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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

St. Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Area Studies

BACHELOR'S PROJECT

Field of study: 39.03.01 Sociology

Degree programme: Sociology and Social Informatics

Beauty industry: digital representation of aesthetic labour

Kseniia Alexandrovna Mikhailova

Supervisor:

Candidate of Sociological Sciences

Margarita Igorevna Kuleva

Saint Petersburg 2020



Contents

1. Introduction

2. Literature review: Aesthetic labor and digital modernity

Aesthetic work: the history of the concept formation

Shift to self-employment and aesthetic work

Aesthetic work in beauty industry

Digitalization and its impact on social contexts

Digital personal brand: Instagram as a business platform

Aesthetics and Instagram blog

3. Methodology

Data collection

Data Encoding and Analysis

4. Study results: Digital representation of aesthetic labor

Summarizing portrait of informants

Beauty industry as a professional field

Motivation for entering beauty

Work and life balance

Commercial and non-commercial projects

Aesthetic work in the profession of makeup artist offline

Emotional labor

Makeup artist's appearance

Makeup artist's inspiration

Online and offline self-branding in beauty industry

Methods for self-brand construction

Instagram advantages

The difficulties of promoting on Instagram

Aesthetic work of a makeup artist online

Blended accounts - the importance of personality

Content creation

Makeup artist's image on Instagram

5. Conclusion

References

Appendix

Appendix № 1 Interview guide

Appendix № 2 The table of key characteristics of study participants

Appendix № 3 Interview with informant № 1

Appendix № 4 Coding tree and color matching themes



1. Introduction

beauty industry aesthetic work

This qualitative study investigates the topic of aesthetic work in the conditions of self-employed digital modernity. On the example of makeup artists, the aesthetic work of a self-employed service worker in an offline and online worlds are considered. Most of the attention is paid to the online aesthetic work of makeup artists: what aesthetic efforts it include, how it helps in the design and promotion of a personal brand, and also what aspects of the makeup artist's aesthetic work are transmitted from offline to the online world. 18 makeup artists from St. Petersburg acted as participants in this study. Semi-structured interviews and their thorough thematic analysis helped to formulate detailed conclusions on how self-employed beauty industry workers represent their aesthetic work through online channels.

Today in the sociology of labor there are several trends that require significant scientific attention. The first is the steady growth of customer focus in all professions, implying direct contact with people. This shift from an unemotional, rational bureaucracy to the concept of an emotional, customer-oriented workflow made a significant impact on the process of hiring employees in an organization (Bolton, 2000). An important role is played here by the aesthetic work of a person, his external and internal incorporated dispositions which help to create a favorable image of the company (Warhurst & Nickson, 2007). Thus, the chances of getting the desired working position directly depend on how much person's incorporated dispositions reflect the life position of the company and whether this person can become a potential face of the brand / organization (Mears, 2014).

However, there is also a second trend in the field of labor - a shift in favor of self-employment (Стребков & Шевчук, 2016). This model of labor implies self-organization of the work process without any company's control. In these conditions, a person does not need to comply with certain requirements of the company or to become the face of a brand. He becomes a personal self-brand. He is forced to organize his workflow and form client flows. Therefore, the need for aesthetic labor still exists. However, it remains to be seen who sets the rules and how the requirements for the incorporated dispositions of the employee are formed in this situation.

Today, online spaces play a huge role in the formation and promotion of a personal brand. They provide a person with the opportunity to demonstrate business to a larger audience, to build trust with it, attract new loyal customers (Sihi & Lawson, 2018). However, living a part of life online requires workers' significant aesthetic effort to track own feelings, manners and appearance. It becomes obvious that aesthetic work today is required not only in offline interaction with people, but also in the online sphere.

Despite the constantly growing body of research in this area, there are still significant theoretical gaps. It should be noted that previously the phenomenon of aesthetic labor was considered mainly on the example of employees in organizations, disregarding the aesthetic work of self-employed workers. In this work, it is planned to consider representatives of the self-employed sphere. Another gap is that most of the works about aesthetic labor study these phenomena predominantly in offline space. Based on what has been said above, it is undeniable that the representation of aesthetic work now occurs online. In this study it is planned to combine and compare the aesthetic work in both offline and online spheres.

