Mediatized Fashion: State of the art and beyond

Mariachiara Colucci; Marco Pedroni

doi:10.6092/issn.2611-0563/13118

Authors

Mariachiara Colucci Università di Bologna

She is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Bologna, where she lectures on strategic management and management for fashion companies. Her research interests focus on interfirm relationships, creativity, sustainability, with a focus on the fashion industry. She is the author of several articles published in refereed journals, such as the International Journal of Research in Marketing, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Business Strategy and the Environment. She is also the author of the book I confini dell’impresa di moda. Tra sviluppo interno e brand licensing (McGraw-Hill) and a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Creative Industries (Oxford University Press).
Marco Pedroni Università degli Studi di Ferrara

He is an Associate Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Ferrara (Italy). He is the author of Coolhunting (FrancoAngeli, 2010), a co-editor of Moda e arte (Fashion and Art, FrancoAngeli, 2012) and Fashion Tales: Feeding the Imaginary (Peter Lang, 2017), and the editor of From Production to Consumption: The Cultural Industry of Fashion (Interdisciplinary, 2013). He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Fashion Studies. His works have been published in peer-reviewed journals like Fashion Theory, Poetics and Film, Fashion and Consumption. As a fashion scholar, his research interests range from trendwatching to digital media, creative professions and cultural intermediaries, with a special focus on bloggers and influencers.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/13118

Keywords:

Mediatization, Fashion Brands, Digitization, Authenticity, Fashion Communication

Abstract

The concept of mediatization concerns the role and influence of the media in both society and the fields of cultural production. Fashion has witnessed several processes of mediatization, exemplified by the rise of fashion bloggers and influencers and the emergence of several online activities — e.g., broadcasting fashion shows — alongside or in place of those that previously took the form of face-to-face interaction. Such a mediatization has then accelerated rhythms of fashion communication imposed by the new digital environment. Moreover, thanks to the role of legacy and digital media, fashion as a cultural industry has been increasingly able to fuel global social imaginaries. This article briefly reviews the state of the art of studies on mediatization in the field of fashion, with a focus on the role of fashion brands. The essay also considers the Covid-19 pandemic as an accelerator of digitization processes, and proposes a number of valuable questions to investigate the future of mediatization in fashion. First, how do fashion brands, whether mass-market or high-end, interface with their audience, advertise their products, reach their targets, finalize the sale, and retain consumers? Second, how has digital technology changed the format and meaning of fashion shows and catwalks? Thirdly, how do fashion brands cooperate with, defend themselves against or exploit new digital intermediaries such as bloggers, influencers and content creators? Finally, how do brands pursue the quest for authenticity, as a value and a rhetoric construction, through digital channels? The contributions of this special issue provide, through the study of empirical cases, elements to answer these questions.

References

Abidin, Crystal. “‘Aren’t these just young, rich women doing vain things online?’: Influencer selfies as subversive frivolity.” Social media + Society, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2016): 1–17.

Appel, Gil, Lauren, Grewal, Rhonda, Hadi, and Andrew T. Stephen. “The future of social media in marketing.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 48, No. 1 (2020): 79–95.

Backaler, Joel. Digital influence. Cham: Macmillan, 2018.

Beverland, Michael B. and Francis J. Farrelly. “The quest for authenticity in consumption: Consumers’ purposive choice of authentic cues to shape experienced outcomes.” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, No. 5 (2010): 838–856.

Boccia Artieri, Giovanni, Gemini, Laura, Pasquali, Francesca, Simone, Carlo, Manolo, Farci and Marco Pedroni. Fenomenologia dei social network: Presenza, relazioni e consumi mediali degli italiani online. Milan: Guerini, 2017.

Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. Le nouvel esprit du capitalism. Vol. 10, Paris: Gallimard, 1999.

Colucci, Mariachiara, and Marco Pedroni. “Got to Be Real: An Investigation into the Co-Fabrication of Authenticity by Fashion Companies and Digital Influencers.” Journal of Consumer Culture, in press (2021).

