Representation of the Sense of Self Through Fashion Blogs
ABSTRACT
Fashion is a very common and basic human experience, which is often overlooked and branded as superficial. Whether we admit it or not, fashion is an integral part of our daily lives. A lot is expressed about a person’s character, mood, personality, ideals, and lifestyle through his or her choices of clothing. My thesis topic is about the representation of the sense of self and virtual identity through fashion blogs. Fashion bloggers deliberately post photographs of themselves wearing different outfits they wore on different occasions and situations. This study focuses on the fashion blogger’s virtual body and its packaged identity - how a virtual identity is created and how their sense of selves are projected to the world through the internet. Interpretations emphasize that fashion bloggers are not just empty virtual bodies but as clothed bodies, and bodies as lived experience. The analyses are based on the images they have uploaded on their fashion blogs. These images are considered narrations of the self and are read as text. This study is based on the reader’s perspective using Roland Barthes’ The Death of the Author. Therefore, the intended meanings of the authors, in this case, the fashion bloggers, with their clothing are no longer considered. Instead, this thesis focuses on how the reader, in this case, I, perceive and interpret the clothing and the body.
Tarnate, M.J.L. (2011). Representation of the Sense of Self Through Fashion Blogs, Unpublished Thesis, University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.