Digitally crafting a resistant professional identity: The case of Brazilian ‘dirty’ bloggers
Abstract
We explore how the consequences of disidentification from prevailing professional identities impacted the creation of a new identity and how social media tools enabled and shaped this process. We investigate these phenomena through the struggle of a group of Brazilian journalists who strived to escape the regulation of traditional media identity, creating their own identity as progressive bloggers. Analyzing blog entries and press articles, we uncover four distinctive forms of identity work—historical construction, embracing stigma, establishing authenticity, and satirical deconstruction—fueled by four journalism macro-discourses. Our article contributes to existing literature by uncovering the dynamics of disidentification, its consequences, and identity creation. We also add to the debate on the interaction between identity and resistance by proposing the concept of resistant-identity work, where—beyond being a form or a result of identity work—resistance might enact this process. Finally, we contribute to the study of online-identity processes by demonstrating how the characteristics of social media enable and shape a new form of identity work that is collective and visible.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Adams J. (2012) ‘Cleaning Up the Dirty Work: Professionalization and the Management of Stigma in the Cosmetic Surgery and Tattoo Industries’, Deviant Behavior 33(3): 149–67.
Alvesson M., Willmott H. (2002) ‘Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual’, Journal of Management Studies 39(5): 619–44.
Alvesson M., Ashcraft K. L., Thomas R. (2008) ‘Identity Matters: Reflections on the Construction of Identity Scholarship in Organization Studies’, Organization 15(1): 5–28.
Anteby M., Molnar V. (2012) ‘Collective Memory Meets Organizational Identity: Remembering to Forget in a Firm’s Rhetorical History’, Academy of Management Journal 55(3): 515–40.
Ashcraft K. L. (2005) ‘Resistance through Consent? Occupational Identity, Organizational Form, and the Maintenance of Masculinity among Commercial Airline Pilots’, Management Communication Quarterly 19(1): 67–90.
Atton C. (2002) ‘News Cultures and New Social Movements: Radical Journalism and the Mainstream Media’, Journalism Studies 3(4): 491–505.
Azevedo F. A. (2006) ‘Mídia E Democracia No Brasil: Relações Entre O Sistema De Mídia E O Sistema Político’, Opinião Pública 12(1): 88–113.
Bardoel J., Deuze M. (2001) ‘Network Journalism: Converging Competencies of Old and New Media Professionals’, Australian Journalism Review 23(2): 91–108.
Barros M. (2014) ‘Tools of Legitimacy: The Case of the Petrobras Corporate Blog’, Organization Studies 35(8): 1211–30.
Baym G. (2005) ‘The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism’, Political Communication 22(3): 259–76.
Beech N. (2008) ‘On the Nature of Dialogic Identity Work’, Organization 15(1): 51–74.
Bolton S.C. (2005) ‘Women’s Work, Dirty Work: The Gynaecology Nurse as Other’, Gender, Work & Organization 12(2): 169–86.
Boudreau M. C., Serrano C., Larson K. (2014) ‘IT-Driven Identity Work: Creating a Group Identity in a Digital Environment’, Information and Organization 24(1): 1–24.
Boussebaa M., Brown A. D. (2017) ‘Englishization, Identity Regulation and Imperialism’, Organization Studies 38(1): 7–29.
Brown A. D. (2001) ‘Organization Studies and Identity: Towards a Research Agenda’, Human Relations 54(1): 113–21.
Brown A. D. (2015) ‘Identities and Identity Work in Organizations’, International Journal of Management Reviews 17(1): 20–40.
Brown A. D., Humphreys M. (2006) ‘Organizational Identity and Place: A Discursive Exploration of Hegemony and Resistance’, Journal of Management Studies 43(2): 231–57.
Carpentier N. (2005) ‘Identity, Contingency and Rigidity: The (Counter-)hegemonic Constructions of the Identity of the Media Professional’, Journalism 6(2): 199–219.
Castells M. (2013) Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Cerulo K. A. (1997) ‘Identity Construction: New Issues, New Directions’, Annual Review of Sociology 23: 385–409.
Chreim S., Williams B. B., Hinings C. B. (2007) ‘Interlevel Influences on the Reconstruction of Professional Role Identity’, Academy of Management Journal 50(6): 1515–39.
Clarke C. A., Brown A. D., Hailey V. H. (2009) ‘Working Identities? Antagonistic Discursive Resources and Managerial Identity’, Human Relations 62(3): 323–52.