Bradford, Julie. Fashion journalism. London: Routledge, 2014.

Chu, Shu-Chuan and Yoo-Kyoung Seock. “The Power of Social Media in Fashion Advertising.” Journal of Interactive Advertising, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2020): 93–94.

Baronian, Marie-Aude, D’Aloia, Adriano, and Marco Pedroni. “Fashionating Images.” Comunicazioni Sociali. Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies, Vol. 1: 3–12 (2017).

Dammann, Olaf, Katja M. Friederichs, Sabine Lebedinski, and Kerstin M. Liesenfeld. “The Essence of Authenticity.” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 11 (2021): 4021.

Sophie Elmhirst, “‘It’s genuine, you know?’: why the online influencer industry is going ‘authentic’.” The Guardian, 5 April 2019. Retrieved at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/05/its-genuine-you-know-why-the-online-influencer-industry-is-going-authentic.

Findlay, Rosie. Personal style blogs: Appearances that fascinate. London: Intellect, 2017.

Charles B. Guignon. On being authentic. London: Routledge, 2004.

Hazel, Hahn. “Fashion Discourses in Fashion Magazines and Madame de Girardin’s Lettres Parisiennes in July-Monarchy France (1830–48).” Fashion Theory, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2005): 205–277.

Hjarvard, Stig. “The Mediatization of Society. A Theory of the Media as Agents of Social and Cultural Change.” Nordicom Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2008): 105–134.

Hjarvard, Stig. The Mediatization of Culture and Society. London: Routledge, 2013.

Joanne Jacobs. “Faking it How to kill a business through astroturfing on social media.” Keeping Good Companies, Vol. 64, No. 9 (2012): 567–570.

Krotz, Friedrich. “Mediatization: A concept with which to grasp media and societal change.” In Mediatization, ed. Knut Lundby. New York: Peter Lang, 2009.

Lee, Kyung-Tag and Dong-Mo Koo. “Effects of attribute and valence of e-WOM on message adoption: Moderating roles of subjective knowledge and regulatory focus.” Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 28, No. 5 (2012): 1974–1984.

Lehmann, David W., Kieran O’Connor, Balázs Kovács, and George E. Newman. “Authenticity.” Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2019): 1–42.

Livingstone, Sonia. “Foreword: Coming to terms with ‘mediatization’.” In Mediatization: Concept, changes, consequences, ed. Knut Lundby. Bern: Peter Lang, 2009: 9–13.

Martín-Consuegra, David, Monica Faraoni, Estrella Díaz, and Silvia Ranfagni. “Exploring relationships among brand credibility, purchase intention and social media for fashion brands: A conditional mediation model.” Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2018): 237–251.

Marwick, Alice. “They’re really profound women, they’re entrepreneurs’: Conceptions of authenticity in fashion blogging.” 7th international AIII conference on weblogs and social media (ICWSM), Vol. 8 (July 2013).

McKinsey & Co. “Perspectives for North America’s fashion industry in a time of crisis.” 2020. Retrieved at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/perspectives-for-north-americas-fashion-industry-in-a-time-of-crisis.

Mendes, Silvano. “The Instagrammability of the Runway: Architecture, Scenography, and the Spatial Turn in Fashion Communications.” Fashion Theory, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2021): 311–338.

Mora, Emanuela. Fare moda: Esperienze di produzione e consumo. Milan: BrunoMondadori, 2009.

Mora, Emanuela, and Pedroni, Marco. Fashion Tales: Feeding the imaginary. Bern: Peter Lang, 2017.

Mora, Emanuela, Rocamora, Agnès, and Volonté, Paolo. “Editorial: Feeding the Imaginary.” International Journal of Fashion Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2016): 177–184.

Naab, Teresa K. and Annika Sehl. “Studies of user-generated content: A systematic review.” Journalism, Vol. 18, No. 10 (2017): 1256–1273.

