Citing technological and cultural changes, journalists have begun to develop personal brands correlated with their professional identity on social media. However, by self-branding on social media, women journalists are exposed to substantial amounts of harm in the form of online harassment and objectification. Following an increasing presence of women broadcast journalists on TikTok, this thesis aims to understand how and why women broadcast journalists are using TikTok to self-brand. The findings offer insight into the connection self-branding and journalistic celebrification have with harassment and objectification of women journalists online. This study employs a multi-method approach to exploring the issue. First, it uses a textual analysis of 2,407 TikTok videos posted between 2022 and 2024 by seven women broadcast journalists employed at local news stations across the United States through a multi-grounded theory approach. Second, the study analyzes interviews with women broadcast journalists who hold the accounts. Findings indicate that women broadcast journalists engage in the process of celebrification by presenting an ideal version of themselves. They achieve this by cultivating an image that primarily brands the institution of journalism. Their approach relies on practices of intimacy, authenticity, and vulnerability. As part of this self-branding strategy, they utilize tactics such as vlogging, behind-the-scenes content, and beauty and wellness themes that heavily incorporate their personal life. Further, women broadcast journalists indicate that this self-branding has become crucial to their professional identities and success, but it still opens them up to harassment and objectification. Women broadcast journalists must undergo additional unpaid labor to self-brand themselves, their organization, and the institution of journalism, often at their own emotional expense due to the consequences of harassment and objectification.
Anjelica Ortiz (Tue,) studied this question.