Cohen L., Wilkinson A., Arnold J., et al. (2005) ‘“Remember I’m the Bloody Architect!” Architects, Organizations and Discourses of Profession’, Work, Employment and Society 19(4): 775–96.
Coleman S. (2005) ‘New Mediation and Direct Representation: Reconceptualizing Representation in the Digital Age’, New Media & Society 7(2): 177–98.
Collinson D. (1992) Managing the Shopfloor: Subjectivity, Masculinity and Workplace Culture. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Contu A. (2008) ‘Decaf Resistance on Misbehavior, Cynicism, and Desire in Liberal Workplaces’, Management Communication Quarterly 21(3): 364–79.
Costas J., Fleming P. (2009) ‘Beyond Dis-identification: A Discursive Approach to Self-alienation in Contemporary Organizations’, Human Relations 62(3): 353–78.
Creed W. D., DeJordy R., Lok J. (2010) ‘Being the Change: Resolving Institutional Contradiction through Identity Work’, Academy of Management Journal 53(6): 1336–64.
Cristol H. (2002) ‘News in the Digital Age’, Futurist 36: 8–9.
Davies Thomas A. R. (2003) ‘Talking Cop: Discourses of Change and Policing Identities’, Public Administration 81(4): 681–99.
Deuze M. (2005) ‘What Is Journalism? Professional Identity and Ideology of Journalists Reconsidered’, Journalism 6(4): 442–64.
Deuze M. (2008) ‘The Professional Identity of Journalists in the Context of Convergence Culture’, Observatorio 7: 103–17.
Elm M. (2009) ‘How Do Various Notions of Privacy Influence Decisions in Qualitative Internet Research?’ in Markham A. N., Baym N. K. (eds) Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method. London: SAGE, pp. 69–87.
Elsbach K. D., Bhattacharya C. B. (2001) ‘Defining Who You Are by What You’re Not: Organizational Disidentification and the National Rifle Association’, Organization Science 12(4): 393–413.
Figueiredo C. (2012) Entre Sem Bater: A Vida De Aparício Torelly, O Barão De Itararé. Houston, TX: Casa da Palavra.
Fleming P., Sewell G. (2002) ‘Looking for the Good Soldier, Švejk Alternative Modalities of Resistance in the Contemporary Workplace’, Sociology 36(4): 857–73.
Fleming P., Spicer A. (2003) ‘Working at a Cynical Distance: Implications for Power, Subjectivity and Resistance’, Organization 10(1): 157–79.
Fleming P., Spicer A. (2007) Contesting the Corporation: Struggle, Power and Resistance in Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forde S. (2011) Challenging the News: The Journalism of Alternative and Community Media. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foster W. M., Suddaby R., Minkus A., et al. (2011) ‘History as Social Memory Assets: The Example of Tim Hortons’, Management & Organizational History 6(1): 101–20.
Foucault M. (1982) ‘The Subject and Power’, Critical Inquiry 8: 777–95.
Fox S., Lenhart A. (2006) ‘Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers’, Pew Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2006/07/19/bloggers-a-portrait-of-the-internets-new-storytellers
Fuchs C. (2010) ‘Alternative Media as Critical Media’, European Journal of Social Theory 13(2): 173–92.
Gabriel Y. (1999) ‘Beyond Happy Families: A Critical Reevaluation of the Control-Resistance Triangle’, Human Relations 52(2): 179–203.
Galinsky A. D., Hugenberg K., Groom C., et al. (2003) ‘The Reappropriation of Stigmatizing Labels: Implications for Social Identity’, Research on Managing Groups and Teams 5: 221–56.
Goodrick E., Reay T. (2010) ‘Florence Nightingale Endures: Legitimizing a New Professional Role Identity’, Journal of Management Studies 47(1): 55–84.
Grijó L. A. (2011) ‘A Mídia Brasileira No Século XXI: Autonomia Seccionada’ Anais do XXVI Simpósio Nacional de História. São Paulo: ANPUH.
Haas T. (2005) ‘From “Public Journalism” to the “Public’s Journalism”? Rhetoric and Reality in the Discourse on Weblogs’, Journalism Studies 6(3): 387–96.
Halimi S. (1997) Les Nouveaux Chiens De Garde. Paris: Liber-Raisons d’Agir.
Harraway D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association.
Hayles N. K. (2008) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Helms W., Patterson K. (2014) ‘Eliciting Acceptance for “Illicit” Organizations: The Positive Implications of Stigma for MMA Organizations’, Academy of Management Journal 57(5): 1453–84.
