planning my approach

BCM241 | Week 3

The problem within my niche of Young Internet Influencers is how it effect it viewers (broad, very broad). To better understand this niche I want to know how it’s going to effect ME as an active viewer. After thinking about my niche, and figuring out how it effects me, I want my my research to show how this niche effects me – how watching these influencers effect my mental health. Is the conversation they bring about mental health a good think for viewers, or does it create a pressure to be happy a “toxic positivety”. As I already occasionally watch these YouTube stars videos, I want to dive further into understanding their attention to mental health. Whilst being an active viewer I’m going to be recording how I feel, how I connect with them through a screen and even looking further into the fanbases of the influencers I’ve chosen.

I want to focus on how they’re nearly the same age as me yet their having such an impact on a cluster of people. What they do or say, and even present to the world through their online presence can build an added pressure to the viewer. The problem with my niche is how each influencer reacts to mental health themselves, or simple ignores it. As a viewer – why or how do I get influenced by them, why do I want what they have. To better understand the niche, is to better understand the image they portray. My audience for Chàe Media is the same demographic these influencers target – teenagers to young adults prodomenently women. I want to find out this conversation of mental health, not only to boost the sense of relatablity and help we provide or does it create light of a sensative topic. Could my DA also helps others to battle this toxic positivety. I want to extend my knowledge on mental health and social media as I’d like to go into social media marketing and branding as a future career and I want to know how to tackle sensative topics.

To conduct my ethnographical study I will be using the methods of observation and autoethnography. I’m going to record my weekly notes perhaps even put it up on my blog to track the differences I learn each week – I will be screenshoting and keeping track of any changes that occur with my personal experience. As autoethnography is “not simply to document personal experience but to provide an insider perspective” to my report, I want to change my experience of being a subscriber to being an active subscriber to understand the social phenomenon of influencers as a whole. (Anderson, L 2006) My Research Schedule for my study is….

• Once a week I will watch 1-3 videos of different influencer in my similar age bracket (e.g. Best Dressed and Emma Chamberlain). I will track how or why this changes my mood, or helps me gain knowledge and experience.
• I will participate in the niche by making comments on the videos which mention mental health or bring a sense of a happiness trap – and see how this effects me mentally
• The main digital fields i’ll be using will be YouTube, Instagram and Twitter
• I will do this over five weeks (choosing different influencer/s per week)
• After my analysis of research I will put into action what I’ve learnt or gained into my own social media accounts (my digital artefact – Chàe Media)
• I will interview my peers on their thought on social media effecting them mentally (one or two a week – see if this differs from my views)
• I’m going to record my field notes throughout – screenshotting what I then put into action after learning

I’ll be analysing my personal experience as a consumer of these influencers. “the process of looking and reporting are guided by the observer’s (me) implicit or explicit concepts that make some details more important and relevant than others… what is selected for observation and recording reflecting the working theories or conceptual assumptions employed… by the ethnographer.” (Geertz, C 1973) I’m researching these influencers on the basis of wanting to know if what theyre claiming to help my mental health, actually does so, not neccessarily to be like them, but to find out if thats what I take away and end up falling into the happiness trap.

References:
– Geertz, Clifford (1973) ‘Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture,’ in the Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books: New York.
– Anderson, Leon 2006, Analytic Autoethnography, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 373-393