In vitro culture of murine embryos is an important step for in vitro production systems including in vitro fertilization and generations of genetically engineered mice. M16 is widely used commercialized culture media for the murine embryos. Compared to other media such as potassium simplex optimization medium, commercial M16 (Sigma) media lacks of amino acid, glutamine and antibiotics. In the present study, we optimized M16 based embryo culture system using commercialized antibiotics-glutamine or amino acids supplements. In vivo derived murine zygote were M16 media were supplemented with commercial Penicillin-Streptomycin-Glutamine solution (PSG; Gibco) or MEM Non- Essential Amino Acids solution (NEAA; Gibco) as experimental design. Addition of PSG did not improved cleavage and blastocyst rates. On the other hand, cleavage rate is not different between control and NEAA treated group, however, blastocyst formation is significantly (P<0.05) improved in NEAA treated group. Developmental competence between PSG and NEAA treated groups were also compared. Between two groups, cleavage rate was similar. However, blastocyst formation rate is significantly improved in NEAA treated group. Taken together, beneficial effect of NEAA on murine embryos development was confirmed. Effect of antibiotics and glutamine addition to M16 media is still not clear in the study.

본 연구는 잔류함으로써 문제를 일으킬 수 있는 응집제를 사용하지 않고 물리적인 처리만을 사용하는 막여과 정 수처리의 전처리로 F/A 공정을 구성하고자 하였고 이를 구성하는 여재의 성능을 연구하였다. 특히, 탁질 물질과 유기물 제거 가 가능한 것으로 알려진 Filtralite의 도입 가능성을 검토하였다. Filtralite의 탁도 제거효율은 원수대비 83~84%로 여과사와 비슷한 결과 값을 나타내었으며 여재표면에 잘 발달된 공극 때문에 유기물 제거능은 여과사보다 50% 더 높게 나타났다. 따 라서 F/A 공정을 구성함에 있어 여과사보다 Filtralite가 더 효율적이라 검토되었다. 활성탄과 연계한 F/A 공정을 구성하여 막 여과 처리 시스템의 전처리효율을 실험한 결과, TOC 농도는 TMP의 증가에 큰 영향을 주는 것으로 판단되어 막오염 저감에 유기물 제어가 중요함을 확인하였으며 유기물 제거 효율이 뛰어난 여재 사용이 필요할 것으로 판단되었다.

This study empirically analyzed the influence of media on a visitor's satisfaction and re-visit by setting up 5 sorts of exhibition media as text, docent, virtual museum, website and Smartphone App based on practical exchange and communication between a visitor and an exhibition provider. The research results are as follows: First, all these 5 sorts of media suggested by this study were found to be able to have an influence on a visitor's satisfaction and re-visit. Second, it was found that the factors preferentially affecting a visitor's satisfaction and re-visit were 'Docent' and 'Website' factors. Accordingly, it is judged that it's necessary to more preferentially consider 'Docent' and 'Website' factors than the other factors in order to increase a visitor's satisfaction and re-visit. Third, it's possible to interpret that the bigger a visitor's satisfaction, the higher a visitor's intention to re-visit through the verification that a visitor's satisfaction will have a significant influence on a visitor's re-visit. The implication of this study lies in the fact that this study attempted at an integrated approach by analyzing the relative size of the influence through across-the-board suggestion of influential factors on a museum visitor's satisfaction and re-visit.

본 연구에서는 옥상 인공습지 조성에 적합한 식물들을 이용하여 옥상 내 인공 생태습지를 조성하고자 관상가치 가 있는 습지식물 종으로, 효율적인 식생공간 조성에 적 합한 생육조건을 찾고자 실험한 결과, 낙지다리는 마사 토 5 +원예용 배양토5(cm)에 식재한 것이 생장에 좋았 고, 마사토 5 + 코코피트 5(cm)에 식재한 것은 생장이 부 진한 것으로 나타났다. 약모밀과 석잠풀은 마사토 5 + 원 예용 배양토 5(cm)와 마사토 5 + 피트모스 5(cm)에 식재 한 것이 생육이 좋은 것으로 나타났으며, 마사토 5 +코 코피트 5(cm)에 식재한 것은 생육이 부진한 것으로 나 타났다. 이상의 결과를 종합하여 보면 옥상습지에 적합 한 배지 조성은 마사토 5 +원예용 배양토5(cm)와 마사 토 5 +피트모스 5(cm)가 좋은 것으로 나타났다.

