Fashion Blogging Dissertation

So I thought I’d share with you what I’ve learned from the whole experience!

I’m not going to go into the specifics about who I studied and what my findings of my research were.

It was a long, laborious process but I am so happy now that it is done.

I decided to do my dissertation on Instagram, more specifically on fashion bloggers on Instagram.

This study seeks to identify the key elements of blog content that fashion bloggers must possess at a minimum to have any significant degree of influence on their readers.

Four key elements have been identified as fundamental to having and sustaining influence among blog readers, in general; (1) Trustworthiness (2) Expertise (3) Personal Relevance and (4) Authenticity.I haven’t got my mark back yet and I think that would be unwise!But I am going to talk about what I have learned, as a blogger, about Instagram and fashion blogging in general from the whole experience. Most articles focus on the biggest fashion bloggers in the world, like Chiara Ferranghi and Aimee Song.In order to perceive the significance of fashion bloggers within fashion industry, Interpretivisim is adopted in this research due to complex and distinctive situations.So today is going to be a bit of a different post for me. ) you may know that I handed in my dissertation this week.Consumers become invested in bloggers largely because they view them as incredibly trustworthy and not trying to necessarily sell something for the sake of selling; they truly believe in and use the product/service being promoted.These blogs become a sense of community for readers, and readers look to them for advice on their product purchases.These women are hugely successful and obviously earn a lot of money from the businesses they created from their blogs.However, by focusing on these women who lead extremely glamorous, luxurious lifestyles it paints fashion blogging as this sort of social climbing activity. Yes – the biggest fashion bloggers in the world have now transcended what fashion blogging was like originally. One of the most discussed subjects in fashion blogging is what is ‘authentic’ and what is ‘relatable’.A survey of 159 fashion students at Kent State University’s Fashion School was conducted to gain further insight into the fashion blog readers’ perceptions of influence in the context of these four key elements.The presence (or absence) of the four elements do appear to positively (or negatively) impact influence on a typical fashion blog reader or subscriber.