Projekttitel
Botting for Fame. Digital Modes of Existence on Instagram (Working Title)
Projektbeschreibung
Botting is a form of repetitive, scalable engagement practice that involves automated, semi-automated, and manually performed activities as modes of operation, with human users or fame-enhancing bots acting as agents or subjects executing the operation. On Instagram, it functions as a growing technique within the visibility game. Triggered by hashtags, profiles, or locations, fame-enhancing bots such as unfollowing/following, reposting, commenting, and/or sending messages to other users aim to attract attention to their profiles and encourage reciprocal following or engagement. To avoid detection by Instagram’s system and potential negative consequences, fame-enhancing bots are programmed to imitate and act like human users on behalf of the botter. This form of botting shows that the traditional distinction between human and non-human behaviour on social media platforms, which both enable and restrict certain practices through their interfaces and digital infrastructure, is no longer sustainable. It challenges the idea of imitation, questions the relational dynamics between bots and users, and raises concerns about the acceptance of non-human actors on platforms like Instagram. Furthermore, botting blurs the boundaries between authentic content and engagement, leading to platform measures such as bans and limited prosecution of fame-enhancing bots as part of their authenticity governance. It has also sparked digital vigilantism characterised by user-led bot policing, exemplified by phenomena like the 'bot police'. This dissertation examines botting on Instagram as a cultural technique, analysing the relationships between human and non-human actors that develop in this context. It considers the influence of automation on perceptions of behaviour as human or bot-like, frames bots as essential platform inhabitants, and explores the cultural and technical conditions that predate the emergence of fame-enhancing bots. This interdisciplinary research adds to the growing literature in New Media and Digital Culture, Media, Cultural and Platform Studies, and Bot research by defining and conceptualising botting and fame-enhancing bots as cultural techniques. Preliminary findings suggest that botting affects other Instagram users, many of whom see it as cheating. Additionally, the culture of botting encourages user-led bot policing strategies aimed at maintaining authenticity, thereby transferring moderation responsibilities to users while also limiting their agency through complex power relations between platform owners and users.
Vita
Nathalie Schäfer is a PhD candidate in the research training group Media Anthropology at the Faculty of Media at Bauhaus-University Weimar, with expertise in the practice of “botting” with fame-enhancing bots on Instagram. Her research focuses on bots, cultural techniques and practices, the intersection and entanglement of human and automated (bot) cultures, social media, and platform governance, as well as methodologies for researching digital media. Nathalie holds a BA in Art, Music, and Media from Philipps-University Marburg and the Université de Poitiers (2017), as well as an MA in Media Studies and a Master’s degree in Cinéma et Audiovisuel from the Université Lumière Lyon II, the Bauhaus University Weimar, and the Universiteit Utrecht (2019).
She is a board member of the Association of Internet Researchers’ (AoIR) executive committee and co-editor of Szenen kritischer Relationalität" (meson press 2024, with Bolwin et al.). Her web presence can be found at https://nathalieschaefer.de, and she is @nathalie@social.aoir on Mastodon.
Publikationen
“Call the (Bot-)Police: User-Led Platform Governance of ‘(In)Authenticity’ on Instagram.” Lateral 14, no. 2 (2025), special issue “Digital Platforms and Agency”
https://doi.org/10.25158/l14.2.13.
“1001 Followers in 20 Days.” Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association 6, no. 3 (August 13, 2024): 87–114. https://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/2177
Szenen kritischer Relationalität. Edited by Charlotte Bolwin, Jasmin Degeling, Gabriel Geffert, Martin Kallmeyer, Gereon Rahnfeld, Nathalie Schäfer, and Katia Schwerzmann. Lüneburg: meson press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.14619/2225.
„Von der Aufdeckung invisibler Infrastrukturen.“ In Szenen kritischer Relationalität, edited by Bolwin, Degeling, Geffert, Kallmeyer, Rahnfeld, Schäfer, and Schwerzmann. Lüneburg: meson press, 2024.
„Relationieren – eine kritische Operation.“ With Bolwin, Degeling, Geffert, Kallmeyer, Rahnfeld, and Schwerzmann. In Szenen kritischer Relationalität, edited by Bolwin, Degeling, Geffert, Kallmeyer, Rahnfeld, Schäfer, and Schwerzmann. Lüneburg: meson press, 2024.
Talks
“The Hybrid Self: Exploring the Intersection of Human and Non-Human Agents in Online Identity Formation“ at “Transgressive Identities and Subjectivities” conference from 17. – 18.06.2025 by Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR), Birmingham City University in Birmingham, UK.
Invited Talk: “Botting for Fame. Human-Media-Entanglements Acting on Instagram“ at “Growing Virtuality” conference from 16. – 17.11.2023 by Early Career Forum of SFB 1567 “Virtuelle Lebenswelten“ Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany.
“Call the (Bot-)Police – Instagram Users’ Attempt to Detect and Fight Against Botting and Fake-Accounts “ at the 24th annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) on „Revolution“ from 18. – 21.10.2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
“Winning the Imitation Game – von Chatbots, ihrer Intelligenz und der Wirkung des ELIZA-Effekts“ at the annual conference of Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaften (GfM) on “Abhängigkeiten“ from 27. – 30.09.2023 in Bonn, Germany.
“Rules of Play: 1001 Followers in 20 Days“ at Nordic Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference 2023 on “Interdisciplinary Embraces“ from 26. – 28.04.2023 in Uppsala, Sweden.
Memberships
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)
European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS)
Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (GfM)