[presentation] the megaphone effect

8/13/2019 [Presentation] The Megaphone Effect

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The Megaphone

EffectTaste and Audience in

Fashion Blogging

McQuarrie (2013)

GROUPDyasanti Vidya S.Miku SasakiDarja MossolainenVerna Kaipainen


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The online sphere has made it

possible for ordinary consumers toreach a mass audience, to

grab hold of the megaphone.


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In the context of fashion blogging: the

megaphone effect occurs when ordinary

consumers post to the web aboutconsumptioncreating user-generated

contentand acquire a mass audience

for these posts.


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THE WEB HAS CREATED

A NEW CONSUMER

PHENOMENON

Fashion bloggers achieve an

by means of publicly

consuming: choosing,evaluating, as well as

engaging with clothing and

posting accounts of this

consumption that garner a

large audience of strangers.

The Web allows ongoing

communicationby ordinary

consumers to a massaudience of strangers.

"#


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DEMOTIC TURN

TURNER

(2010)

The demotic turn is defined as an

increase in opportunities for ordinary

people to appear in the media.

"#Normally only media professionals and

powerful institutional would appear on

gain a mass audience.

The megaphone phenomenon in terms ofdemotic turn: in certain consumption

spheres, ordinary consumers without

institutional positions are able to grab

the megaphone for themselves.


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CULTURAL CAPITAL

BOURDIEU

(1999)

The idea of endowment: only individuals

surrounded by objects of high culture from

birth were likely to succeed in making the kindof aesthetic judgments required to be

accepted into high social position.

"#The problem: This would imply that a woman

who did not grow up surrounded by high

fashionwho did not grow up wealthy, withaccess to haute couture, runway shows,

designer brand clothing, and occasions to

wear it would lack the proper habitus to

succeed as a fashion blogger.

The concept offield-specific capital.


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Field-specific capital?

As an endowment, cultural capital explains reproduction

(Bourdieu and Passeron 1977); a social position is maintained and

newcomers are denied.

Bourdieus thinking became less focused on social position within

society as a whole and more concerned with how individualsmaintained or advanced their position within specific fields;

capital can be invested and further accumulated.

The resource of cultural capital in the fashion field is: taste

judgment power (Gronow 1997). Taste has levels. Fashion

bloggers can be seen as individuals who start with some capacityfor taste (low levels) and proceed to accumulate it (high levels)

through repeated exercise and display.


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FROM TASTE TO

CAPITAL: 2 MEANINGS

OF TASTE

Consumers learn to calibrate their tastes to join

with others who share the same taste regime

(Arsel and Bean 2013)

"#Taste as distinction-between draws boundaries, creates groups,

fosters solidarity, and acts to cluster like-minded individuals.

Taste is judgment power and aesthetic

discriminationtaste as a standard for

discriminating the admirable from the pedestrian

(Gronow 1997)

Taste as distinction-over assertspreferment, claims status for

one above others, sustains hierarchy, and can raise select

individuals to positions of prominence.


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Goffmans (1959) work argued that

participants in social encounterscould be parsed into actorsand

audience(actors strive to put on

and convey a certain persona

rather than revealing their identity;

audiences accept these personas

to be true).

No social actor is ever authentic.

A fashion blogger gains the

capacity to own a persona shecan rehearseand rewriteuntil

she gets it right.

Howdoesone

usuallyact infront of

anAUDIENCE?{


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Blog sampling (10 Blogs) Amateur consumer bloggers only

Womens blogs Written in EnglishBlog analysis

An analysis of the verbal and visual texts visible in these blogs(Fairclough 2003; Gleeson 2011), with an emphasis taste

Examine their performance overtime by comparing currentposts and early posts

The focusis on thetaste judgments made by bloggers, with asecondary focus on audience response to these judgments

What did the bloggers choose to discuss and not discuss?What kinds of words and phrases were used and avoided?What was the content and style of the pictures displayed?

METHODOLOGY

"#


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BLOGGER TRAJECTORY I

"#

INITIAL POSITION

FROM PERSONAL JOURNEY TO TASTE

DISPLAY

FROM COMMUNITY TO AUDIENCE

All 10 bloggers began blogging as ordinary consumers outside of the fashion

system. At the time of the launch of their blogs, these 10 individuals did not appear

any different from other ordinary consumers.

Early posts give the impression of a consumer using the blog as an online journal

for personal disclosure, but soon begin to transition toward public displays of taste.

Such displays (opinions/commentary/critics) can be recognized as tasteleadershipbecause they attract, hold, and grow large audience.

Initially, the blog proceeds as if a virtual community was going to be constructed,

with the blogger acting simply as one participant among others. But as heraudience grows larger, the bloggers behavior changesshe stops interacting with

her followers. They become engaged in the concept of distinction-over.


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BLOGGER TRAJECTORY II

"#

FROM CURATING TO MODELING

FROM SNAPSHOTS TO PROFESSIONAL IMAGES

In the beginning, bloggers (in the sample) borrowed fashion pictures for free to

show taste (i.e. Polyvore) due to budget constraints. As time goes on, theyre

expected to be tastemakerssomeone who can actively execute her own style

rather than passively combining others stylesthan mere curators, so they

progressed from combining others pictures to taking pictures of themselves.

In the beginning, the photos posted by bloggers appear similar to snapshots.

Eventually, the bloggers proceed to take more professional-looking photographs

of themselves as models. This growing professionalismof pictures comes from

better training, equipment, as well as high-fashion poses.


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BLOGGEROUTCOMES

Economic rewards: gifts

of branded fashion

clothing, paid adplacements+sponsorship,

modeling contracts,

publication of writing.

Social rewards: social

position improves as they

receive invitations to

exclusive parties, runway

shows, designer open

houses, charity

appearances, mentions in

the media.

"#


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AUDIENCE MAINTENANCE

Practices of misrecognitionFeigning Similarity: Bloggers feign similarity with their

followers by referring to mundane and ordinary aspects oftheir lives that downplay the glamour and rarity.

Self-Deprecation: Self-deprecation and self-ridicule

serves to make the blogger appear less distant as well as

to downplay accomplishments.

Misrecognition and authenticityAuthenticity: opposition to the mainstream(Thornton 1996). Holt (1998) defines a quest for

authenticity as avoidance of market-constructed

meanings, along with resistance to mass

culture.

"#


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SUMMARY

OF FINDINGS"#


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Diana Rikasari: An Indonesian

Fashion Blogger(http://dianarikasari.blogspot.com)A blogger turned entrepreneur.


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Case in Japan: "Reader ModelAn amateur model who's been

selected to model for fashionmagazinessome of the most popular

models are of this category.


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How does this paperrelate to IMC?

A bloggers audience ismore likely to take her

recommendations into

account when making

purchasing decisions.

How your products/ services are described

in blog and comments is hard to control

consistency of the brand can be questioned

further by the audience through this channel

of influence.

Sponsorship: Many bloggers

receive lots of gifts from

companies that they choose

carefully to put in their blog.

[presentation] the megaphone effect

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