First Post - an understanding

An investigation into the extent that the media promotes larger body types

Before I dive straight into the blog posts I thought I would introduce myself and let my readers know a bit about myself.

 So here we go; hello, my name is Katie and I am an Advertising and Public Relations student at North East Scotland College which is situated in Aberdeen, Scotland. I am now in my second year (and final year) of college and I am excited to be progressing onto university. This course is a “2 and 2” which allows students to continue their education after college and be accepted into a local University – Robert Gordon’s University. I will be attending RGU this September (2017) and I am thoroughly looking forward to transitioning from college as be closer to achieving my goals of obtaining a degree in Public Relations. 

As part of the course this course students were asked to create a blog that links in with different aspects of our course. I have decided to link my blog with the topic “Industrial Investigation”. The area I want to address in my Industrial investigation is how different media types are promoting larger body types and to what extent that this is true. I chose this topic as I am aware that social media accounts and other media types are promoting larger body types and praising them. This allows readers to be comfortable in their own skin. I also chose this topic as it is something I find interesting and am willing to spend time investigating.

Being asked to create a blog for college was quite exciting as it is very different to our usual tasks and learning outcomes that students are required to do. I have a blog of my own that I started out with college so will be great to gain more experience in writing.

I decided to dedicate each blog post to a “plus size” influencer/model/blogger and so forth. I will look at each influencers’ following, content, comments/reaction etc. This will help me and the readers to gain an understanding of to what extent that media promotes larger bodied people.

My next blog post will look at plus size model Iskra lawerence who has a large social media following and actively campaigns and supports others to help them feel comfortable in their own skin. I will also be looking into the social media account of Lotte Louise Williams who as well as being a model is a member of the ASOS insiders team and promotes clothing from ASOS that are flattering to her body shape. I will be also looking at Tess Holliday who is a plus size model in the Unites States of America and identifies as a feminist. Another profile I will be looking at is Ashley Graham who is arguably one of the biggest plus size model at this moment. As well as being a model, she is a designer, a judge on America’s next top model and a Body Activist. She has appeared in high profile magazines such as Vogue and Swimsuit Illustrated. These few examples demonstrates that media -especially social media – is used to promote large bodies due to the number of followers these influencers have.