The following video summarises my plans and goals for my ethnographic research project. Make sure to check out my previous blog posts about my media niche, field site, research plan, and ethical issues, for more information.
For my research project I will be specifically focusing on “That Girl” persona on TikTok, a popular aesthetic lifestyle trend online. My field site can be found below:
The research methods I will be using in my project are observation and auto-ethnography. I plan to use active listening; which can be best described to when you concentrate on what is being said rather than just aggressively hearing the message when observing my field site, as well as ‘thick description’ in my field notes.
Thick description is a term used to characterize the process of paying attention to contextual detail in observing and interpreting social meaning when conducting qualitative research
(Mills, Durepos & Wiebe, 2010).
Through these methods I will collect detailed information about my own observations and experiences within the TikTok That Girl community. I’m hoping that this information will provide further insights and greater understanding about how the audience experience of trying to achieve this lifestyle.
The ethical issues that are present are unqualified advice and people producing false information. These false information can include sponsored posts.
The advice and the activities involved in creating that ‘That Girl’ aesthetic has not been qualified. They are activities put together by individuals creating a morning routine, that may be setting unrealistic expectations for their target market.
Key Personas – Examples of how the five key dimensions involved in the personas around ‘That Girl’ niche:
The key plan for my Pitch:
References
Mills, A, Durepos, G, Wiebe, E, 2010, ‘Thick Description‘, Sage Research Methods, viewed 18th August 2021.
Victoria Bobbermien 
Hi Victora,
As someone who is also a content creator onTikTok, it was really interesting to hear about a different niche on the platform, follow me @GoobEpicSwag, shameless plug.
You seem to be well versed in your niche of Sudo vlog time content on TikTok.
As someone who is also on TikTok, I find you will have higher success if you focus on creating a public persona for your audience to grasp onto.
Overall I really enjoyed your pitch and am keen to see it come to fruition
Kyle :0
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Victoria, this blog post and video pitch flowed well. Having your timeline have a day-by-day account shows a very thorough approach to your project. Your pitch video was very informative, and your blog post helped with providing additional information for your audience that wasn’t covered in the video. The timeline showing how you work on the digital artefact day-by-day is very detailed, and the source adds value to your online persona. Showing how you were going to approach your online persona from the five dimensions shows engagement and interactions with the subject materials. You have also acknowledged the ethical concerns for your niche, as well as the autoethnographic approach you will take and your field site gives information target audience. This is a very good pitch.
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Hi Victoria!
I love this DA idea, I think this niche is really trending at the moment and I look forward to seeing your final research. Hyperlinks throughout your post would have been really beneficial, for example a link to your Tiktok account, a link to your previous blog posts and links to relevant sources in the written section of your pitch.
I thought the conformity and consistency of your presentation was really good, however I did notice there were a few elements repeated from your video to your post. For example, your weekly schedule, I think the image you included in the post effectively demonstrates your weekly intentions, and cutting out this section of the video could have saved you time and assisted you in keeping to the 2.00-minute time limit.
I think your inclusion of sources is really well done, I also included ‘active listening’ in my pitch and found this source really useful (Winter, R & Lavis, A (2020) Looking, But Not Listening? Theorizing the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography, Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics Vol. 15(1-2) 55 – 62 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1556264619857529 )
Overall, I think your pitch is really well done and I’m genuinely excited to see the progression of your DA moving forward!
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Hi Tori!
First off, your blog looks so nice! Also, I like the little video you had for your field site but I think maybe a picture showing it all could’ve been more impactful?
I think you have a really strong understanding of everything you plan to research and achieve which is great and really clear in your video and blog post. I’m very interested to see how this idea plays out and what your research shows and I think the questions you’re going to be asking are really well thought out.
My only comment would be that in your video you have to follow you but I couldn’t see anywhere on this blog that had where to do so, so maybe just put in some links? Other than that I think you’ve done really well.
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