Follow the Feed
From B2B marketing to wellness influencers, this Sprott marketing researcher is on a mission to give people more agency over their digital lives.
The next time you scroll past a glowing supplement ad or watch a fitness influencer walk you through her morning routine, you might pause and wonder: why does this feel so convincing? Dr. Dora (Yun) Wang has been wondering the same thing, but with a lot more rigour.
Dora is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Sprott, where she joined in 2023. Her work blends marketing, sociology, and psychology to uncover the forces that shape what we buy, how we eat, how we move, and how we think about our own health. Social media is her laboratory.
Dora’s doctoral research began in B2B marketing, exploring how companies use social media strategically. But a personal thread of curiosity pulled her in a new direction. “I have a personal interest in the impact of social media on people’s daily lives,” she says. “Sometimes I scroll, and I have doubts. How does this actually affect me?” Those questions became the foundation of her doctoral research.
For her PhD, Dora studied dietary supplement consumption, a market saturated with influencer content and consumer confusion. She wanted to know not just whether social media shaped supplement use, but why people make the choices they do, even when a product might not be effective. Her findings showed that people consume supplements for a range of reasons beyond health alone, including psychological comfort, social belonging, and self-expression. Some remain committed users even when they suspect the supplements may not be effective.
“Marketers can serve as a bridge between consumers and health professionals. If we help people understand why they are consuming something, they can make better-informed decisions.”
Dora has a favourite analogy for social media: a hammer. The same tool can be picked up and applied across entirely different jobs, and her research reflects that. She described completing a postdoctoral fellowship after her PhD, and since then, she has expanded into fitness culture, studying how live-streamed workout classes reshaped exercise habits after COVID-19. She has examined how emoji use and language choices affect engagement with brand social media posts. She has also explored how online reviews shape the retail return experience. Now she is turning her attention to wellness influencers: supermodels, fitness creators, and lifestyle personalities who hold enormous sway over their followers’ health decisions.
The topic Dora is exploring is nuanced. It is not simply that influencers spread misinformation, though that matters. It is that the deep sense of connection followers feel toward these figures, what researchers call a parasocial relationship, can override critical thinking entirely. Followers may trust a creator’s recommendation the way they trust a close friend. “Is this trust based on an emotional connection, or on genuine credibility?” she asks. “Those are very different things.”
That question about trust and health behaviour is not just relevant to influencers. In 2024, Dora was awarded a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant to study how social media engagement shapes the health behaviours and well-being of adults aged 50 and older. The project, conducted in partnership with a consultancy and healthcare services provider for seniors, examines what motivates older adults to engage with health content online and how those interactions affect whether they seek out health services.
None of Dora’s research exists independently. The throughline across all of her work is a commitment to helping everyday people understand the forces shaping their behaviour online. “My research aims to help people become more aware of why they follow certain influencers and use certain platforms,” she explains. “I want to guide them toward using social media in ways that promote their own health and their own agency.”
Spend a few minutes with Dora, and her curiosity is immediately apparent. She is the kind of researcher who thinks across disciplines but is just as interested in others and their experiences. Collaboration is central to her approach. She regularly publishes alongside colleagues from marketing and information systems, drawing on perspectives that might not otherwise meet, and views every new project as a chance to learn from someone else’s vantage point.
“The part of research I enjoy most is the process. From brainstorming to data analysis to finishing the manuscript, I can be totally immersed in that world. That’s the most beautiful part.”
For students and non-specialists alike, Dora’s work carries a clear reminder that online content is never neutral. Every feed is curated, every influencer has a strategy, and every product recommendation lives inside a web of psychological and social forces. Understanding those forces is what Dora Wang is working on. And she is just getting started.