Pedroni, Marco. “Collaboration, antagonism, exploitation: Which is the relation between fashion blogging and fashion journalism.” In Digital Development in the Fashion Industry: Communication, Culture and Business, eds. M. Torregrosa, C. Sánchez-Blanco, T. Sádaba. Pamplona: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, 2014: 87–101.

Pedroni, Marco. “‘Stumbling on the heels of my blog’: Career, forms of capital, and strategies in the (sub) field of fashion blogging.” Fashion Theory, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2015): 179–199.

Pedroni, Marco. “Meso-celebrities, fashion and the media: How digital influencers struggle for visibility.” Film, fashion and consumption, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2016): 103–121.

Pedroni, Marco. “Documenting Fashion in the Era of Instagram: A Critical Reading of Chiara Ferragni’s ‘Unposted’ and Asri Bendacha’s ‘Follow Me’.” In Documenting Fashion, eds. Boel Ulfsdotter and Elena Caoduro. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2021, forthcoming.

Peterson, Richard A. Creating country music: Fabricating authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Rocamora, Agnès. “Personal Fashion Blogs: Screens and Mirrors in Digital Self-Portraits.” Fashion Theory, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2011): 407–424.

Rocamora, Agnès. “Hypertextuality and remediation in the fashion media: The case of fashion blogs.” Journalism Practice, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2012): 92–106.

Rocamora, Agnès. “New fashion times: Fashion and digital media.” In The Handbook of Fashion Studies, eds. Sandy Black, Amy de la Haye, Joanne Entwistle, Regina Root, Agnès Rocamora, Helen Thomas (London: Bloomsbury, 2013): 61–77.

Rocamora, Agnès. “Mediatization and digital media in the field of fashion.” Fashion Theory, Vol. 21, No. 5 (2017): 505–522.

Rocamora, Agnès. “The labour of fashion blogging.” In Fashioning Professionals, eds. L. Armstrong and F. McDowell. London: Bloomsbury, 2018: 65–81.

Rocamora, Agnès and Bartlett, Djurdja. “Blogs de mode: les nouveaux espaces du discourse de mode.” Sociétés, Vol. 104 (2009): 105–114.

Schulz, Winfried. “Reconstructing mediatization as an analytical concept.” European journal of communication, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2004): 87–101.

Silvestri, Barbara. “The Future of Fashion: How the Quest for Digitization and the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Extended Reality Will Reshape the Fashion Industry After COVID-19.” ZoneModa Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2020): 61–73.

Sinclair, Joe. “Fashion Blogs.” The Age, 17 October 2002. Retrieved at http://goo.gl/Pj6Hbr.

Singer, Sally, Mower, Sarah, Phelps, Nicole, and Codinha, Alessandra. “Ciao, Milano! Vogue.com’s Editors Discuss the Week That Was.” Vogue.com, 25 September 2016. Retrieved at https://www.vogue.com/article/milan-fashion-week-spring-2017-vogue-editors-chat.

Sozzani, Franca. “Bloggers: a culture phenomenon or an epidemic issue?” Vogue Italia, Editor’s blog, 28 January 2011. Retrieved at https://www.vogue.it/en/magazine/editor-s-blog/2011/01/january-28th.

Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.

Titton, Monica. “Fashion criticism unraveled: A sociological critique of criticism in fashion media.” International Journal of Fashion Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2016): 209–223.

Xie, Jiali and Chorong Youn. “How the luxury fashion brand adjust to deal with the COVID-19.” International Journal of Costume and Fashion, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2020): 50–60.

Zargani, Luisa. “Giorgio Armani Writes Open Letter to WWD. The designer praises a slower fashion movement and plans to realign collections with seasons in stores,” WWD, 3 April 2020. Retrieved at https://wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/giorgio-armani-writes-open-letter-wwd-1203553687/.

Mediatized Fashion: State of the art and beyond

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Language

Information

Keywords

Current Issue