이 논문은 비디오 게임을 전유한 예술 사례를 다룬 논문이다. 오늘날 비디오 게임 산업은 영화 산업과 비교될 만큼 성장해 있으며, 이에 게임을 학문적으로 연구하려는 시도도 이루어지고 있다. 하지만 동시에 비디오 게임을 비판하는 사람들도 있다. 특히 ‘비디오 게임에서 폭력과 전쟁을 미화하는 묘사는 어디까지 허용되어야 하는가?’의 문제는 격렬한 논쟁의 대상이다. 이런 상황에서 일부 예술가들은 전쟁을 묘사한 비디오 게임을 전유해 사회적 참여를 위한 전술적 매체로 바꾸려는 시도를 하였다. 이 논문은 이러한 작업을 펼친 예술가 와파 빌랄의 사례를 다룬다. 빌랄의 작업을 비평한 관련 담론은 이를 기존 비디오 게임의 관습적인 플레이 방식을 뒤집고, 전쟁을 미화하는 묘사를 비판하며, 현시대의 인간관계를 되돌아보도록 유도하는 장소를 형성하려 시도한 작업으로 해석하였다. 이 사례를 통해 비디오 게임을 전유한 전술적 매체 작업이 예술적 담론의 장으로 가치가 있음이 확인되었다.

본 연구에서는 미디어아트, 또는 기술 매체와 신체의 인터페이스를 강조하는 인터랙티브 미디어아트의 해석적 틀로서 현상학적 체현인지의 관점을 제시한다. 메를로퐁티의 현상학과 체현인지 이론에서 영향을 받은 최근의 HCI 연구와 매체 미학의 상통하는 개념들을 발굴하여 미디어아트의 현상학적 도식을 제안해 보았다. 체험된 신체, 현상학적 장, 점진적 체화와 지향성, 시선의 이동성과 가상성 등은 미디어아트를 읽어내기 위한 개념 틀과 어휘의 형성에 이바지할 수 있어 보인다. 이는 탈 경계와 혼종성을 중심으로 한 포스트 휴머니즘이나 기술철학적 관점을 대체하기보다는, 서로 상보적인 관계에서 미디어아트 해석의 다양성을 높이는데 기여할 것으로 보인다.

To investigate the usefulness of Kenaf(Hibiscus cannabinus L.) as mushroom culture media source, we analyzephysical condition and contents of nutritional components. The water absorption rate of Kenaf bast was 578% and it was 95%higher than that of poplar sawdust’s. This was caused by Kenaf’s porous cellular structure. so it could give more moisture andoxygen to cultured mushroom. Total carbon contents of Kenaf was 91.4%, it was quite higher than that of poplar sawdust, wheatbran and rice bran. Total nitrogen content was 1.76% and C/N ratio was 51.9. The content of NFE(Nitrogen free extract) was46.6% and it was similar with rice bran. Cellulose content was higher than poplar but lignin content was lower. speciallyhemicellulose and pectin complex which more digestible carbon source to mushroom was 3.7% higher than poplar. Mineralcomponent and amino acid contents were also maintained high compared with poplar. Fe was 4.2 times, P 3.2 times, K 2.2times more and Ca was higher 16 mg/kg than poplar. The content of amino acid was quite more higher than poplar sawdust butlower than chaff. Consequently Kenaf had a good trait for basic support material in mushroom culture media and also had agood character as nutritional source.

최근 황사, 차량 배기가스, 특히 화산재 등에 따른 미세먼지 등으로 인해 발생하는 대기 오염에 대한 우려로 저감 설비에 대한 사회적 관심이 증가하고 있다. 이에 본 논문에서는 화산재 등과 같은 입자성 유동에 대한 공기정화 설비에 많이 활용되는 다공판이나 다공매질을 통과하는 유동 특성 분석을 위한 전산해석을 다루었다. 실제 다공판이나 다공매질의 경우 공극이 작을 때는 전산해석에 많은 어려움이 있어 경험적 모형이 활용되는 추세인데, 경험적 모형에 포함된 경험계수의 산정 방법과 결과를 실제 다공영역에 대한 전산 모형을 활용하거나 실험에 의한 압력강하 계측 결과와 비교함으로써 효과적인 전산해석 방법을 제시하고자 하였다.