Representatives of the beauty industry, namely makeup artists of St. Petersburg, are used as the object of research in this study due to several reasons. These professionals are directly service workers and today they are predominantly self-employed (Mikhaylova, 2019). As Mears (2014) argued, careers in such precarious spheres as beauty, modeling, aсting, etc. are built basing on aesthetic labor. In order to get a long-term client base, makeup artists should meet customers' needs, which requires tremendous emotional and bodily work from the professional (Gimlin, 2000). Moreover, the master is constantly forced to maintain a “commodity” appearance, as it plays the role of advertisement of his services. In this case, aesthetics is a way of selling and an object of sale simultaneously (Harvey, et. al., 2013). Moreover, today makeup activity is actively promoted through accounts on Instagram (Mikhaylova, 2019). The clients flow is depends on master's online self-representation of own personality and professional activity. Thus the aesthetic work of the makeup artist helps him to promote online.

This work is aimed at obtaining a theoretical understanding of the aesthetic labor done by service workers in digital modernity. The following research question is arisen: how beauty industry workers represent their aesthetic work through Instagram accounts. The main goal of this study is to describe in details the online representation of makeup artists' aesthetic labor. To achieve this goal it was necessary to solve the following tasks: to explain how the aesthetic labor of the makeup artist is represented offline and what features and consequences it has; to estimate the importance of Instagram for self-branding and promotion in beauty industry; to understand what makes up the aesthetic work of a makeup artist online; to identify which aspects of aesthetic labor are transferred from offline life to the online space.

The work will be organized as follows: first, a brief review of existing literature will be provided. It will help form an existing holistic picture of aesthetic work in modern digital modernity. Then, methods for collecting and analyzing data will be described. Based on the analysis, generalized conclusions regarding online representations of the aesthetic work of service workers will be made. The knowledge gained in this study will help to fill the existing theoretical gap in the field of studying aesthetic labor in the conditions of self-employed digital modernity. From a practical point of view, this study has a certain marketing value, forming a real-based views of the aesthetic practices used for self-branding and promotion on the example of people whose professional career was formed through the online spaces.



2. Literature review: Aesthetic labor and digital modernity

This theoretical review should help to form an idea and assumptions about the aesthetic work of service freelance workers in digital modernity. Firstly, a brief introduction to the history of the concept of aesthetic labor will be made. To complete all research tasks, this phenomenon will be considered in conditions of self-employment and beauty industry. The second part of the literature review will cover the topics of digitalization, its impact on labor and self-brand construction. And finally, Instagram, as a platform for promoting and building a personal brand, it will be considered.

Aesthetic work: the history of the concept formation

The first steps in the study of Aesthetics in the framework of labor were taken back in the 1980s. In fact, at that time there was no "aesthetic work" as a concept, but in that period the active study of its basis - emotional work started. Then scientists began to actively raise issues of emotionality (such as love, happiness) from a conceptual scientific point of view. In the field of the labor study, this topic was especially interesting, since there was a significant shift from the concept of emotionless, but rational bureaucracy, to the concept of emotional labor (Bolton, 2000).

This concept was proposed by the American sociologist Hoshchild (1983). In her work, she described the commercialization of human feelings. Obviously, in most types of employment, the emotional component plays a huge role in the formation of relations within the work collective creating a comfortable atmosphere for communication. However, more importantly: in some areas the role of emotions is much wider. They often form the external image of the company beyond its borders, because to a large extent the employee-client relationship affects the attitude of potential consumers to the company and creates further demand for its services. Hochschild (1983) in her works checked these assumptions on the example of employees whose work includes the obligatory manifestation of emotions, for example, flight attendants who must constantly smile, be polite and courteous. This should create a favorable atmosphere on the plane and increase the level of trust and loyalty to the company. At the same time, these workers should not have shown such emotions as boredom or sadness, even if they arose inside, it was necessary to suppress them. Such beliefs about emotions have affected many areas of work, which implies direct contact of the employee with the client.

It should be noted that there are a huge number of rules that officially or non - officially govern the management of emotional manifestations. This fact underlines the need to recognize this work as hard social work, and people are, to some extent, social actors who play a certain social role. (Hoshchild, 1983). Nevertheless, such a “special” manifestation of emotions can cause self-alienation - a concept that was borrowed from Wright Mills (Stearns,1984). Such alienation from one's own emotions - namely, the manifestation of “artificially induced, correct” and the suppression of personal emotions can lead not only to internal dissonance, but also to more serious consequences, such as moral exhaustion.

