Stephanie Alice Baker PhD., The Post-Secular Society, Influencer Culture and the Spread of Medical Misinformation

My guest today is Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, City, University of London. Her first book, Social Tragedy (Palgrave MacMillan 2014), analyzed how collective narratives emerge in different cultural contexts and the role of the media in communicating tragic events of social significance.

Her second book examined how lifestyle and wellness influencers construct authority and influence online. She situated this research in discussions around trust, expertise, microcelebrity and medical misinformation. She has published several key articles on these topics as well as a book, Lifestyle Gurus: Constructing authority and influence online (Polity 2019), co-authored with Chris Rojek.

Her most recent book, Wellness Culture: How the Wellness Movement has been used to Empower, Profit and Misinform, traces the emergence of wellness culture from a fringe countercultural pursuit to a trillion-dollar industry.

Dr. Baker says that we are now living in a post-secular society, where even though a lot of people think of themselves as religious or spiritual, many of the institutions and moral frameworks that dictated how people ought to live, have changed.  In this society many people fear that the world as they knew it is rapidly disappearing. They feel lost, suffering what Anthony Giddens calls ontological insecurity..

The frequently degrading nature of modern industrial work, the growth of totalitarianism, the threat of environmental destruction, climate change, the alarming development of military power and weaponry, the polarization of the political discourse, the ever-increasing reliance on robotics with its consequent loss of job opportunities for unskilled workers has become a source of great anxiety for vast numbers of people. 

Polarization, skepticism, doubt and division have led to an erosion of trust in institutions, the media, science and government. This low institutional trust will increasingly become an issue, especially as disinformation floods the world as a result of AI.

Of course, as the old saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”  Gradually, over the last decade, we have seen  the emergence of a whole new class of individuals: the lifestyle and wellness influencers. How can individuals with no expertise, no medical training achieve this high degree of trust and loyalty from their followers?

One way is by their stress on being  authentic. “I'm so authentic”. And this adjective  is really important. Because in describing themselves in this way, what they're actually doing is distinguishing themselves from say, a manufactured Hollywood celebrity, indicating that they're more real,  more genuine. And as a byproduct, you can trust them more. Right? 

Now by achieving fame on social media as well, they also seem much more accessible than, say, a mainstream celebrity who is surrounded by managers and agents and various producers or assistants. And one way in which this impression of accessibility is maintained is this idea that we're all sharing the same platform, that I could send somebody who's an influencer a direct message on social media and they will read it and respond. Fat chance. 

And the third aspect, which is really important to an influencer, is to present themselves as being outside of the system. Not beholden to any-one. An independent person just like you. Not one of the “elites.” Along with that goes this idea of being self-made, of being ordinary and ju

If you liked this podcast

• please tell your friends about it,
• subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and/or write a brief note on apple podcasts,
• check out my blogs on Psychology Today at

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/thomas-r-verny-md