BIO: Cydney Banton is a fourth-year student graduating with her degree in the Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies Honours program at Carleton University in June 2024. Her Honours Research Essay, “Definite Must-Haves and Amazing Finds: An Examination of Affiliate-Linking Momfluencers on Instagram” was successfully completed in April, 2024.
Miranda J. Brady is an Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Carleton University in Ontario. Her current research is in Motherhood Studies and Critical Autism Studies. She is author of the book “Mother Trouble: Mediations of White Maternal Angst After Second Wave Feminism” (University of Toronto Press, October 2024) and co-author with John M.H. Kelly of the book “We Interrupt this Program: Indigenous Media Tactics in Canadian Culture” (UBC Press, 2017).
Abstract:
The affiliate-marketing model has provided influencers in online motherhood spaces (“momfluencers”) with an avenue for selling goods to an expansive online consumer base of mothers. Through a qualitative analysis of the content produced by Instagram’s affiliate marketing momfluencers using a convenience sample gathered in early 2024, this research explores the construction of motherhood by momfluencers. It seeks to understand how the convergence of profit-driven affiliate marketing, social media logic, and engagement seeking behaviours displace the diverse, lived experiences of motherhood and drive consumption. It argues that while exploiting the insecurities associated with modern neoliberal child-rearing, momfluencers market a homogenized, aspirational, and aesthetic version of motherhood by reinforcing unrealistic expectations of what motherwork can and “should” look like. In order to promote a continuous cycle of products, affiliate-linking momfluencers also expand the categories of work that mothers are expected to perform in a perpetual cycle of consumption and disposal. This study is underpinned by an interdisciplinary theoretical framework and makes contributions at the intersections of Motherhood Studies and digital platform studies.
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