본 연구는 인쇄광고물에 있어서 복수의 제품(고가제품과 저가제품)을 대상으로 하는 인쇄광고물에서 효과적인 레이아웃을 도출하기 위한 연구를 시도하였다. 실증분석에서는 두 유형 제품에 대해 4종류의 인쇄광고물(좌/우 제 시 2종류와 상/하 제시 2종류)을 디자인하여 고가제품과 저가제품의 배열에 대한 소비자 반응을 분석하였다: 디자 인A(고가제품-좌측, 저가제품-우측), 디자인B(저가제품-좌측, 고가제품-우측), 디자인C(고가제품-상단, 저가제품-하 단), 디자인D(저가제품-상단, 고가제품-하단). 분석결과에서는 고가제품의 경우는 대각선의 시작점에 제시되었을 때 소비자의 선택이 증가하고 저가제품의 경우에는 대각선의 끝점에 제시되었을 때 소비자의 선택이 증가하는 것 으로 나타났다. 이는 고가제품과 저가제품을 동시에 광고하는 경우 고가제품의 광고물은 좌측 또는 상측에 배치하고 저가제품의 광고물은 우측 또는 하단에 배치함으로써 두 제품의 매출을 증가시킬 수 있음을 의미한다.

An experiment was conducted to study the potential of thermal treated oak sawdust(steaming and steam explosion) as horticultural medium component in plug seedlings production of Chinese cabbage(Brassica campestris L.). This study involves the chemical, physical characterization and growth test of thermal treated oak sawdust(steaming and steam explosion) in order to evaluate their use as components of horticultural media. A commercial peat moss and oak sawdust were used as control. The total carbohydrate, C/N ratio, pH, phenolic compound, total porosity and water holding capacity were 45.1g/100g dry wt, 425.1, 4.4, 141.8mg/g wt, 82.5%, 47.1% in oak sawdust and 39.2g/100g dry wt, 300.3, 4.7, 131.7mg/g wt, 84.9% and 49.2% in steamed oak sawdust and 30.3g/100g dry wt, 247.8, 5.7, 40.8mg/g wt, 92.3% and 51.7% in steam exploded oak sawdust, respectively. The mixtures of the horticultural media were prepared using different substrate as peat moss, oak sawdust, steamed oak sawdust, steam exploded oak sawdust and perlite to grow Chinese cabbage in a greenhouse. The seed germination, stem height and leaf area were 68%, 2.2cm, 1.1cm2 in OSP(containing 90% oak sawdust and 10% perlite) and 69%, 2.5cm, 1.5cm2 in SMP(containing 90% steamed oak sawdust and 10% perlite) and 87%, 3.0cm, 2.2cm2 in SEP(containing 90% steam exploded oak sawdust and 10% perlite), respectively. The leaf area SEP(containing 90% steam exploded oak sawdust and 10% perlite) was higher than that of PP(containing 90% peat moss and 10% perlite). This research indicates that steam exploded oak sawdust may be utilized as a suitable replacement for peat moss in horticultural media component for Chinese cabbage.

배양시간(6, 12, 24, 48시간)에 따른 Yersinia enterocolitica 균체 및 배지 대사체들의 변화를 이해하기 위하여 GC/MS와 다변량통계분석을 이용하여 분석한 결과 Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis(PLS-DA) scores plots 상에서 배양시간에 따라 분석 시료들이 뚜렷하게 분리되었다. 시료들 사이의 차이에 관여하는 대사물질들을 동정한 결과 균체에서는 ethylene glycol, valine, ethanolamine, succinic acid, adenine, stearic acid, 배지에서는 glycine, fumaric acid, threonine, aminomalonic acid, malic acid, glutamic acid, citric acid가 배양시간에 따른 차이가 나는 것으로 확인되었다. 이들 대사물질들을 이용하여 관련 대사경로를 도출한 결과 배양시기에 따라 에너지 생성에 관여하는 대사경로가 주로 변하는 것으로 관찰되었다. Y. enterocolitica의 경우 대수기 초기에는 TCA cycle을 통해 에너지를 공급하다가 정지기에 들어서면서 정상적인 TCA cycle를 수행하지 못하고 ethanolamine 및 ethylene glycol 등 다른 탄소원 또는 질소원을 공급하는 것으로 확인되었다. 비록 관련된 많은 연구가 필요함에도 불구하고 대사체분석 기술을 활용한 Y. enterocolitica 균체 및 배지 분석 연구는 배양시간에 따른 대사과정의 변화를 관찰할 수 있을 뿐만 아니라 향후 균체 연구의 다양한 분야에 접목될 수 있을 것으로 사료된다.

