WOMEN REVOLUTIONISING MONEY?: INVESTIGATING MEANING-MAKING AND GENDER MESSAGING IN FEMALE-TO-FEMALE FINFLUENCING ON INSTAGRAM

Abstract

Women were excluded from financial independence historically, causing a significant gender gap in financial literacy. Financial decision-making was based on households where women were deprived of contribution, as they were not allowed to act as the main account holder and were seen as dependents in the formal financial system. However, informal communities were formed, sharing intimate knowledge in alternative ways of personal finance. In the online Web 2.0 environments, social media platforms, namely Instagram, could serve as new forms of learning environments for financial literacy through informal peer-to-peer learning and therefore become a virtual extension of existing 'saving communities' in real life. The paper highlights the existence of a small but thriving personal finance community on Instagram and provides evidence of the volume of content related to personal finance, debt, and saving money on the platform. The emergence of female financial influencers created a sense of virtual togetherness where women felt safe to seek peer support and share personal stories. This paper proposes four-phase research using netnographic immersion journals (Kozinets, 2022), an online survey, and semi-structured interviews and will present the early findings from data collection beginning in March 2023. It proposes a networked perspective addressing technical, social, and cultural components (Selbst et al., 2019) in relation to the formation, expansion, and evolution of female financial influencing on Instagram. This study responds to the wider conference themes of revolutions by examining social barriers to seeking financial support at the intersection of feminist studies, the digital divide, and financial literacy.