Abstract

The legal and ethical concerns around children performing as social media influencers (SMIs) on various social media platforms have been in the spotlight, with the recent world-first decision by the Australian Government to ban social media for those under 16. Social media influence is big business across the globe, with organisations investing in working with influencers to promote their brands and/or ideas. Some children now ‘work’, often managed by their parents, to produce posts that promote brands and ideas on behalf of organisations–not only to other children but also to adults. This paper presents findings of two case studies of SMI children. Through content analysis of their Instagram posts, we explore key legal and ethical concerns related to children working as social media influencers.

RAS ID

82490

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

1-1-2025

School

School of Arts and Humanities

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Identifier

Catherine J. Archer: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3710-0999

Comments

Archer, C. J., & Delmo, K. M. (2025). Children’s ‘playbour’ as influencers on social media: an investigation into the legal and ethical issues surrounding kidfluencers. Communication Research and Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2025.2523654

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