The Narrative Economy of Social Media: Mobilising Farming Economies, Identities and Relations

Abstract

This paper looks at social media as new fields through which Western Australian farmers of black truffles negotiate potentially global consumer markets. The author argues that the analytical concept of narrative economy deserves greater exploration in social theories on market relations through changing mediascapes. Some farmers embrace social media as influential, though problematic, marketing forums while others refuse to engage. What ensues are shifting distributions of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital as truffle farmers who use social media have strategic development advantages over those who do not.