Now that we have initiated our research plan and made a planned schedule of our media niche, it is now time to display our background research and show some ethical implications of advertising. In this blog post, we will be analysing secondary sources that represent our niche of advertising amongst social media platforms, for example why companies want to use certain influencers for their products and how this affects their sales/profit. Our theoretical framework will involve us gaining more insightful information on our media niche, that being advertising, and to use this information to gain a deeper understanding on our topic.

Ethical considerations

We will be using the MEAA code of ethics as a directory when approaching our research into our niche. We will remain unbiased throughout our research, only observing what we find rather than giving our opinion. We will only be making general observations about a comment that a fan or an influencer has made. We will be interviewing a small local influencer, before we proceed to interview however, we be asking for her consent to use her name and identity. We will not be quoting her directly and will instead talk about our experience on the niche and this case study. All research will be recorded in a fair and ethical way, remaining anonymous. As well as this, both Sophie and I have agreed to remain unbiased in our research and keep our information unopinionated, our opinions will be kept out of all of our work.

Background research

 Our theoretical framework will involve us gaining more insightful information on our media niche, that being advertising, and to use this information to gain a deeper understanding on our topic .For our autoethnography method, we will be interviewing a small local influencer who regularly advertises on Instagram for a popular clothing brand in Australia, Princess Polly. During both our experiences of our media niche, we both bought a product from one of her advertisements with a unique discount code “chels20”. Based on the interview, we will be seeing how our interactions with her advertisement and code reflect on the results of her overall deal. Even outside of the people who we follow on Instagram and Tiktok who are big influencers like Charli D’amelio, we will see an average of 40-50 advertisements in one day from other small influencers, accumulating to the 4-5 hours we spend on our mobile phones and social media. 

In reference to the above photo, as the most used social media platform for sponsored content by influencers is on Instagram, we will be focusing our research on Instagram (whilst still referencing other platforms). We will also be using the “Influencer Marketing in 2020: 5 Guidelines for Maximizing the Results of Working With Influencers” article, which will help Sophie and I build a structure for how social media influencers interact with their audience.

Sophie and I very excited to continue this research project together into the future, we are so lucky to have found substantial information on the internet and are keen to explore further.

References:

Cronin N, “A Simple Guide To Instagram Influencer Marketing in 2020”, Web Article, July 23, viewed on 1 September 2020.

Gotter A, “Influencer Marketing in 2020: 5 Guidelines for Maximising the Results of Working With Influencers”, Blog Post, February 11, viewed 1 September 2020.

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