PART 1: RESEARCH PROPOSAL YOUR NAME: Marybeth Fair TOPIC: I am studying the social media app “Instagram” and the “social media persona” accounts prevalent on the site. RESEARCH QUESTIONS: How do the accounts of “social media persona” women on Instagram negatively influence their followers? AUDIENCE & SIGNIFICANCE: I am conducting this research in order to help followers of such accounts understand how these accounts influence their minds and lives. CONTEXT: This issue is important and timely because of the explosion of popularity of this app in recent years. In September 2015, Instagram hit 400 million monthly users (CNBC). Many of these accounts are “social media persona” accounts, pages dedicated to showing artful pictures of women and their lives. Often having hundreds of thousands of followers, these women have a significant, and often harmful, influence over their followers. I plan to investigate this negative influence in order to inform their followers. EXHIBIT: To illustrate my discussion of “social media persona” women, I plan to focus on case studies of specific Instagram accounts within the larger lens of completed studies on social media influence, celebrity influence, technological influence, etc. KEY SOURCES FOUND SO FAR:

MLA Citation Type of Source What does it offer?

"Instagram Star Essena O'Neill: Social Media Is Not

Real - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, 4 Nov.

2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Website News Article a testimony to the negative effects I am investigating

"Diana Marks (@dianamarksofficial) • Instagram Photos and Videos." Diana Marks (@dianamarksofficial) • Instagram Photos and Videos. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Website/ Social Media Account

an example of one of the accounts I am discussing

Wortham, Jenna. "On Instagram, a Thriving Bazaar Taps a Big Market." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Website News Article explains how these Instagram accounts create profit, showing that these photos are created to influence their viewers

PART 2: EXPLORATORY DRAFT Through this project, I hope to accomplish a study of the negative effects “social media persona” Instagram accounts have on their followers in order to make these followers aware of the influences they are under and allow them, if necessary, to make changes to their following habits. This topic is personally interesting to me. I have an Instagram account, and while I do not follow many “social media persona” accounts, I often see photos from these accounts on other websites. When I see these pictures, I wonder about the emotional and mental effects of these images. Do they affect most people the same way? How strong of an effect do they have? Are they, as many claim, inspiration to build a healthier lifestyle and achieve fitness goals, or, as I plan to argue, do they lead to low self-esteem and a false sense of realistic women? The prevalence of these accounts, some with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers, convinces me that this problem is important. If those many followers are exposed to this content daily, the effects of this exposure are important to research. Instagram is a social media app where users create a profile to share either pictures or 15-second videos. Many women use this site to garner large followers by posting artful photos, inspiring quotes, perfectly arranged meals, the outfit of the day, and more. These women gain followers mostly through posting photos with many hashtags (a technique for assigning a topic to a photo), hoping users will stumble across their account and follow them. The more followers they gain, the more people to discuss their account and lead to more followers, and the cycle continues- or such is the hope of those who make these accounts. In the description for their page (“bio”), many have links to other social media platforms, and almost all have an email listed. Companies whose consumer base matches the followers of the account can contact the owner and offer sponsorship, paying the owner to post a photo with their product. In this way, the women can realistically make a livelihood out of this social media account.

Vries, Dian A. De, and Rinaldo Kühne. "Facebook and Self-perception: Individual Susceptibility to Negative Social Comparison on Facebook." Personality and Individual Differences: 217-21. Print.

Journal Article explains how Facebook leads to more negative social comparison, which can in turn lower self-esteem

Clay, Daniel, Vivian L. Vignoles, and Helga Dittmar. "Body Image And Self-Esteem Among Adolescent Girls: Testing The Influence Of Sociocultural Factors." Journal of Research on Adolescence: 451-77. Print.

Journal Article explains the results of a study that suggest viewing ultra-thin women can reduce teen girls’ self-esteem

In just the very beginnings of research into specific “social media persona” accounts I have conducted, I immediately found an interesting array of self-descriptions for the owners of these accounts, listed in their bios. “Fitness junkie (@dyedblonepony),” “Food, Crossfit, Health (@kimmysheri),” “Foodie, Fitgirl, Lifestyle (@stefaniegoldmarie),” “Art addict (@sofikulin),” etc. The most thought-provoking self-description, however, was “digital influencer with blue eyes and 1.2 million fans (@dianamarksofficial).” Digital influencer is such a perfect term to describe these women. They have such a powerful influence- they can send whatever information they choose into the pockets of hundreds of thousands of people. I am not the first to be concerned about what information they choose and the effect it has on their followers. Just last week, a digital influencer named Essena O’Neill deleted her Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook accounts, claiming that the lifestyle she was purporting “was not real life” (CNN). The internet has clamored to praise her for being honest and fighting back against the lies of social media. I intend to bring a new perspective by investigating many accounts. Rather than focus on the creator, as was mostly the case with this example, I instead to fully study the followers. The intended audience of this project includes those who follow these “social media persona” accounts. These Instagram users will benefit by gaining the knowledge to critically evaluate what they choose to view every day. They can adjust whom they follow, or even simply how they react to photos, by understanding how they are influenced by these images. If my findings result in a loss of followers to these accounts, the creators of these pages stand to lose. I plan to start my essay with a brief explanation of a digital influencer and how the “industry” works. Then, I plan to dive into specific examples of Instagram accounts. I can look at the comments on the photos to see how the followers responds. I plan to supplement the investigation of these accounts through more general scholarly articles. They will note a general phenomenon in social media, and I will provide specific examples in these Instagram accounts. I plan to make the points that the portrayed lifestyle of these accounts is fabricated, that these photos promote an unhealthy body image, that they promote obsessive behavior, and they cause dissatisfaction with the reality of their follower’s lives. I have found many sources to support my argument. Multiple news articles have been published on the story of Essena O’Neill, making her an ideal case study. She has also released two videos explaining her decision to quit social media, providing an ideal primary resource. I have found an abundance of examples of “social media persona” accounts, all of which will help to find examples for my project. There are also many articles that can be related to my argument. Specifically, there is a New York Times article explaining the profit behind these accounts. An article in the journal Personality and Individual Differences provides evidence of social media use leading to negative social comparison, and an article in Journal of Research on Adolescence explains the correlation between viewing thin models and negative self-image. These articles can be then applied to Instagram specifically to support my claims. My audience expects evidence of statistics and scholarly research. I plan to provide both of these types of evidence to fulfill these expectations, but also dive into specific examples from the accounts I am discussing. The digital influencers themselves will likely disagree with me, as I am, in essence, warning their followers of the danger in following their accounts, often a lucrative source of income for these women. They will likely point to their followers who claim these women inspire them to live a healthier lifestyle.

I have a few questions and concerns regarding this project. First, I plan to hinge a significant portion of my argument on specific examples from Instagram, so I will have many direct quotes or examples from the site. I am not sure how to cite Instagram in MLA format. Also, in the paragraph where I explain these accounts, I did not use a source. I consider the workings of these common knowledge, so do I have to find a source to cite that information? I am also worried that I will get bogged down in the specific examples and my paper will become too lengthy. Finally, I am concerned that my paper is too expected and overdone, that there has already been a large number of papers discussing the negative effects of these images of “beautiful,” unrealistic women on their viewers. It would be interesting to argue in favor of these accounts, but I am not sure how much evidence I could find supporting that claim.