In general, many scientists over this almost forty-year period of study raised the question of the ambiguous consequences of emotional work at both individual and institutional levels. Hьlsheger & Schewe (2011) in the early 2010s conducted a large-scale meta-analysis of works that have appeared in the sociological field since the introduction of the emotional work concept. They emphasized two models of human acting. Deep acting involves focused control of emotions at the stage of occurrence - the targeted suppression of "wrong" emotions by stimulating certain feelings. An example of deep acting can be seen in actors who use special technics in order reproduce tears on the stage. Thus, they truly experience the necessary emotion. Surface acting, in turn, is used when emotion has already arisen within a person. This process is more about emotional expression. For example, the expression of joyful facial emotions in an actually sad state Brotheridge (2003) compared with "putting on a mask." In this case, the real and expressed emotions required by the rules do not correspond; this can lead to internal emotional dissonance.

Grandey & Gabriel (2015) in their analysis described in detail the consequences of emotional work, including emotional dissonance, and how this discrepancy can affect the internal state of the employee, and in the long run, the entire activity of the company. The authors concluded that the well-being of the employee is threatened from the point of job satisfaction, emotional burnout, and other psychological problems that may arise as a result of active practice of just surface acting. While the deep acting effect does not have a negative effect on the person and, moreover, is positively associated with the level of job satisfaction. Regarding organizational well-being, the authors argue that the existing view that “Service with a smile” always has a positive effect on business development is a mistake. First, company productivity may decline, because workers are forced to pay more attention to emotional work than their rest. Secondly, the surface acting - the manifestation of emotions not really experienced, is often felt and not approved by the interlocutor, which means that the company's customers can form a negative attitude towards it because of insincere emotions of employees.

It should be noted that when the concept of emotional work was just in its infancy, and when Hoshchild (1983) investigated this topic, the studies were mainly aimed at works where smile and generally “right” emotions were a formal work duty of a person. In other areas client-oriented and emotional components have not yet taken an important place. However, as Bolton (2000) notes over time, more and more professions become customer-oriented. It should be noted that today almost all vacancies in the service sector are occupied by those people who are able to control their emotions in the work context and create a favorable environment both within the work team and in relations with customers, which positively affects the overall impression of the company and enhances the future demand for her services.

A shift in emphasis from emotional labor to aesthetic work occurred in the 2000s. Witz and colleagues (2003) were one of the first scientists who believed that Hoshchild's view should be changed. According to their points of view, the concept of emotional labor unjustifiably underestimates the importance of the incorporated aspects of a person. They expand the concept of emotional labor using the Bourdieu's concept of Habitus - as a system of durable portable dispositions, learned as a second nature through the process of socialization (Bourdieu, 1990). These "conditions", manifested, for example, through the manner of speech, body language and clothing present the concept of aesthetic work as the mobilization, development and commodification of incorporated dispositions (Witz, et. al., 2003)

Thus, aesthetic labor is labor incorporated into the employee and, in addition to emotions, this already includes a huge number of characteristics. As a result of hard work and the continuous development of these incorporated dispositions, a person can turn it all into a spectrum of soft skills that are so necessary for working with a client (Warhurst & Nickson, 2007). Over time, these soft skills became decisive when applying for jobs in the service sectors. Employers strive to select a team in such a way that its behavior as a whole reflects the life position of the company.

When society recognized the importance of incorporated dispositions, employers began to actively use them for the competitive advantage of the company and create a corporate image, and the employment process acquired more thorough features of staff selection and training (Warhurst & Nickson, 2007). Despite the fact that the object of this study (makeup artists) most often works outside the organization, it was still important to note this point, because it gave rise to some work-discrimination that affected the subsequent labor field.

In emotional labor, physicality plays a supporting role, or, as Mears (2014) says, the role of a screen that only depicts a person's internal state. While, aesthetic labor implies the body as the most important aspect of the worker. People with “inappropriate” physical characteristics, or traits that do not correspond to the company's concept, had low chances of getting the job (Cutcher & Achtel, 2017). Authors claimed, that the potential employee is regarded as the “face of the brand”, which should not only meet generally accepted standards regarding beauty and politeness, but also create the desired image of the company and sphere at whole.

The role of beauty in sociology is already so crucial that even such a concept as the economy of beauty has appeared. It describes trade relations in which a person sells the beauty of own body. Mears (2014) emphasized that some scientists even propose introducing the concept of a “third shift” that describes the work of caring for own appearance. It should be noted, that in conditions of increased importance of the physical characteristics of the body for employment, such a concept is necessary.

In addition to physical attractiveness, employers also often pay attention to the employee's incorporated soft skills, which can be turned into an embodied service style (Nickson, et.al., 2012). They note that in most areas, the employee should be able to “charm” the client using the right tone of voice, manners, etc. Often people with good self-presentation and speaking skills are more likely to get a job and even pay bonuses.

