Crafted assemblage: young women’s ‘lifestyle’ blogs, consumerism and citizenship in Singapore

Abstract

Blogs categorised in the genres of fashion and lifestyle are often overlooked in discussions of blogging, politics and citizenship. This article examines lifestyle blogs with rich media content, authored by young Singaporean women. It argues through a content analysis and an analysis of the blogs’ aesthetic as assemblage that there is a significant relationship between women’s consumerism in Singapore and expressions of citizenship. These blogs have a crafted aesthetic that is both parochial (e.g. through their appeal to regional popular culture) and global (e.g. through their focus on particular globally circulated consumer products). As material-supporting inquiry, they also provide a means of examining these young women’s views on privacy and consumption, as well as their aspirations. The article concludes by suggesting that to effectively capitalise on such blogs as a means of understanding social life and ‘everyday politics’, we need to appreciate them not only as being culturally embedded but also as having a particular cultural aesthetic that is created by how bloggers craft and assemble their identities and narratives online.

Notes

[1] Singapore was ranked by the Central Intelligence Agency as having the fifth highest gross domestic product per capita in the world in 2011.

[2] In 2013 a basic Singtel Postpaid plan cost at approximately US$0.13 (with the exchange rate at 1 September 2010) per minute for voice calls. This compares favourably with other costs in developed countries such as Japan, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom as noted in 2010 (Li and Ninan-Moses 2010).

[3] This is defined by La Ferle and Chan (2008, 202) as ‘the degree to which a person believes that the acquisition and possession of material objects are important to achieve happiness in life, as well as an indicator of his or her success in life’.

[4] Other well-known bloggers in Singapore are ‘Cheesie’ (http://cheeserland.com) and ‘Sheylara’ (http://sheylara.com) or Shen Qiaoyun who relocated to Bournemouth in the United Kingdom in 2011.

[5] See http://xiaxue.blogspot.sg/p/faqs.html.

[6] Coclanis (2009a, 10) defines this as ‘a wide range of products and services like domestic services [particularly maids], recreation and entertainment, personal care and holiday tours’. Here we define this in terms of three categories from the Singapore Household Expenditure Survey: ‘Recreation and Culture’, ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services’ and ‘Educational Services’. ‘Miscellaneous Goods and Services’ includes personal care, personal effects and various social and financial services.

[7] See http://ilovegyaru.tumblr.com/.

[8] However, it is not clear that Asia or Singapore were well represented in this sample. The authors note that ‘[w]hile over 60 countries were represented, the vast majority were from the USA (over 70%) or other English-speaking countries (UK: 4%; Australia: 1.4%; Canada: 1.3%)’ (Patchin and Hinduja 2010, 203).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jolynna Sinanan

Jolynna Sinanan is a postdoctoral fellow in anthropology at University College London. Her current research is with the Global Social Media Impact Study, funded by the European Research Council. She has recently co-authored the forthcoming book ‘Webcam’ with Professor Daniel Miller, which is the first in-depth study on the various uses of webcams, drawing on fieldwork in Trinidad and the United Kingdom.

Connor Graham

Connor Graham is a director and fellow at Tembusu College at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also a research fellow in the Science, Technology and Society Research Cluster at the Asia Research Institute at NUS. His research centres on living and dying in the age of the Internet.

Kua Zhong Jie

Kua Zhong Jie is an undergraduate in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where she is pursuing an honours degree in psychology. She is also an alumnus of Tembusu College at NUS. She has worked on several research projects centred on visual culture.