The Power of Sets and Reps: How Fitness Bloggers on Instagram Construct Authenticity

Abstract: This study employs a combined framework of Bourdieusian field analysis and Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine discourses and relations of power pertaining to personal branding authenticity. The central inquiry of this study is how male fitness bloggers on Instagram create and maintain their authenticity on different levels of popularity. The analysis shaped men’s online fitness blogging practices on Instagram as a field and as a discourse. The findings of the study reinforce previous studies in the literary field personal branding, but also point to some research gaps on how authenticity is conceptualized. By this combined framework, this study concludes that there are several factors that determine how authenticity is constituted and maintained in the online fitness blogging field, such as position in the field, cultural and external capital, power relations, and the field’s doxa.