The main research method used throughout this paper is textual analysis, to analyze and investigate fashion writing in depth. Argued by McKee, this research method is useful to observe and interpret cultural texts which “are neither scientific data nor historical documents but are material traces that are left of the practice of sense-making.” This will support in answering the main research question “What specifies content written by a professional fashion journalist and how can it be recognized” where I will interpret writing by fashion...
The main research method used throughout this paper is textual analysis, to analyze and investigate fashion writing in depth. Argued by McKee, this research method is useful to observe and interpret cultural texts which “are neither scientific data nor historical documents but are material traces that are left of the practice of sense-making.” This will support in answering the main research question “What specifies content written by a professional fashion journalist and how can it be recognized” where I will interpret writing by fashion journalists, to define the main characteristics.
Through visual analysis, I will answer “What defines a fashion journalist online?”. Visual analysis is what Rose defines to be “a critical approach to visual images that think about the agency of the image [and] considers the social practices and effects of its viewing.” With this, I will outline the meanings that are communicated through Sykes’s fashion images and their significance in the field of digital media. Furthermore, through visual analysis, I will take on the fashionable identity and personae of fashion journalist Pandora Sykes, exemplified through Instagram, Twitter and outfit posts.
Pandora Sykes is a freelance fashion journalist in her thirties who had a prolific career at The Sunday Times Style, and then broke out of the traditional media industry and started to work independently. Having established her status within the publishing industry writing the ‘Wardrobe Mistress’ column, she is now widely recognized as a consultant and professional journalist; and has recently become the co-host of the successful pop-culture podcast The High Low.