In recent years, the spread of social media and other digital tools and its massive acceptance have revolutionized marketing practices such as advertising and promotion (Hanna, Rohn and Crittenden, 2011) by changing the approach of communication between consumers and brands (Henkkig-Thurau et al. 2004) and the sources of information about products, services or brands for consumers (Kozinets, 1999). On the one hand, these changes have provided consumers of the additional power to influence other buyers by sharing ideas and experiences about products, services or brands (Ioanăs & Stoica 2014). On the other hand social media websites allow business to engage and interact with users by increasing sense of intimacy with consumers and building strong relationships with potential customers (Mersey et al. 2010). Therefore, the incomparable efficiency of social media has induced industry leaders to participate in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, with the aim to succeed in online environments (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Furthermore, brands are motivated to develop social network campaigns for gathering consumers’ personal information useful to targeting or personalising future marketing strategies (Noort, Anthenius and Verlegh, 2014). This situation have brought many authors, especially interested in luxury industry, to investigate on social media as a new way for luxury firms to communicate with consumers and influence their purchases. One of the main objectives for literature was to understand if luxury products, related to prestige, uniqueness and exclusivity values, could be express using channels accessible to everyone, such as social media. Indeed, in this era of the “democratization of luxury” (Atwal and Williams 2009), luxury brands are dealing with the challenge of using mass marketing tools and at the same time emphasizing the exclusivity dimension of their products (Okonkwo 2010). So as Hennigs states: “As the virtual environment is a place where images, videos and opinions circulate regardless of brand ownership, is it possible to keep a sense of exclusivity around a luxury brand?” (Hennigs, Wiedmann and Klarmann 2012 p. 30). In Italy, the digital population keep growing and the time spent in front of digital devices is increasing; people is becoming more familiar with e-commerce and as a consequence the communication of firms is more transparent (The Boston Consulting Group 2011). In this perspective, this paper aims to analyse the impact of social media marketing on brand equity and consumer behaviour within the Italian luxury economy. Our research has tried to understand this phenomenon from two perspectives; on the one hand, authors have observed digital marketing strategies of some luxury firms, emphasizing the way these brands use social network to promote their products, their special events or their stories. On the other hand, researchers have studied consumers’ approaches to social networks through a survey (Chisnall 1993) delivered to a sample of Italian respondents. The goal of the research is to show how social media have been used by five luxury brands and how they can influence luxury brand equity, by affecting Italian consumer behaviour. With this objective, the authors have analysed the composition of the sample that is active on social networks in order to gather useful demographic information about users. Moreover, this research has been important to discover the most popular platforms for Italian users and the response of some of the major international luxury brands in terms of contents shared on specific social networks. In addition, the survey has represented a great opportunity to understand the influence of social network on consumer behaviour, seeking to measure cognitive, affective and conative responses (Laroche and Mourali 005).

With a staggering 35% of the total French population using Facebook representing 23.4 Million users (1), of which 72% using on their mobile phones or tablets (2), and with at least half of them daily (3), it is no brainer to understand the increasingly important role of social media in the daily life of French consumers. It is foreseeable that French consumers are influenced by, and can influence other consumers, on their fashion purchase decisions. Using published sources of information; this paper aims to highlight the four main trends of social media that have an impact on fashion marketing in France. The first trend is about instant messaging from consumers to consumers. It is how consumers frequently and easily talk one to another about brands, products, opinions, likes and dislikes, etc. hence influencing any potential purchase decision of self or others. The second trend is about interactions between consumers and brands via social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Brands can communicate directly to consumers and consumers directly to brands, hence it is very time efficient for brands to know what consumers think, like or dislike about their products or marketing communications. For consumers, it is also satisfying to be able to voice one’s opinion and may contribute to the future success, or failure, of new products. The third trend is about brands collaborating with online communities to co-create new products. In this instant, brands will let online consumers express their desires, for example through mood boards, and then create a few samples of new products based on those desires. Online consumers can then vote for their preferred ones that will later be produced and sold online to the consumers. Such example can be found from a partnership between “La Boutonniere” website (which collects information from online communities) and “Anne Studio” (a woman fashion brand) (4). This technique can ensure a higher successful rate of new product launches. The fourth trend is about disguised advertising campaigns on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. These platforms are offering to conceive and design online marketing communication campaigns for brands that fit with their target consumers’ environments on those same platforms. The aim is to communicate to the right audience without being intrusive and to blend in. These campaigns often mention the words “sponsored by…” to reveal their sources. In summary, these four social media trends illustrate the increasing important of social media in brand communications and brand building, not only from brand-to-consumer-to-brand, but also from consumer-to-consumer-to-consumer.