Hewson C. (2014) ‘Qualitative Approaches in Internet-Mediated Research: Opportunities, Issues, Possibilities’, in Leavy P. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 423–452.
Hewson C. (2016) ‘Ethics Issues in Digital Methods Research’, in Roberts S., Snee H., Hine C., et al. (eds) Digital Methods for Social Science. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 206–221.
Hine C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage.
Hodgson D. (2005) ‘“Putting on a Professional Performance”: Performativity, Subversion and Project Management’, Organization 12(1): 51–68.
Hogg M. A., Terry D. J. (eds) (2014) Social Identity Processes in Organizational Contexts. London: Psychology Press.
Holmer-Nadesan M. (1996) ‘Organizational Identity and Space of Action’, Organization Studies 17(1): 49–81.
Horton K., Jacobs G., Bayerl P. S., et al. (2015) ‘A Balancing Act: How to Avoid Professional Disidentification When Faced with Stakeholder Critique’, Academy of Management Proceedings.
Howard P. N., Duffy A., Freelon D., et al. (2011) ‘Opening Closed Regimes: What Was the Role of Social Media during the Arab Spring? ’ Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2595096
Humphreys M., Brown A. D. (2002) ‘Narratives of Organizational Identity and Identification: A Case Study of Hegemony and Resistance’, Organization Studies 23(3): 421–47.
Ibarra H. (1999) ‘Provisional Selves: Experimenting with Image and Identity in Professional Adaptation’, Administrative Science Quarterly 44(4): 764–91.
Jukuri K. (2013) ‘Identity Projects of Design Professionals—Identity Construction Using Social Media’, Master’s Thesis, Department of Marketing, Aalto University, Espoo.
Kelsey D., Bennett L. (2014) ‘Discipline and Resistance on Social Media: Discourse, Power and Context in the Paul Chambers “Twitter Joke Trial”’, Discourse, Context & Media 3: 37–45.
Kilduff M., Funk J. L., Mehra A. (1997) ‘Engineering Identity in a Japanese Factory’, Organization Science 8(6): 579–92.
Knecht J. A. (2011) ‘A Blogosfera “Progressista” Contra A “Grande Mídia” Na Cobertura Do “Escândalo Dos Dossiês” Durante as Eleições Presidenciais De 2010’, Dissertation, UFRGS. Retrieved from http://www.lume.ufrgs.br/handle/10183/36955
Knights D., McCabe D. (2003) ‘Governing Through Teamwork: Reconstituting Subjectivity in a Call Centre’, Journal of Management Studies 40(7): 1587–619.
Knights D., Willmott H. (1989) ‘Power and Subjectivity at Work: From Degradation to Subjugation in Social Relations’, Sociology 23(4): 535–58.
Korica M., Molloy E. (2010) ‘Making Sense of Professional Identities: Stories of Medical Professionals and New Technologies’, Human Relations 63(12): 1879–901.
Kornberger M., Brown A. D. (2007) ‘“Ethics” as a Discursive Resource for Identity Work’, Human Relations 60(3): 497–518.
Kosmala K., Herrbach O. (2006) ‘The Ambivalence of Professional Identity: On Cynicism and Jouissance in Audit Firms’, Human Relations 59(10): 1393–428.
Kreiner G. E., Ashforth B. E. (2004) ‘Evidence Toward an Expanded Model of Organizational Identification’, Journal of Organizational Behavior 25(1): 1–27.
Kreiner G. E., Hollensbe E. C., Sheep M. L. (2006) ‘Where Is the “Me” among the “We”? Identity Work and the Search for Optimal Balance’, Academy of Management Journal 49(5): 1031–57.
Kuhn T. (2006) ‘A “demented Work Ethic” and a “lifestyle Firm”: Discourse, Identity, and Workplace Time Commitments’, Organization Studies 27(9): 1339–58.
Ladge J. J., Clair J. A., Greenberg D. (2012) ‘Cross-domain Identity Transition during Liminal Periods: Constructing Multiple Selves as Professional and Mother during Pregnancy’, Academy of Management Journal 55(6): 1449–71.
Langley A., Golden-Biddle K., Reay T., et al. (2012) ‘Identity Struggles in Merging Organizations Renegotiating the Sameness–Difference Dialectic’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 48(2): 135–67.
Lasorsa D. L., Lewis S. C., Holton A. E. (2012) ‘Normalizing Twitter: Journalism Practice in an Emerging Communication Space’, Journalism Studies 13(1): 19–36.
Leonardi P., Vaast E. (2017) ‘Social Media and Their Affordances for Organizing: A Review and Agenda for Research’, Academy of Management Annals 11(1): 150–88.