It should be noted that most of the works in this field have a feminist focus, as there is an opinion that women suffered from aesthetic requirements more than men. It is explained by the fact that women are more represented in the service sector, in which aesthetic work is an integral part of the work process (Toerien, Kitzinger, 2007).

Partially, this assumption can be considered as true. However, Rooijakkers and Holla (2019) in their critical review of Elias's book about Aesthetic Labor, note that attention to the masculine aspect of aesthetic labor is unfairly understated. The authors argue that men are discriminated against no less than women, although beauty standards are objectively more often associated with the latter. That is why men should not being purposefully excluded out of the sample of this study.

For example, in the work of Harvey and colleagues (2013), the object of the study was male and female personal trainers. Authors argued that both of them are forced to adjust their bodies, clothes, and communication in such a way as to be most attractive to potential clients and there is no strong difference between the efforts on aesthetic labor between men and women.

Shift to self-employment and aesthetic work

Returning to the present, it should be noted that in many areas of employment, scientists note a shift in favor of self-employment (Стребков & Шевчук, 2016). Although before the importance of aesthetic work was considered in the framework of organizational employment, now it is important to point out what role these incorporated dispositions play in a person's employment if he chooses the path of a freelancer.

This model of employment often involves the absence of a permanent workplace. In this regard, it is useful to turn to the Mears's article (2014), in which she told about the differences in aesthetic work among representatives of hired labor and self-employed workers. The author noted that the majority of the latter's careers are built precisely on the basis of aesthetic work, as the main factor, especially in such precariat areas as fashion, beauty or acting.

Therefore, in this study it would be interesting to see how, in the absence of organizational rules and the need to comply with brand, the employee is forced to develop his own self-brand using aesthetic work tactics. Hracs & Leslie (2014) claimed that such workers must have some marketing and self-management skills and become a self-entrepreneur in order to ensure a continuous flow of customers.

Although it is commonly believed that freelance has huge number of advantage: freedom from strict corporate rules, freedom to choose projects, and so on. In fact, such work imposes quite a few restrictions on a person. The most obvious commitment is to stay “in touch” and always be ready to work (Gregg, 2011). Moreover, freelancers must be attentive to any new acquaintances, since any of these connections can potentially be converted into client base (Wittel, 2001).

Representatives of professions where face and body are fundamental aspects of work - actors, models, fitness trainers (Entwistle & Wissinger, 2006; Harvey, et. al., 2013) are forced to constantly monitor themselves - to work in the gym, follow diets, follow fashion trends in order to remain in demand. Thus, the incorporated aesthetic work in these areas is continuous and irregular, and the freelancer, independent of any organization, is still significantly dependent on potential customers. In addition to constant work on oneself, a career in such areas largely depends on network and social contacts, as well as on luck (McRobbie, 2002). As noted by McRobbie (2002), this method of self-realization requires a person to have enhanced self-control and a high level of reflexivity in order to objectively evaluate the work done and the upcoming future perspective.

In this case, it is especially important to consider the term “self-branding”, which is also directly related to aesthetic work. Self-branding is the set of practices of transforming self into a commodity person (Liu, Suh, 2017). Vivid example of self-entrepreneurship in the fashion world can be seen in the study of Entwistle and Wissinger (2006). Models in most cases work independently of any organizations. Model agencies are just intermediaries between the model and the client, and the model itself works as a freelancer. Due to their activity, they are forced not only to maintain a “commodity” appearance, but also to be able to sell themselves as a personal brand in order to remain in demand in the labor market. In general, this statement can be transferred to the object of this study to check how they build their self-brand using aesthetic efforts.

Another interesting example is a fitness trainer from a study by Harvey and colleagues (2013). Their selling appearance is literally an advertisement of their services. Therefore, the authors compared them with walking billboards - the more inflated, athletic, prominent body of a trainer - the more professional authority and trust he has in the eyes of a potential client, which means higher chances to extend client base. This can be easily transferred to the makeup artists studied in this work, in this case, the personal well-groomed face and professional makeup of the makeup artist can be considered as an advertisement of his activities and cause more trust and loyalty in clients.



Aesthetic work in beauty industry

An interesting fact is that there are two narrow, similar terms beauty work and beauty labor, which however have different meanings. While beauty work refers to the concept of working on one's body and appearance, beauty labor means the direct provision of services in the beauty industry (Kwan & Trautner, 2009).

