Väärtushinnangud Eesti noorte moeblogijate seas
Date
2011
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Keywords: Consumer culture, Consumer society, Postmodernism, Consumerism, Lifestyles,
Critical discourse analysis, Interpretative repertoires, Fashion, Values, Blogging, Youth in Estonia,
Social behaviour
Values among young fashion bloggers in Estonia
The aim of this bachelor thesis is to analyze fashion blogs written by young Estonians and find out
the most popular subjects and emerged values.
The paper’s theoretical part draws on the works of Mike Featherstone, Don Slater, Howard
Rheingold, Quentine Jones, Anita Blanchard and Ronald Inglehart. There are also used analyses and
research papers conducted by the institute of journalism and communications at the University of
Tartu. The theoretical and empirical basis of the paper formed a wide range of subjects that included
notions like consumer culture, lifestyle and consumerism; virtual communities, blogs and the
construction of identity; values and value dimensions; youth in Estonia, their values and practices of
Internet usage.
In purpose to answer to the research questions there were identified 5 most popular fashion blogs in
Estonia that are written by young Estonian women in age 15-22. Methodologically there were
combined content analysis with qualitative analysis, which used Norman Fairclough’s critical
discourse analysis in purpose to determine most important interpretative repertoires.
Methodologically I used 200 blog posts for content analysis that were written between August 2010
and February 2011 depending on the writing frequency. For qualitative analysis I used 5 blog posts
from each blog (25 blog posts in total) that in the basis of content analysis had received the highest
number of comments.
The study showed that fashion bloggers write the most on subjects related to fashion (incl outfit of
the day, visiting fashion events and gathering inspiration related to fashion). Additionally in case of
two central subjects the most popular posts were the ones where fashion subject appeared together
with spending time with close people. The subjects like personal life and more precisely the
subjects only about close people appeared the least. There were also few posts about visiting shops/
markets/fairs and carrying out the do-it-yourself projects.
The subjects that got the most feedback were about some competition or giveaway that presume
readers to post a comment. These posts were followed, with a certain space, by subjects related to
today’s outfit or recent fashion shoot and then visiting different fashion events. In general the
number of comments were directly connected with the subject’s frequency of occurrence.
The values that appeared the most in the blog posts were aesthetic values. These values were mainly
related to the interpretative repertoires about fashion and beauty. In addition, the fashion bloggers
valued the difference from other people and emphasizing one’s individuality. The second
interpretative repertoire arised such values as self-determination and ambitiousness, but also the
importance of education, intelligence and wide reading. The third interpretative repertoire
represented different hedonistic values such as pleasant and carefree life, new experiences,
creativity and inspiration. Related to these values there was also arised the valuation of urban
lifestyle.
In general the picture of values of young fashion bloggers in Estonia is very similar to other young
people in Estonia. However, fashion bloggers value more different aesthetic values and they also
emphazise more individuality and receiving public recognition. Similarly to other young people in
Estonia fashion bloggers have receded into the background values related to the openness of the
world, nature and the relations with other people (friendship, love etc).