Lewis S. C. (2012) ‘The Tension between Professional Control and Open Participation: Journalism and Its Boundaries’, Information, Communication & Society 15(6): 836–66.
Lievrouw L. A., Livingstone S. (2006) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences. London: Sage.
Lotan G., Graeff E., Ananny M., et al. (2011) ‘The Arab Spring| The Revolutions Were Tweeted’, International Journal of Communication 5: 31.
McLaughlin J., Webster A. (1998) ‘Rationalising Knowledge: IT Systems, Professional Identities and Power’, The Sociological Review 46(4): 781–802.
Mann C., Stewart F. (2000) Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online. London: Sage.
Miles M. B., Huberman A. M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. London: Sage.
Miller C., Shepherd D. (2004) ‘Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog’, in Gurak L. J., Antonijevic S., Johnson L., et al. (eds) Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Available at: https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/172818
Mumby D. K. (2005) ‘Theorizing Resistance in Organization Studies A Dialectical Approach’, Management Communication Quarterly 19(1): 19–44.
Munro I. (2014) ‘Organizational Ethics and Foucault’s “Art of Living”: Lessons from Social Movement Organizations’, Organization Studies 35(8): 1127–48.
Patton M. Q. (1990) Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods, 2nd ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Pratt M., Rockmann K., Kaufmann J. (2006) ‘Constructing Professional Identity: The Role of Work and Identity Learning Cycles in the Customization of Identity among Medical Residents’, Academy of Management Journal 49(2): 235–62.
Pratt M. G., Foreman P. O. (2000) ‘Classifying Managerial Responses to Multiple Organizational Identities’, Academy of Management Review 25(1): 18–42.
Robinson S. (2006) ‘The Mission of the J-Blog Recapturing Journalistic Authority Online’, Journalism 7(1): 65–83.
Rogers R. (2013) Digital Methods. Cambridge, MA: The MIT press.
Ross K. (2002) May ‘68 and Its Afterlives. London: University of Chicago Press.
Rumens N., Kerfoot D. (2009) ‘Gay Men at Work: (Re)constructing the Self as Professional’, Human Relations 62(5): 763–86.
Reporters Without Borders (RWB) (2013) ‘The Country with 30 Berlusconis Report’. Available at: https://rsf.org/en/reports/brazil-country-thirty-berlusconis
Sakki I., Pettersson K. (2015) ‘A Short Paper: Political Othering—A Methodological Approach’, Psihologia Sociala. Retrieved from http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/110276373/short-paper-political-othering-methodological-approach
Sanders C.R. (2010) ‘Working Out Back: The Veterinary Technician and “dirty Work”’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 39(3): 243–72.
Sandoval M., Fuchs C. (2010) ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Alternative Media’, Telematics and Informatics 27(2): 141–50.
Schau H., Gilly M. (2003) ‘We Are What We Post? Self-presentation in Personal Web Space’, Journal of Consumer Research 30: 385–404.
Sharf B. F. (1999) ‘Beyond Netiquette’, in Jones S. (ed.) Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net. London: Sage.
Shirazi F. (2013) ‘Social Media and the Social Movements in the Middle East and North Africa: A Critical Discourse Analysis’, Information Technology & People 26(1): 28–49.
Shortt H. (2015) ‘Liminality, Space and the Importance of “transitory Dwelling Places” at Work’, Human Relations 68(4): 633–58.
Sillince J. A., Brown A. D. (2009) ‘Multiple Organizational Identities and Legitimacy: The Rhetoric of Police Websites’, Human Relations 62(12): 1829–56.
Singer J.B. (2005) ‘The Political J-Blogger “Normalizing” a New Media Form to Fit Old Norms and Practices’, Journalism 6(2): 173–98.
Slay H. S., Smith D. A. (2011) ‘Professional Identity Construction: Using Narrative to Understand the Negotiation of Professional and Stigmatized Cultural Identities’, Human Relations 64(1): 85–107.
Souza P. (2013) ‘Blogs E Contrainformação Política: Redescobrindo Uma Forma De Luta Simbólica Na Blogosfera’, in Proceedings of V Congresso Da Compolítica, Curitiba, May.
Spicer A., Böhm S. (2007) ‘Moving Management: Theorizing Struggles against the Hegemony of Management’, Organization Studies 28(11): 1667–98.
Stein M. K., Galliers R. D., Markus M. L. (2013) ‘Towards an Understanding of Identity and Technology in the Workplace’, Journal of Information Technology 28(3): 167–82.