Social media has radically altered marketing’s ecology of influence. Moreover, through the rise of visual social media platforms in recent years, marketers are facing new challenges. Adopting an exploratory approach, our study combines interviews and content analysis to explore the managerial perspectives to brand storytelling through visual content site Pinterest and to assess its potential as a strategic marketing communications tool.

New professions, highly specialized in web communication, have therefore emerged lately, such as: blogger, copywriter, social media manager, especially in the fashion industry, where every detail is meaningful and consequently every word inevitably matters. The aim of this paper is to investigate the strategies used by luxury fashion brands on social media to construe their brand identity and build up global awareness. The empirical study presented is based on the analysis of a corpus of posts retrieved from internationally renowned luxury fashion brands’ Facebook fan pages selected according to an official global top list of luxury brands. Social networks are nowadays one of the most efficient tools to make a brand globally successful and luxury fashion brands owe their popularity to them, although at the beginning they were suspicious towards those media of communication (Okonkwo, 2010: 4). This was due to the fact that mass media, by definition, are characterized by features like wide accessibility and volatility that do not match with the peculiar exclusive, unique and timeless nature of luxury goods (Okonkwo, 2010: xviii). The following table (Table 1) compares luxury features with the Internet ones in order to show that they are two opposite worlds that do not share none of their characteristics. The presence of luxury online is then a paradox itself, this is due to the fact that the features attributed to luxury that can be summarized into the word “exclusiveness” do not match with the main characteristics of Internet that is a “mass” medium of communication where the main idea is that one formula fits all. The clear contrast between the features attributed to luxury and Internet is evident in the oppositions reported: for instance we have “niche clientele” versus “mass availability” to emphasize that luxury itself cannot satisfy everyone’s desire if it aims to maintain its status and in any case it is not a short time process (Rambourg, 2014); then “exclusivity” versus “mass accessibility” is to highlight the fact that luxury cannot be accessible to everyone; and the extremely relevant difference between luxury products that must or at least give the idea to be “made-to-measure” versus the “one-formula-fits-all approach” and “mass appeal”, typical of the mass media of communication, that distinguishes the use of Internet, where what you share is designed to be widely accessible from luxury that represents uniqueness and exclusiveness. The study conducted will try to identify if luxury brands have overcome this channel conflict and later investigate their performances on social media particularly focusing on the construction of the content. The analysis of the data will be run by taking into consideration marketing literature review, and the use of theoretical frameworks based on genre analysis, corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. Furthermore the analysis will be done with the support of statistical linguistic softwares Wordsmith and Wmatrix, and it will show how luxury fashion brands shape brand identity online through words. The results will offer an overview on the construction of content particularly used to rely on storytelling, heritage marketing, and “glocalization” strategies. Moreover, interesting insights will draw the attention to the specific strategies used to target different markets (Hollensen, 2007: 220-221) while taking into consideration the cultural differences and at the same time emphasizing the features directly connected to the “Made in” identity of the brand. A further section will focus on the interplay between different semiotic systems employed to construe the brand identity online, and on some examples of strategies specifically designed for emerging markets and created through transmedia communication (Jenkins, 2006). The evidence gathered, which also sheds light on the use of pronouns and verbs to stimulate the users’ engagement in brands’ life and in the production of the content, can provide interesting insights into web communication. Further interdisciplinary researches combining different approaches will develop significant strategies particularly interesting for the training of new professional profiles involved in the design of marketing strategies.

