The Capitals Behind the Success of Filipino Fashion Bloggers in the Social Media

ABSTRACT Bara, F.S.A. (2013). ‘The capitals behind the success of Filipino fashion bloggers in the social media, Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.

This paper seeks to explore how Filipino fashion bloggers acquire social status through the interconnection of social, economic and cultural capital used and wielded in social media. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to identify and understand the meanings ascribed to the looks, outfits and fashion pieces that Filipino bloggers wear, post and share in social media as a means of exchanging communication and eventually gaining recognition in the internet through various collaborations.

The general objective of the study is to understand how social stratifications created in social media are being used as a mechanism to maintain dominant class ideologies through the art of fashion. Social media serves as a venue to publicly display diverse sub-cultures and lifestyles.

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on the forms of capital was used in this research in order to identify how Filipino fashion bloggers continually labor in order to keep up with the demands and to continually be part of the fast-paced world of fashion.

An analysis of how the capitals were integrated in the interactions of Filipino fashion bloggers shows how social media has provided them the opportunity to generate or maintain new knowledge in the realm of fashion while also using the medium as a mechanism to maintain dominant Western class ideologies through their fashion representations.

Keywords: Social capital, economic capital, cultural capital, fashion bloggers, social media