Resilience and vulnerability: Emotional and affective labour in mom blogging

This article investigates the empirical case of commercial mom blogging as indicative of the particular ways in which the digital economy invites and exploits women's affective and emotional labour. Based on Finnish mom bloggers' interviews, the article explores the ways in which emotional labour is needed to tackle the mean and degrading comments that most bloggers have to come to terms with, and the ways in which their affective involvement is an inseparable part of their work as mom bloggers. Looking at vulnerability, control and emotional resilience as sites of emotional and affective labour in blogging, the article shows how gendered and embodied burdens are carried on to the digital realm, and how new vulnerabilities and forms of affective labour are formed and normalized.

Automated summary

This article investigates the exploitation of women's emotional labor in the digital economy through the case of commercial mom blogging. It explores how emotional labor is essential for bloggers to deal with negative comments and how their emotional involvement is integral to their work. By examining vulnerability, control, and emotional resilience in blogging, the article highlights how gendered and embodied burdens are shifted to the digital realm and new forms of emotional labor are normalized.