TEAM

Thy Dao, Chen Guo (Professor and Co-Investigator)

TOOLS

Skype, NVivo 12

SKILLS

Interviews, coding of data, data analysis

DURATION

February — Present

The Scope of the Project

There is a whole world of commerce on Instagram. An increasing number of users are using the social media platform to sell secondhand clothing, and it is the most popular choice, as a means of presenting products in a concise and visually appealing way, for fashion and retail brands to grow their following and sales. It provides them with an easy way to find, engage, and grow their audience, which, for many retail clothing brands marketing their products on Instagram, is Instagram’s largest age demographic: 18-24-year old individuals. We want to investigate how Instagram can influence clothing purchases, by college students in particular, and find out what factors determine whether or not a user decides to make a purchase decision and where and how they find the products they purchase from retailers and sellers on the platform.

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to investigate how Instagram can influence clothing purchases, by college students in particular, and find out what factors determine whether or not a user decides to make a purchase decision and where and how they find the products they purchase from retailers and sellers on the platform.

The investigators hope to learn how sellers and retail brands use Instagram to grow their following and sales and determine what factors are most effective in influencing a user to purchase a product from a seller or retail brand marketing their products on Instagram.

Procedures

We plan to conduct semi-structured interviews at James Madison University and in the Harrisonburg community, primarily the Campus View apartments area. The subjects we will work with are current students at James Madison University in the School of Media Arts and Design or members of the Vietnamese Student Association at James Madison University. I know several members of these two groups personally and will reach out to them about the potential to participate in this study. Members of these groups will contact me if they are interested in participating in the study. I will make an appointment with each individual to observe a meeting and conduct individual interviews in their meeting space of their choice, on campus, or at their homes. I am going to personally communicate with each individual by phone for recruitment and planning purposes once receiving IRB approval. There will be no form of mass recruitment or advertisement. I plan to recruit a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 30 participants. The research will consist of only semi-structured interviews. We will collect qualitative data resulting in useable information. Conversation will be guided by and influenced by the participants responses to a serious of open ended questions.

Audio recording of the individuals will occur. The data will be kept until the research is done. The time is around four months. We will destroy research records and data at the earliest opportunity, consistent with the conduct of this research. After we finish data collection and analysis, we will destroy data. The research records will be kept for 3 years after the study is closed prior to being destroyed per regulatory JMU Office of Research Integrity guidelines.

Recruitment Process

The subjects we will work with are current students at James Madison University in the School of Media Arts and Design or members of the Vietnamese Student Association at James Madison University. I know several members of these two groups personally and will reach out to them about the potential to participate in this study. Members of these groups will contact me if they are interested in participating in the study. I will make an appointment with each individual to observe a meeting and conduct individual interviews in their meeting space of their choice, on campus, or at their homes. I am going to personally communicate with each individual by phone for recruitment and planning purposes once receiving IRB approval. There will be no form of mass recruitment or advertisement.

Ongoing

This research is currently ongoing. This page will be updated as we progress. Thank you for reading!