@gonzalezanaelle
French Political psychologist + Postdoctoral researcher at the @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social (KU Leuven) | Teens, (social) media use, influencers, politics and morality | Poetry lover & dog mom www.anaellegonzalez.com
Grateful to have been part of the guest editorial team for the special issue “Digital Environments and Youth Mental Health” in Doxa Comunicación.
Important contributions on risks and opportunities at the intersection of digital media and well-being.
Enjoy 📖!
🔓 doi.org/10.31921/dox...
Le projet européen MIMIc (ERC) a étudié les usages numériques de 2 700 ados en 🇧🇪🇸🇮🇫🇷.
Au programme :
📌 Écrans, réseaux sociaux & santé mentale
📌 Influenceurs, moralité & politique
Puis interventions de Prof. Grégoire Borst & M. Arthur Tréguier.
📢 Journée d’étude – Grandir à l’ère du numérique
5 ans de recherche 🇪🇺 sur les écrans & la santé mentale des ados.
📅 17 déc. à Paris
👉 Jeunes, parents, enseignants, chercheurs & pros du numérique sont invités !
🔗 Inscription : forms.gle/y5GeWvJyvLhQ...
Our postdoctoral researcher @gonzalezanaelle.bsky.social won 3rd place at the One Health Day Art & Photography Competition by #OneHealthInstitution for her poem–collage The Object.
The piece reflects on how screens & social media connect and distance us from ourselves, others, and our environments.
🎓Last Monday, @gonzalezanaelle.bsky.social successfully defended her PhD dissertation “Politics Undercover: Understanding the role of social media personalities in adolescents’ development of the political self,” supervised by @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social and funded by @erc.europa.eu👏Congrats!
I’m excited to share two pieces of good news:
🌻 Last week, a 300+ page baby was born as I submitted my PhD dissertation!
🌞 And from Oct, I’ll start a one-year postdoc to continue my research on adolescents, influencers & morality at the @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social. Now on to quieter summer days!
The MIMIc project, led by @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social, investigates how ‘malleable ideals’—the constantly shifting portrayals of success & perfection in media—influence teenagers’ well-being, identity, and life aspirations.
Discover more 👉 buff.ly/jLuzdnI
By unpacking the impact of social media-driven pressures, #MIMIc aims to foster a healthier, more grounded digital culture for future generations.
👉 buff.ly/aMHbznT
#TeenMentalHealth #FrontierResearch @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social
Excited to share some conclusions of our research on youth and well-being @gonzalezanaelle.bsky.social @jasminarosic.bsky.social @luca-carbone.bsky.social @gvanhoffelen.bsky.social @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social
Bottom line: Instagram isn’t just aesthetic and commercial—it’s normative.
Our study highlights how social media figures subtly promote values aligned with consumer culture, entrepreneurship, and individualism.
📖 Read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1177/2056...
#influencers #commsky
Building on Johanna Arnesson's concept of influencers as ideological intermediaries, we propose an extension to consider them as value intermediaries—figures whose content may shape audiences’ value orientations over time. Further research is needed to examine these long-term effects. (7/10)
The paper explores the intricacies between influencer and celebrity culture, Instagram’s vernaculars and commercial logic, and the hegemony of self-oriented values and Western cultural priorities in top aspirational content. (6/10)
Some distinctions emerged between influencers, celebrities, and athletes—for example, influencers and athletes were more likely to share hedonistic and benevolent content. The paper offers rich qualitative insights that help illustrate how these values are expressed in practice. (5/10)
Most of these values were expressed visually rather than textually, underscoring the importance of manual and visual content analyses. Relying solely on textual analysis risks overlooking how such abstract constructs are communicated through imagery. (4/10)
Using Schwartz's theory values, we found that 100% of the personalities, and 60% of the content they share conveyed at least one value. The most frequent?
✨ Achievement (25% of posts/stories)
💖 Benevolence (22%)
🍷 Hedonism (20%)
(3/10)
What values do social media influencers, celebrities, and athletes promote on Instagram? And how are these values expressed? As part of the @erc.europa.eu project MIMIc, we analyzed 1256 posts and 2936 stories from 59 of the most-followed Western public figures to find out. (2/10)
🔓New open access publication alert!
My latest article, "The Values of Fame: Exploring the Visual and Textual Representations of Basic Values in Influencers’ Instagram Content", w/ @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social & I. Akgün is just out in Social Media + Society. (1/8)
🔗 doi.org/10.1177/2056...
Commission TikTok à l’Assemblée : « Certains influenceurs ont un sentiment d’impunité » usbeketrica.com/fr/article/c...
Commission d’enquête sur les effets psychologiques de TikTok et des influenceurs sur les mineurs www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/organ...
Congratulations @luca-carbone.bsky.social, so very well-deserved 💛
The second project is a theoretical model I'm developing with @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social on (im)moral influencer content and adolescents—applied to the case of virtual influencers. Hopefully more about this in the coming months. 😀
The first project was a study on adolescents' use of Snapchat's "My AI" chatbot, led by @gvanhoffelen.bsky.social, @laraschreurs.bsky.social & @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social as part of the ERC MIMIc project.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to represent the @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social at the SSH Research Day of @kuleuven.bsky.social on 'AI in and for Humanities and Social Sciences' with a poster on two research projects within the lab.
#ICA25 FoMO is definitely real with all these stunning hiking pictures and inspiring presentations. Wishing everyone an amazing conference! I, myself, will be enjoying the calm at the @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social to wrap up my PhD and get ready to submit by the end of the month. #AlmostPhDone 🙃🌞
This research was conducted as part of the ERC-funded MIMIc project at the @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social, and I’m grateful to my brilliant co-authors @gonzalezanaelle.bsky.social @laraschreurs.bsky.social @Caroline Giraudeau and @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social for their collaboration on this work ✨
New pub! 📈
Can picture-perfect social media posts make adolescents more perfectionistic?
Using a 3-wave panel design, we examined the reciprocal links between exposure to positive content on social media and perfectionism among 1,697 adolescents from Belgium, France, and Slovenia.
Read more:
🥳 New publication on the links between social media use and perfectionism in adolescence, as part of Prof. @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social 's MIMIc project (www.projectmimic.eu/)
We’re excited to welcome Anaëlle Gonzalez @gonzalezanaelle.bsky.social to the team as our new Social Media Editor!
She’s the talent behind the great content you’ve seen recently, and we’re looking forward to what’s ahead.
Welcome, Anaëlle!
Thank you Brigitte! I’ll try my best to fill your shoes 😁
