The study examined Finnish fashion bloggers and the idea of professionalization of blogosphere. This relatively new phenomenon was approached through fifteen blogger interviews, five interest group interviews, a web survey (n=61) and a content analysis of twenty top ranked blogs.
Since 2007 fashion blogs (or lifestyle blogs; since they deal with more wide range of topics, not only fashion) have become extremely popular in Finland and young, mostly female bloggers have started to co-operate with different enterprises and write also for web magazines.
The study investigated the nature of that co-operation and showed that the conventions of personal blogs have changed towards more intentional self-presentation and publishing. The relationship between bloggers and their readers was usually very close, peer, friendly and created of feeling of knowing each other. At the same time bloggers had adopted and created many professional-like practices how to deal with their audience and the publicity they face in the social media. The study showed that there is a tension between being a personal blogger and “keeping it real and authentic for the reader” and a professional blogger who is intentionally developing her blog for her target groups.
Despite the professionalization of blogosphere, most bloggers did blogging for self development rather than made a career out of it. Fashion blogs were an online space for (young) females where they were able to express and understand their own identity and taste.
Contact person: Researcher Elina Noppari, elina.noppari[at]uta.fi.