Date of Award
1-1-2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Communication Studies
First Advisor
Kate Willink, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Christina Foust
Third Advisor
Joshua Hanan
Fourth Advisor
Nicholas Cutforth
Keywords
Affective labor, Blog, Communicative labor, Fashion and lifestyle, Relational labor
Abstract
Fashion and lifestyle blogs serves as a new cultural space, where bloggers are viewed as influencers and set cultural, societal standards of an ideal womanhood. Female bloggers' various forms of labor - specifically, communicative, relational, and affective - establish a blogger's role in social and economic life and reiterate the significance of consumerism as a hallmark of femininity. Fashion and lifestyle bloggers are typically women, whose labor sustains the fashion and lifestyle blogging ecosystem. This occurs through consistent, branded communication; cultivating connections and relationships with followers and fellow bloggers; and transference of affect across digital divides, in real time, through platforms such as Instagram. These processes perpetuate the cycle of consumption through a framework of fulfilling one's duty as both a woman and a citizen.
This project examines fashion and lifestyle blogs and their authors through performance-based interviewing and thematic narrative analysis in order to turn a critical eye to blog websites and social media platforms. The dissertation unpacks the cultural scripts and communicative performances that emerge within (im)material blog spaces and the ways in which bloggers enact particular subjectivities in Web 2.0 culture; the labor performances of bloggers; and the implication of blog and social media imagery on blog followers. Constant connectivity and access to digital space encourages consistent subject performances bound to neoliberal, capitalist culture, turning blog and social media spaces into powerful, communicative, Web 2.0 structures.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Jessica L. Neumann
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
en
File Size
228 p.
Recommended Citation
Neumann, Jessica L., "#FashioningIdentity and #PerformingAuthenticity: Communicative, Relational, and Affective Labor in the Digital Frontier of Fashion and Lifestyle Blogging" (2018). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1469.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1469
Copyright date
2018
Discipline
Communication