Purpose – The purpose of this article is to demonstrate why the time is ripe for a reflexive turn in social marketing, in response to criticisms of social marketing as neo-liberal, positivist and lacking critical introspection. Design/methodology/approach – The paper traces the development of three paradigms in the field, highlighting the entrenchment of a traditionalist paradigm that heretofore has stifled critical debate and reflexive practice. However, the emergence of social ecologist and critical social marketing paradigms has stimulated the imperative for a reflexive turn. Insights into reflexivity, its relevance and applicability for researchers, participants and other stakeholders in social marketing are considered. Findings – The paper offers a conceptualisation of social marketing assemblages using the lens of actor-network theory and identifies how this can stimulate engagement and reflexive practice for researchers, participants and other stakeholders (such as non-governmental organisations and Government departments involved in delivering programmes). Originality/value – The article presents relevant theoretical and practical benefits from a reflexive turn in social marketing, highlighting how this will furthermore contribute to discipline building.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the representations and experiences of beauty amongst fat women to understand how females located outside of the normative ideal consume, express, challenge and resist “straight” beauty.Design/methodology/approachA netnographic approach is taken to analyse 922 blog posts written by five female “fatshionistas” who play a significant role in the Australian fat activism movement.FindingsThe research findings illustrate that fatshionistas (re)negotiate cultural notions of beauty through three performative acts – coming out as fat, mobilising fat citizenship and flaunting fat.Research limitations/implicationsThe study demonstrates how beauty is negotiated as a mode of praxis, a performance in the interaction of day‐to‐day life, whereby the possibilities for multiple and provisional beauties are highlighted.Practical implicationsGiven the active participation of those outside of the idealised form in “mainstream” beauty consumption, practitioners should make visible multiple bodily representations that are not reduced to an unhelpful construction of what is considered to be “real”.Originality/valueBy emphasising the lived experience of beauty as something subjective, communal and resistant, this research poses a challenge to mainstream marketing that constructs beauty as normative, singular and conformist. The paper further calls for a “queering” of the gender research agenda within marketing to better interrogate the linkages between an individual's fluid and contested identity work, consumption and marginalised or excluded status within the marketplace.

The rise of digital technologies and social media platforms has been linked to changing forms of work, as well as the mainstreaming of pornography and a ‘porn chic' aesthetic. This article examines some of the ways in which these themes coalesce, and interrogates the conceptual boundaries of sexualized labour, extending beyond traditional organizational settings and into Web 2.0. The study explores performances of sexualized labour on social media by analysing visual and textual content from 172 female influencers on Instagram. This article contributes to the literature on sexualized labour in three ways. First, by demonstrating how sexualized labour is enacted across various forms of influencer labour, and how this relates to the attention economy and monetization. Second, by developing the extant conceptualization of sexualized labour and introducing connective labour as a required element to mobilize sexualized labour. Third, by opening up a critical analysis of what is meant by ‘sexualized' labour within a cultural context of pornographication.