The research examines the role of social media as a part of marketing communications strategy in the fashion industry. The aim is to develop a conceptual framework for marketing communications in the digital age, given the rise in importance of social media and the decline of traditional print media in terms of fashion influence.

This research examined the effect of social media marketing on college students’ behaviors toward cotton clothing. The results showed that social media marketing had a greater impact on college students than conventional marketing or no marketing. Fashion brands should utilize social media to communicate with college students more effectively.

The aim of this paper is to understand which are the most effective social media strategies for gaining customer engagement for fashion companies. The study has been conducted using the empirical research methodology and the information has been collected with the use of an online survey distributed among companies belonging to the fashion industry. 42 questionnaires have been collected and therefore discussed. The analysis led to the definition of a list of strategies used by fashion companies on the adoption of social media tools. Subsequently, activities and the social tools able to improve customer engagement have been analysed. Finally, according to the size of the companies and to their positioning on the market, a descriptive analysis of the results have been carried out, comparing companies with similar characteristics. The research shows that companies of the same segment adopt the same approach to social media as well as a similar set of social media marketing strategies. The findings of this paper confirm the growing interest both from academics and practitioners for Social Media Marketing tools and they will suggest implications to fashion brands to manage their customer engagement and their social media activity.

Anna Dello Russo has worked with H&M, the Sartorialist's Scott Schuman has written his second book and home-grown Susie Bubble has consulted for Gap, Armani and Selfridges to name a few. There is no doubt that these figures are key influencers in the world of fashion and they are turning their efforts and knowledge into fiscal benefits. Fashion blogs have become not only a form of user-generated content, a medium for communicating to the masses without any prior training or knowledge, but have also evolved to become a new marketing communications channel in their own right. Fashion writers are not only dictating content to esteemed fashion titles that were once only contributed to by the fashion journalist elite, but they are engaged as brand consultants with the aim of shaping the future direction of brands in terms of content, style and scope. When did all this power and influence happen and how can we measure it? This is the central question inherent to this study’s focus. The dynamic nature of digital, online and social media activities means that most research is out of date or getting closer to ‘expiry’ even as the ink dries on the page. To exemplify: research dated just three years ago still includes MySpace in a comprehensive list of online networks and social media sites (e.g. Mir and Zaheer, 2012) and ‘second life’ as an innovation [albeit this has been experiencing somewhat of a renaissance within certain consumer sectors in recent times]. This aside, the point is thus: academic scholarship cannot keep up with the rapid rate of digital change in the landscape, but it continues to try, as does this humble study. A volume of research has recently contributed to the understanding of the influence of social media in the fashion sphere, predominately from an electronic word-of-mouth (e-wom) perspective, for example (Bronner and Hoog, 2013; Fang, 2014; Hennig-Thurau, 2004; Kulmala et al., 2013; Liu, 2006; Trusov et al., 2009) engagement with social media (e.g. Campbell et al, 2012; Dhaoui, 2014). This body of literature has supplied a solid foundation for understanding why user-generated content may be shared and under what circumstances and to whom. However, a limitation of these significant contributions are reasons for propensity to influence, that is, once it has been shared, distributed and circulated, how do we measure the impact of this influence? Yes we can use analytics to quickly demonstrate quantitative and numerical impact in terms of followers, traffic, interaction, sales and (not so quickly) the wider reach of blogs on PR for brands, brand-metrics and customer engagement. But what about the wider influential impact of key social media writers and opinion leaders, or those that follow and listen to them: how can we evaluate this impact of influence? How does it work? Why does it work with some over others? We seek to find answers around this notion of social influence and ask: why do people listen to bloggers? Do consumers of this information distinguish between platforms: do they prefer blogs? Twitter? Picture-content through Instagram or Pinterest? Is there a gender difference? Considering also the rise in ‘erasable’ social media in the form of SnapChat, which lasts ten seconds before ‘self destructing’: what impact are these having in terms of influence in particular sectors like fashion, how can brands harness this power and use it to build equity, target new consumers, increase sales and revenue? In other geographical domains, such as China, where social media constraints and censorship are notable, emerging applications like WeChat are increasing in popularity, first with consumers, but retail and fashion brands are also beginning to endorse them to facilitate a meaningful conversation with their customers through these innovations. We also aim to explore the current state of play regarding