There is a huge amount of research studying the beauty work, since this topic provides an extensive research field on self-representation, stereotyping, and so on. Kwan and Trautner (2009) provide evidence that the existing social system is designed in such a way that even often the distribution of sanctions and rewards is often based on the appearance of the person. Aharon and Etcoff (2001) conduct an experiment and demonstrate the result that more attractive people are perceived as more successful, socially experienced and self-confident. Etcoff with colleagues (2011) carried out another experiment where participants tried to assess several aspects of the person (attractiveness, competence and reliability) depending on the makeup that was applied to them. The results of the study confirm that on the whole attractiveness has a positive effect on perception: due to cosmetics people were perceived as more competent and attractive (Etcoff, et al., 2011). Moreover, beauty can influence not only at the individual level, but also at the institutional level, it affects such institutions as education, work, marriage (Kwan & Trautner, 2009). This can explain the need for employers to create the image of the company, which was mentioned above.

It should be noted that both terms play an important role in this work. Work in this industry involves a laborious beauty work on own appearance and beauty in order to use it as an advertisement of one's services. At the same time, beauty labor is also present here - an important aspect of the direct provision of services in the beauty industry. Also there is an emotionally costly process of interacting with a client. Moreover, a beauty worker must have specific qualities of character, that present himself in a special way. It confirms the fact that employment in this sector contains a crucial aspect of aesthetic work. According to Gimlin (2000), one of the most important tasks of cosmetologists is to build a trusting relationship with a client based on emotional affection and mutual politeness. Many scientists also argue that clients often come not only for the purpose of external transformation, but also for the purpose of enjoying communication, raising morale in difficult life situations, so beauty workers should be patient and attentive to the specific needs of their client.

The concept of beauty industry, as well as the concept of aesthetic labor, are still closely intertwined with gender stereotyping. It should be noted that until the 90s even cosmetics itself was positioned in society as an exclusively female attribute (Kumar, et. al., 2006). The production of cosmetics, focused on the male audience, began to be carried out only by the end of the last century. This partially determined the public attitude towards employment in this area. Work in the beauty industry is still perceived as a predominantly female career path.

Abrosimova (2015) carried out an analysis of a focused group interview in which women were asked about professional areas that would be most suitable for female. In the first place, the majority of respondents noted the beauty industry. In addition, the respondents noted that men will not be able to take place in this area, because "it's in the blood" of women (Abrosimova, 2015).

This activity is gender defined as female, but the question of stopping the distinction between genders has already been raised in many studies (Skoger, et. al., 2011). For example, Hjort and Komulainen (2017) considered the peculiarities of using makeup among men in the modern world. The authors considered this as an example of male beauty bloggers: what are their motivations, how do they represent themselves. That study aimed to expand the existing prospects for gender consumption at a theoretical level and to some extent refute gender stereotyping of men in the beauty industry.

Summing up the data presented in this section, it becomes obvious that the aesthetic aspect plays an important role in professions related to the beauty industry (Gimlin, 2000), even despite the fact that employment in this area most often implies self-employment - employees are forced to adapt to current fashion trends and customer needs, to stay in demand (Entwistle and Wissinger, 2006). In order to get a long-term client base, makeup artists must meet all customer requirements and present themselves in a certain way, which requires tremendous emotional and bodily work from the master.

Digitalization and its impact on social contexts

The emergence of new and updating of old technologies occurs almost every day, as well as their continuous implementation in the life of mankind. This leads to the high relevance of studying the processes of digitalization, so more and more scope of studies consider these topics.

The digitalization is a fairly broad concept, which can be used to characterize the introduction and adaptation of technical phenomena in various spheres of society: its social, organizational and individual contexts This large-scale capture and influence on practically all spheres of human life has left the process of digitalization in the focus of attention for several decades (Legner, et. al., 2017).

The influence of digitalization is becoming apparent and it significantly transforms the perspective of the development of the modern world, which literally faces the digital revolution. Developed countries are rapidly introducing technology in the fields of science, politics, workers' organizations, which means that the previously existing way of functioning of these areas is undermined. For example, the most easily noticeable examples can be seen in the field of education, which is partly intertwined with the theme of this work, since teaching is one of the most common way of making money for makeup artists.

People born in the early 21st century have acquired the status of digital natives. This definition separated the representatives of the society closest to digital technologies, since from an early age they interact with computers, telephones, which means they most accurately master the digital skills (Prensky, 2001). As Prensky notes recent generations have a fundamentally different thinking process - they think and process information differently than their predecessors. Moreover, they have completely different values and beliefs. They themselves are innovators and researchers (Tapscott, 2008). Therefore, there is no doubt that such changes in children require significant restructuring in the entire education system in order to make the learning process the most effective and useful. Similar examples can be given from other areas of society, including the labor market, which are under the undeniable impact of modern digital technologies.

