Opening the geographical black box of the influencer economy

The influencer economy is a significant and increasingly growing part of the platform economy, in which individuals use the internet to earn money directly from personal brand building and monetize their influence through sponsored content. Although there is a growing literature on the influencer economy in media, communication, marketing and cultural studies, the geographical dimensions and regional embeddedness of the influencer economy have not yet been sufficiently developed. Filling that gap is the main aim of this special issue. More specifically we aim to go beyond merely describing and mapping the influencer economy, by providing a systematic explanation of its spatial organization, its institutional conditions and its developmental effects. In order to do so, we develop an integrative framework. In this editorial, we summarize and group the 13 articles of the special issue into three themes, influencer-space relationships, the impacts of influencers on cities and the role of influencers in the countryside/local culture. Overall, this special issue makes three core theoretical contributions. First, it moves beyond research on the “individual influencer” toward research on influencer agglomeration and its interaction with space and geography. Secondly, it shows that the impacts of influencer activities on urban and rural areas have moved from simply “promoting” places to “reconstructing” cities. Finally, it reveals that within the influencer economy, state governance, platform governance and market logic are deeply intertwined, and that platformized growth brings opportunities while also producing new inequalities and risks.