Constructing Authority and Credibility

As feminist discourse circulates on Chinese social media, it increasingly adapts to the constraints of social norms, algorithmic visibility, and platform censorship. In this context, a strand of female empowerment content has emerged on RedNote (Xiaohongshu). Rather than a radical departure, this represents an adaptive branch of feminist expression-emotionally resonant, strategically curated, and publicly palatable. This study defines and examines the emerging category of female empowerment influencers, investigating how they establish trust with audiences through narrative strategies, authority-building approaches, and how these efforts are perceived by viewers. Employing a mixed-methods design, the research combines content analysis of 115 videos with in-depth interviews with three users who regularly engage with female empowerment-related content. The content analysis involved multidimensional coding of thematic content, authority-building approaches, and narrative strategies, followed by dimensionality reduction using Categorical Principal Components Analysis (CATPCA) and correlation analysis. Interviews contextualize these patterns by revealing how audiences interpret credibility and authenticity. Findings suggest that digital authority and credibility is co-constructed through layered strategies. While authenticity is frequently used, audience trust is more consistently conferred when influencers demonstrate ideological coherence, contextual appropriateness, and alignment with perceived feminist values. The study further highlights that credibility is not merely a function of content or credentials but is shaped by platform affordances, socio-political norms, and relational dynamics. This research contributes to digital feminist media studies by refining the concept of authenticity labor and claiming the contingent and negotiated nature of trust in influencer culture. It also offers insight into how feminist influencers can more effectively cultivate credibility and authority by aligning their content with audience expectations and broader cultural imaginaries of empowerment.