Digital personal brand: Instagram as a business platform

More attention has recently been paid to the self-branding due to the rapid development of technologies and an active shift in favor of freelance, in particular digital freelance (Стребков & Шевчук, 2016).

As Gandini (2015) argues, technologies, the inaccessible Internet and the use of social networks today are a working tool that is actively used by employees to create and maintain a personal image for successful career growth. In modern conditions, a huge role is played by the reputation, understood in meaning, as one of the forms of social capital transformed under the conditions of the modern digital labor market. Creating a professional reputation, in general, is a process of self-branding, which can be considered not only an integral part of labor, but also labor itself, since it is an energy and time-consuming process of building self, which can also affect status, salary, etc. (Hearn, 2008).

Online space increases opportunities for career advancement and promotion. However, in addition to the obvious advantages, there are also significant disadvantages of using online channels to create a personal brand: for example, a high level of competition, insecurity of personal information (Sihi & Lawson, 2018). It should be noted that people whose profession previously mainly consisted of offline work, for example, models (Entwistle &Wissinger, 2006) or musicians (Hracs & Leslie, 2014), now are forced to actively use online channels in order to maintain the interest of the audience. Earlier this “free” employees should always be in touch offline and always ready to work in order to permanently maintain their professional reputation, which significantly violated work and life balance (Gregg, 2011). And today, the need to conduct a regular online representation of oneself erases the line between personal life and professional activity even more.

The variety of applications and social networks fundamentally distinguishes the life of a modern person from the life of previous generations. Many scholars view modern youth in the context of flexible, and even to some extent excessive use of social networks. Brunck (2014) call modern young people “the app generation”, identities, perceptions and thinking of which have social networks as the basis of almost all life attitudes. Moreover, the authors of the article call the modern world “an all-encompassing super-application,” since with a simple analysis it can be seen that any human need can be satisfied by the applications. Physical needs are met indirectly (eliminating hunger through an online food delivery order), while, for example, the need for communication or recognition can be met through social networks such as Facebook or Instagram.

In existing body of literature about online self-branding mostly research is carried out on the basis of the Instagram. This unique social online space offers a significantly wider range of methods for self-presentation to a wide audience than other platforms. Moreover, Marwick (2015) argues that visual content, which is the main form of expression on Instagram, gives information more credibility, unlike text materials. Successful creation of a personal brand in this network or doing business in it requires extensive knowledge in the field of social media marketing, an understanding of all the functions of the platform, and regular analysis of the nearest competitors. It can be said that this social network today functions as a full-fledged market space (Yadav, et. al., 2013).

Such an active use of this site, without a doubt, has many advantages, the most obvious of which is the active interaction with potential customers: it helps to increase the level of trust and loyalty to the business. Moreover, this open market encourages more active generation of innovative business models (Hofacker & Belanche, 2016). On the other hand, this whole system gives rise to a number of difficulties (Sihi & Lawson, 2018). The authors of this article investigated the motivation of marketing leaders to blended Twitter accounts, where the word “Blended” means - combining personal and professional content. According to the results obtained, almost all interviewees confirmed that for them maintaining accounts on social networks is a challenge, since it takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Moreover, an open demonstration of the principles of the company's work on the one hand increases the level of trust from potential customers, but on the other hand encourages active plagiarism from the main competitors. Therefore, the advantages of social networks in this regard are quite contradictory (Sihi & Lawson, 2018).

Instagram is considered as one of the most profitable for promotion, since the specificity of the content allows a potential consumer to appreciate the service offered. Since in this study the main topic is industry of beauty, it should be noted that visual content plays the most important role in this area. And the principle of the Instagram's work lies precisely in combining visual content as the central form of expression (Toffoletti & Thorpe, 2018) with textual information, which allows to most effectively influencing the user's perception. The algorithms of this social network contribute to the competent building of a person's reputation. The number of account subscribers and the level of their activity indicate the relevance of the proposed information or service. Often, account owners resorted to automated cheating of activity indicators, which led to a decrease in the effectiveness of Instagram, as this negatively affected the overall level of consumer trust. However, then, Instagram algorithms were rebuilt in such a way as to prevent artificial activity of the audience. Instagram regained the status of an effective competitive marketing platform (Agung & Darma, 2019).