terminology for social media contributors – are they still bloggers even though they create content across-platform? (It would be unusual for example, for a popular and credible blogger to only have a blog and no twitter or Instagram activity). Is the term blogger naturally all-encompassing or is it a misnomer that we need to create new terminology to explain these phenomena? Cullen (2014) the fashion magazine editor of Elle Australia created a blogger award ceremony to honour the contribution of these fashion influencers and comments that: “We picked the ones that we felt have the most traction with our readers. It is very clear we are in a blogger boom right now and everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and [the nominees] gave fashion this new relevance. They took fashion and democratized it, so rather than have to see what the designer wanted you to see [on the catwalk], they took the runway fashion and put it together in their own ways. They made it wearable, as they mixed it with other labels and all those things that make an outfit work for real life.” This quote serves to illuminate an example of the commercial impact of fashion bloggers in the fashion sector and the relevance that influential opinion leaders believe they can have on their readership. Thus, we seek, through our research, to interrogate existing literature on social media, marketing, consumption and consumer psychological theories in the context of fashion influence with the aim of contributing to understanding in this fast-evolving transformative sector. Social media has been defined as: ‘A group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, .61). Within this context, social media applications exist to facilitate user interaction, and include blogs, content communities, discussion boards and chat rooms, product and/or service review sites, virtual worlds, and social networking sites (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Mangold and Faulds, 2009). In this paper we focus on social networking, which refers to applications, such as Facebook and Twitter, Instagram/Pinterest and more disposable aps like Snapchat. Essentially, we take an all-embracing approach to understanding social media, as this is simply how it is used by consumers, in the virtual landscape (for example, users do not distinguish between platforms, they simply use the most appropriate means to communicate their content at that time). We aim to contribute a perspective that is original by investigating existing literature in two territories: social media influence and Social Impact Theory, which we will use as a theoretical perspective to explore the influence of social media on fashion. A Theoretical Lens: Social Influence Theory (SIT) After dismissing other theoretical frameworks for our study’s focus including: Uses and Gratifications theory; Involvement and Motivation, the choice to focus on Social Impact Theory (SIT) (Latane, 1981) was rationalized by the centrality of influence as a construct, to the characteristics of the theory. SIT (Latane, 1981) maintains, “as the number of people increases the impact on the target individual’s attitude and behavior enhances”. As influence is inherent to our aim, this theory, albeit being created almost two decades before the concept of social media, may have transferable qualities that may aid comprehension of understanding into the complexities associated with understanding the influence of social media in the fashion sector. This seemingly large leap from a traditional application of the theory to the virtual world is made more plausible by at least one previous study, that has started to also recognize the value of this framework for understanding online activity for example, Mir and Zaheer (2012) who use SIT in the contexts of social media and banking. The theory has not however, been used thus far in the realm of fashion and social media, thus, a study of this kind aims to contribute to knowledge in this field. Social impact has been defined by the founding father of the theory as: ‘Any of the great variety of changes in physiological states and subjective feelings, motives and emotions, cognitions and beliefs, values and behavior, that occur in an individual, human, or animal, as a result of the real, implied or imagined presence or actions of other individuals’. (Latané, 1981, p. 343) Latané (1981) created social impact theory to validate his hypothesis about how influence works, which led to the identification of three factors that make up social impact theory: 1) Strength: How important is the influencing group to the target of the influence; 2) Immediacy: How close in proximity and in time is the influencing group to the target of the influence; 3) Number: How many people are in the influencing group. Taking each one of these in turn, the leverage of these variables to a social media context seems obvious. Social media by its very nature encourages a ‘pull’ approach to groups or communities (hence the ‘strength’ variable); the ‘immediacy’ of social media in the sense that messages can be communicated and responded to in real time, have been facilitated by social media capabilities. Finally, the third variable of SIT is ‘number’; in a virtual world, there is a real sense that there is no limit to the amount of people you can communicate with. To exemplify, we refer to Facebook with its 9 Billion plus users as an example of this reach, or Lady GaGa with her 44 Million plus followers on Twitter. This succinct insight into SIT theory provides a short rationale as to its applicability to a social media context, specifically the fashion sector. A more in-depth analysis of its use and application to this study will be developed for the final paper following data collection.