Producing Authenticity: Personal Style Bloggers, Branding, and Cultural Intermediaries

• In Event: 240 - Section on Consumers and Consumption Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Paper Session: Table 07. Fashion as Lens

Abstract

This paper contributes to theoretical reexaminations of Bourdieu’s concept of cultural intermediaries by locating the production and consumption of symbolic value within the context of brand culture. Drawing on interviews, qualitative content analysis, and participant observation, I explore the role of personal style bloggers as cultural intermediaries, and the impact of this role on bloggers’ processes of self-presentation. Personal style bloggers brand themselves by showcasing their own personal taste and style for an audience of unknown others. As fashion outsiders, personal style bloggers largely lack institutional legitimacy, but rather claim legitimacy through displays of “natural” taste, style, and personality, which the audience perceives as more relatable, accessible, and authentic than traditional fashion media. As they incorporate consumer products into their own self-brands, bloggers mediate the relationship between corporate brands, their audience, and themselves. When brands collaborate with bloggers, they are trying to tap into bloggers’ lifestyle, readership, and claims to authenticity, while the bloggers themselves are trying to construct an image of living a fashionable lifestyle. However, for bloggers to successfully create value, they must first resonate with audience expectations regarding bloggers’ authentic presentation of self, which may not align with bloggers’ subjective feeling of being true to self.

Author

• Jennifer Whitmer, University of Nevada-Las Vegas