Aesthetics and Instagram blog

People leading their profiles on Instagram make huge effort on creating content, which definitely includes an aesthetic work, to maintain a professional and personal self-brand (Brydges & Sjцholm, 2019). In fact, Instagram gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to live their lives online, which creates more trusting and even, as Toffoletti and Thorpe (2018) pointed out, parasocial relationships - an illusion of real relationships with the audience and potential clients. But in order to create such a relationship with the audience, it is necessary to maintain blended accounts mentioned before (Sihi & Lawson, 2018). The authors also argued that publishing content brings people internal or image utility. The first is the internal satisfaction of publishing content, while the second is the satisfaction of positive feedback from people who viewed the publication.

As a rule, this image utility drives people to creating publicly known accounts in social networks. Bloggers, whose activities attract a large number of people, become influencers or Opinion Leaders (Zhao, et. at., 2018). They are able to influence the opinions, attitudes, views of their audience. This makes them also interesting for companies and brands who want to advertise their products. Scientists note that one of the most common modern trends is female entrepreneurship through blogs (Duffy & Hund, 2015). These blogs are often related to topics that are stereotyped as female - fashion, maternal issues, cooking, beauty. In addition to the visual and informational aspects, the success of such blogs largely depends on self-branding, which has also been discussed above. Therefore, blogging in this case can be considered a full-fledged business, often based on informal, but valuable knowledge (Duffy & Hund, 2015).

Duffy & Hund (2015) use the concept of passionate work introduced by McRobbie (2002) to show how passionate occupation, that initially doesn't correspond common understanding of the work concept, become a real hard work. Of course, blogging as compulsory employment entails hidden flaws. Since this work is based on freelance, it makes worker to be constantly in contact with the world and work flexibly, as well as constantly engage in self-branding. Moreover, maintaining life online requires a lot of effort on one's physical and moral state. Therefore blogging can also be called aesthetic work. It should also be noted that blogging and maintaining the interest of the audience requires a manifestation of creativity, which can be reduced by the obligation to constant publications (Schultz & Sheffer, 2008). This can lead to emotional burnout - this is one of the reasons why some bloggers lose their inner motivation to stay in blogging sphere.

Thus, this thorough analysis of theoretical concepts has been divided into two global parts. The first section was devoted to the formation and application of the concept of aesthetic work, and the second described digitalization and its consequences for the business and personal brand. The makeup artist is a representative of offline profession; this work is based on direct contact with people and have a significant aesthetical component (Gimlin, 2000). But today, this profession has come face to face with the phenomenon of the digital revolution and need to be adapted within these conditions (Mikhaylova, 2019). Today Instagram is considered as the main channel for creating self-brand and representation of itself not only as a professional, but also as a person, which requires considerable aesthetic work from the makeup artist. The blended accounts of professional makeup artists on Instagram today play the role of a portfolio and help to regularly expand the existing client base (Sihi & Lawson, 2018). Therefore, in this work, it is planned to study the aesthetic work of makeup artists through blended Instagram accounts, since it seems that the demonstration of both individuals and work information requires more aesthetic work from the master.



3. Methodology

Data collection

This study arises the following research question: how beauty industry workers represent their aesthetic work through blended Instagram accounts. Therefore the main goal of this study is to thoughtfully describe the online representation of aesthetic labor by makeup artists.

To achieve this goal it was decided to conduct a qualitative study using purposive sample method, which ensures the selection of only those participants who have suitable characteristics and can freely communicate on planned topics (Bryman, 2016). The method of semi-structured personal interview was chosen. It is one of the most common methods of qualitative sociological research, since itis universal and flexible; it can be clearly adapted to research tasks and goals (Kallio, et. al,.2016).

The interview guide was formulated for semi-structured interviews (See Appendix No. 1). It included 6 blocks of questions. The first two blocks of questions was introductive and was aimed at obtaining information about the respondent's personal and make-up background in order to provide the whole picture of beauty industry as a labor field. The third block was aimed at describing the organization of the makeup artist's workflow as a freelancer. Question block number 4 was about the aesthetic work of makeup artists in an offline world. The purpose of this block was to determine how important the aesthetic work of a makeup artist is in designing a self - brand, as well as to identify the consequences of aesthetic work. In turn, the 5th block of questions was considered the aesthetic work of the makeup artist online. Here it was planned to get a description of the role of Instagram accounts in the career of a makeup artist, to determine what the aesthetic work of a makeup artist online includes and how important it is in the online design of a personal brand. Also, the questions of this block were aimed at identifying the consequences of aesthetic work and a description of the online relationship between the makeup artist and his audience. And finally, the sixth block of questions contained the final general questions.