Stuart H. C., Dabbish L., Kiesler S., et al. (2012) ‘Social Transparency in Networked Information Exchange: A Theoretical Framework’, in Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Seattle, WA, 11–15 February. New York: ACM.
Sveningsson S., Alvesson M. (2003) ‘Managing Managerial Identities: Organizational Fragmentation, Discourse and Identity Struggle’, Human Relations 56(10): 1163–93.
Swan J., Scarbrough H., Ziebro M. (2015) ‘Liminal Roles as a Source of Creative Agency in Management: The Case of Knowledge-Sharing Communities’, Human Relations 69(3): 781–811.
Tang L., Bhattacharya S. (2011) ‘Power and Resistance: A Case Study of Satire on the Internet’, Sociological Research Online 16(2): 1–9.
Thomas R. (2009) ‘Critical Management Studies on Identity: Mapping the Terrain’, in Alvesson M., Bridgman T., Willmott H. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies, pp. 166–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomas R., Davies A. (2005) ‘Theorizing the Micro-politics of Resistance: New Public Management and Managerial Identities in the UK Public Services’, Organization Studies 26(5): 683–706.
Toyoki S., Brown A. D. (2013) ‘Stigma, Identity and Power: Managing Stigmatized Identities through Discourse’, Human Relations 67(6): 715–37.
Turkle S. (2005) The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Vaast E., Davidson E. J., Mattson T. (2013) ‘Talking about Technology: The Emergence of a New Actor Category through New Media’, MIS Quarterly 37(4): 1069–92.
Van Maanen J. (2010) ‘Identity Work and Control in Occupational Communities’, in Sitkin S., Cardinal L., Bijlsma-Frankema K. (eds) Organizational Control, pp. 111–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vough H. (2012) ‘Not All Identifications Are Created Equal: Exploring Employee Accounts for Workgroup, Organizational, and Professional Identification’, Organization Science 23(3): 778–800.
Walker J. (2005) ‘Mirrors and Shadows: The Digital Aestheticisation of Oneself’, Proceedings of Digital Arts and Culture Copenhagen: IT University of Copenhagen, pp. 184–90. Available at: http://www.floc.dk/socialsoftware/wpcontent/uploads/mirrorsandshadows-final.pdf.
Walsham G. (1998) ‘IT and Changing Professional Identity: Micro-studies and Macro-theory’, JASIS 49(12): 1081–9.
Watson T. (2008) ‘Managing Identity: Identity Work, Personal Predicaments and Structural Circumstances’, Organization 15(1): 121–43.
Ybema S. (2010) ‘Talk of Change: Temporal Contrasts and Collective Identities’, Organization Studies 31(4): 481–503.
Ybema S. (2014). ‘The invention of transitions: History as a symbolic site for discursive struggles over organizational change’. Organization, 21(4): 495–513.
Biographies
Marcos Barros is an associate professor at Grenoble École de Management (France). His research interests include technology and social media, critical perspectives on identity, resistance, and change, alternative forms of organization, and institutional dynamics. His research articles have been published in Organization Studies, Organization Science, and Journal of Management Inquiry.
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: March 12, 2018
Issue published: November 2018
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Article usage*
Total views and downloads: 1324
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 17 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 0
-
The Shifting Nature of Relationality in the Blurred Boundaries of Hybr...
-
Discipline, caregiving, and identity work of frontline professionals: ...
-
‘Brazil must be a country for entrepreneurs and workers, not scoundrel...
-
Online identity work dynamics of Instagram micro-influencers: an extre...
-
Mutual Constitution of Genre and Knowledge: The case of genre resistan...
-
‘Angry accountants’: Making sense of professional identity crisis on o...
-
Does work have a future? The need for new meanings and new valuings of...
-
How does the negotiation between “me” and “we” in professional identit...
-
Etnografia organizacional em um mundo permeado pela tecnologia digital
-
Journalism Metadiscourse on Professional Identity and Verification in ...
-
Reimagining Secondary Data in a Digital Age
-
Overcoming communicative separation for stigma reconstruction: How pol...
-
Collaborative construction of the closet (in and out): The affordance ...
-
Romanticisation and monetisation of the digital nomad lifestyle: The r...
-
Managing precarity at the intersection of individual and collective li...
-
Online identities in and around organizations: A critical exploration ...
-
People on the tweets: Online collective identity narratives and tempor...
-
The mechanism of dirty worker occupational stigma and its coping strat...
-
Stigma Beyond Levels: Advancing Research on Stigmatization
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
