Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Keywords: Consumer culture, Consumer society, Postmodernism, Consumerism, Lifestyles, \nCritical discourse analysis, Interpretative repertoires, Fashion, Values, Blogging, Youth in Estonia, \nSocial behaviour \nValues among young fashion bloggers in Estonia \nThe aim of this bachelor thesis is to analyze fashion blogs written by young Estonians and find out \nthe most popular subjects and emerged values. \nThe paper’s theoretical part draws on the works of Mike Featherstone, Don Slater, Howard \nRheingold, Quentine Jones, Anita Blanchard and Ronald Inglehart. There are also used analyses and \nresearch papers conducted by the institute of journalism and communications at the University of \nTartu. The theoretical and empirical basis of the paper formed a wide range of subjects that included \nnotions like consumer culture, lifestyle and consumerism; virtual communities, blogs and the \nconstruction of identity; values and value dimensions; youth in Estonia, their values and practices of \nInternet usage. \nIn purpose to answer to the research questions there were identified 5 most popular fashion blogs in \nEstonia that are written by young Estonian women in age 15-22. Methodologically there were \ncombined content analysis with qualitative analysis, which used Norman Fairclough’s critical \ndiscourse analysis in purpose to determine most important interpretative repertoires. \nMethodologically I used 200 blog posts for content analysis that were written between August 2010 \nand February 2011 depending on the writing frequency. For qualitative analysis I used 5 blog posts \nfrom each blog (25 blog posts in total) that in the basis of content analysis had received the highest \nnumber of comments. \nThe study showed that fashion bloggers write the most on subjects related to fashion (incl outfit of \nthe day, visiting fashion events and gathering inspiration related to fashion). Additionally in case of \ntwo central subjects the most popular posts were the ones where fashion subject appeared together \nwith spending time with close people. The subjects like personal life and more precisely the \nsubjects only about close people appeared the least. There were also few posts about visiting shops/ \nmarkets/fairs and carrying out the do-it-yourself projects. \nThe subjects that got the most feedback were about some competition or giveaway that presume \nreaders to post a comment. These posts were followed, with a certain space, by subjects related to \ntoday’s outfit or recent fashion shoot and then visiting different fashion events. In general the \nnumber of comments were directly connected with the subject’s frequency of occurrence. \nThe values that appeared the most in the blog posts were aesthetic values. These values were mainly \nrelated to the interpretative repertoires about fashion and beauty. In addition, the fashion bloggers \nvalued the difference from other people and emphasizing one’s individuality. The second \ninterpretative repertoire arised such values as self-determination and ambitiousness, but also the \nimportance of education, intelligence and wide reading. The third interpretative repertoire \nrepresented different hedonistic values such as pleasant and carefree life, new experiences, \ncreativity and inspiration. Related to these values there was also arised the valuation of urban \nlifestyle. \nIn general the picture of values of young fashion bloggers in Estonia is very similar to other young \npeople in Estonia. However, fashion bloggers value more different aesthetic values and they also \nemphazise more individuality and receiving public recognition. Similarly to other young people in \nEstonia fashion bloggers have receded into the background values related to the openness of the \nworld, nature and the relations with other people (friendship, love etc).
Author: Kadri Mets
Language: Estonian
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2157764545