A genre analysis of beauty and skincare postings by Malaysian influencers on Instagram / Chai Jian Mei

Chai , Jian Mei (2021) A genre analysis of beauty and skincare postings by Malaysian influencers on Instagram / Chai Jian Mei. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

With the advent of social media, marketers now look at alternative ways to promote their products and services. Apart from traditional advertisements, it is becoming common for them to engage with Social Media Influencers (SMI) to generate electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) pertaining to a product or service on social media platforms. Recognizing the diversification of promotional discourse, this study examines social media Instagram as a potential artefact that is compatible with traditional advertisement in fulfilling promotional purposes. Data comprises 50 Instagram posts featuring 10 local SMIs and the beauty and skincare products that they endorse. It adopts a multi-faceted approach involving Kathpalia’s (1992) nine move structure for straight line advertisements, Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996, 2006) Grammar of Visual Analysis. At the macro level, analysis is focused on unravelling the presence of moves that help realise the communicative purpose of the discourse, while at the micro level, analysis is revolved around interactional meaning. Findings at the macro level showed that there is a total of nine moves alongside ten sub-moves exhibited by SMIs when generating their respective promotional posts on Instagram. These moves subsequently form the move structure of Instagram posts by SMIs to fulfill three communicative purposes, which are i) to capture the attention of the targeted audience and to inform them of the launch of a new product or service, ii) to persuade targeted audience to purchase the newly launched item and iii) to generate a desired Call-to-Action (CTA). Meanwhile, analysis at the micro textual level have also revealed that SMIs opted for lexical items that are engaging and persuasive when promoting products that they endorsed on Instagram. These include lexical items that deal with Un/happiness, Valuation, Infused Intensification and Isolated quantification – all to fulfil the communicative purpose of the understudied discourse. Finally, visual analysis involving the Interpersonal Meta-Function has revealed that SMIs usually present themselves in a closed, direct contact and eye-level image coupled with oblique views to enhance their appeal and subsequently form a close relationship with their audience. Apart from serving its primary purpose in forming a relationship with the audience, these images generated by SMIs also played its additional role in realizing some of the moves that eventually fulfil the promotional purposes of Instagram posts. This study contributes towards offering insights to marketers on the effective use of Instagram in fulfilling promotional purposes. It also serves as a contribution towards the genre studies by providing scholars and academicians alike a better understanding on how new, innovative discourse such as Social Media Instagram is utilised in the modern days to achieve its communicative purpose.

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