that – in order to stay relevant for the platform algorithms – mom influencers operate a constant negotiation between the pressure of adhering to idealised representations of motherhood and the need for re-presenting an authentic self, including affects, actions, and emotions that may contrast with popular understandings of what constitutes a good mother image.