A thorough analysis of 18 interviews was conducted. Requests for contact information (Instagram accounts) of for makeup were sent to managers of several makeup professional schools. In the case of a shortage of interested participants in the study, it was planned to search for participants using the hashtags “#VisagistSpb” and “#VisagistPiter” on Instagram. And also in this case, the possibility of selection by the snowball method was not rejected. As a result, all three methods were used to select informants.

But in all three cases of selection, strict criteria were used. Firstly, only make-up artists with professional education in the field of beauty were studied, this excluded the inclusion of “self-taught” participants in the sample. Moreover, offline experience in this area should have been at least a year. This ensures that there are no people with little experience in the sample and whose opinions may differ significantly. It was important to consider the nature of the activity, since only people who provide work in the service sector were studied. Thus, the sample did not include people who studied at the courses “Makeup for self”. It was also necessary to take into account not only the presence of an Instagram account, but also the active maintenance of a “blended” (Sihi & Lawson, 2018) account for at least six months. Active maintenance in this case means regular publication of content, lack of publications stagnation. This helped to exclude people who do not express their aesthetic work in the online field and, accordingly, are not suitable for this study.

Thus, the final sample of the study consisted of 18 people (See Appendix No. 2). The average age in the sample was approximately 26 years: the youngest informant was 20 years old, and the oldest was 37 years old. Of all the respondents, only three were native residents of St. Petersburg, 12 came from such cities of Russia as Kazan, Perm, Pskov, and so on (see Appendix No. 2). One of the informants was a native of Estonia, the city of Narva, two more came from the city of Minsk, Belarus. However, all study participants at the time of the study were permanent residents of St. Petersburg.

11 out of 18 informants were graduates of basic professional schools for makeup artists, the rest were found by hashtags (6 people) and by snowball method - 1 person. Among those who did not receive basic education at school - 4 people underwent basic visage training in private courses, and 3 people in the sample did not undergo basic vocational training. Nevertheless, all informants during their careers took advanced training courses or attended professional master classes, so everyone in the sample has a professional education (and all relevant documents). All study participants had experience in providing services in the beauty industry for more than a year. And also each of the informants was actively maintaining a blended account on the social network Instagram, on which he represented himself as a beauty industry worker.

Data collection was carried out as follows: 12 interviews were collected at a personal meeting in St. Petersburg. 6 interviews were conducted through video communication using the VKontakte platform, as well as messengers Telegramm and What's App. Acquaintance and recruiting of all informants was always carried out through direct messages on Instagram. The shortest interview in duration was 25 minutes. The longest is about 100 minutes. The average interview duration was approximately 50-60 minutes. An example of an interview can be found in the applications (see Appendix No. 3).

It should be noted that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, there were some difficulties in collecting data. First, the online data collection was not as convenient as a face-to-face meeting. Often there were connection problems due to the congestion of the Internet. Moreover, the duration of the interview was significantly reduced. Secondly, the number of refusals to participate in the study increased: despite quarantine, many potential informants cited a lack of time, and many simply found the format of the online interview uncomfortable.



Data Encoding and Analysis

Since this study is qualitative, the main purpose of its analysis is to obtain an in-depth interpretation of the object of study, which would contain a detailed description of social contextual meanings and characteristics (Vaismoradi, et.al.,2016).

There are several approaches to qualitative analysis. The first one is the realistic approach. It implies a thorough analysis of external objective factors and the internal experience of informants, thus forming an integral picture of a person's social reality. There is also another approach - narrative. This method focuses on informants' narratives that are not analyzed as objective stories, but as personal interpretations (Holstein & Gubrium, 1995). In this work, it makes sense to use the narrative method, since here the personal, most often the internal experience of the informant, as well as his reaction and personal interpretation of this experience are studied.

To analyze the data obtained, the thematic analysis method was used. This method helps to identify and analyze how the planned topics are presented in the received data. This method is often used by researchers as a tactic for qualitative independent data analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

The coding and analysis of the obtained data was carried out manually (See Appendix No. 4). Units of analysis were defined - in most cases, these were thematic blocks of interviews, which were sometimes divided into subtopics - personal background, make-up background, organization of the makeup artist's workflow, aesthetic work in the makeup artist's profession offline and aesthetic work in the makeup artist's profession online. The last block was given the most attention, since it, directly, helped to answer research questions of this work. Each interview from the database was analyzed for the above topics. The results obtained from each interview were compared among themselves, and then generalized conclusions were formulated.

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