Sofia Ranchordás

Professor Sofia Ranchordás

Small Group Project 2018-19

DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Marketing: Influencer Endorsements and the Regulation of Social Marketplaces

This research project aims to shed light on the regulatory challenges of a current social media trend that has received little attention from the academic literature: ‘influencer marketing’. Digital influencers are typically social media users who start out as anonymous citizens but who reach stardom with self-made visual content. These ‘prosumers’ attract thousands of digital followers while sharing day-to-day behaviour and their lifestyle advice on fitness, nutrition or parenting. Marketing literature has suggested that their followers internalise this non-expert advice as they perceive social media influencers as authentic.

More information

Areas of interest

Administrative Law Public Law Digital Technology

Cohort

FG4

Biography

Sofia Ranchordas is a Full Professor of Administrative Law at Tilburg Law School. She also holds a part-time appointment as a Professor of Public Law, Innovation, and Sustainability at Luiss Guido Carli in Rome. In 2022, she was awarded a five-year NWO-Vidi project to conduct research on vulnerability in the automated state from a comparative perspective. Ranchordas is interested in the power asymmetries between government and citizens, how digital technology can exacerbate or create new vulnerabilities in the interactions between citizens and governments, and how to empower individuals either through more empathic approaches to law or to technology. Her scholarship has been published in leading law journals, such as Computer Law & Security and Duke Law Journal, as well as with Oxford University Press and Cambridge University. Ranchordás’ book Introduction to Law and Regulation, 2nd edition (with Karen Yeung) was published in December 2024 with Cambridge University Press.

Biographical details correct as of 11.05.26