Visual Mapping of Identity: Negotiating Ethnic Identity

Purpose — the paper offers a novel participatory visual research method, the Mapping Of Identity (MOI) protocol that embraces the complex nature of contemporary consumers’ lived reality. Design/methodology/approach — the MOI protocol is a two phase methodology. The first phase includes collage creation, based on a taxonomy of attachments, followed by an elicitation interview structured around the participant’s collage. In phase two, the categories elicited in phase one are synthesised into key themes in collaboration between the researcher and the participant. Findings — MOI methodology provides an effective platform for participants to bring together disjointed memories, fragments and thoughts. Two individual cases are presented that seem similar on the surface; however, when deconstructing these narratives, their lived experiences and the effect that these narratives have on the construction of the self are very different. Treating participants as co-researchers and letting the choices they make in their collage creation lead the interview empowers the participant and enables the researcher to better understand their complex identity articulations. Originality/Value —marketing literature recognises the complex nature of contemporary lived reality; however, some of the intricate aspects of this reality have not been dealt with in all their complexity. A reason for this gap is the paucity of suitable research methods. The MOI protocol presented in this paper addresses this, providing an effective visual tool to explore the complex web of contemporary consumer life. Keywords: Visual Narratives; Collage Elicitation; Mind Mapping; Participatory Researc

Connecting through content: Teenagers' temporal tribes

The need to belong is deeply rooted in society (Kahle et al., 1986). Consumers possess an inherent need for social acceptance, seeking positive and enduring relationships with others (DeWall & Bushman, 2011; Leary, 2010). ‘Fitting in’ and connecting with others is particularly pertinent to teenagers, who are searching for ways to connect with others to avoid negative consequences, such as low self-esteem, anxiety and depression (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Denissen et al., 2008; Isaksen & Roper, 2012). Teenagers, as heavy social media users, turn to online platforms, such as TikTok, to connect with others (Anderson and Jiang, 2018; Chen, 2017). At times of pressure, these social connections can alleviate stress and improve wellbeing (Kar, 2023). In this paper, we are interested in how teenagers negotiate their parasocial interactions with other consumers ‘like them’ on social media. We focus on the social media platform TikTok due to its popularity amongst teenagers (Vogels et al., 2022) and the specific context of GCSE and A-Level examinations. By narrowing the focus of the research, participants were more easily able to articulate their lived experiences than if they were asked more broadly about their general experiences and interactions on social media. Social media enables teenagers to connect and parasocially interact with other consumers outside their offline network (Miller et al., 2016; Wang & Edwards, 2016). Horton and Wohl (1956) conceptualise parasocial interactions as the vicarious, one-sided (non-reciprocal) friendship a media viewer has with a media persona. Whereby the viewer feels that they know the persona as intimately as a friend in everyday life, with this friendship serving a consumer need such as friendship, utility or affection (Perse & Rubin, 1989; Hays, 1984). Parasocial interactions are conceptualised here as the ‘virtual’ interpersonal relationship between a performer and a spectator, with the spectator perceiving this relationship as ‘real’ (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). In previous consumer research, the performer is typically the celebrity and/or influencer (e.g., Chung and Cho, 2017; Lee & Watkins, 2016). In the context of our research, we posit that teenagers have parasocial interactions with ‘ordinary’ everyday consumers, whereby the performer is the everyday consumer who, for example, has created relevant and authentic content that the spectator (the teenage participant) gets utility or connection from engaging with. Teenagers are notoriously hard to engage in academic research (Bassett et al., 2008), with research methods needing to draw on active methods to engage participants (Banister & Booth, 2005; Nakarada-Kordic et al., 2017). We draw on creative methods, with the study designed collaboratively with teenagers, drawing on researcher- and participant led triadic interviews with teenagers who had used TikTok during their GCSE and A-Level examinations. The interviews drew on projective and enabling techniques along with the visual method of storyboarding to engage teenagers in an in-depth discussion to access their conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings (Boddy, 2005; Rabin, 1986). We explore how teenagers actively seek out and negotiate complex online parasocial interactions with ‘ordinary’ consumers (e.g., other teenagers and teachers) who are experiencing a shared (common) reality at that moment in time (Cova & Cova, 2002). Authentic and culturally relevant user-generated content plays a pivotal role in forming ephemerally tribes, which the teenagers draw on to use to connect with other ‘ordinary’ consumers who are going through the same experience at the same time

Exploring Teenagers’ Use of TikTok: An Emerging Multi-Faceted Method.

During the 2022 summer GCSE and A-Level exams, teenagers turned to TikTok to create, watch and share short videos. We put forward an innovative multi-faceted data collection method to explore teenagers’ shared consumption experiences on TikTok during this period. Drawing on the projective and enabling techniques of thought bubbles and sentence completion, storyboarding and semi-structured questions, in the context of dyadic and triadic interviews we gain powerful insight into teenagers’ usage of TikTok during exams

A Guide to Conducting Participatory Collage Consumer Research

This chapter provides guidance on how to conduct participatory visual research. Drawing on the researchers’ experiences of using the arts-based technique of collage, the chapter outlines the power of collage and collage elicitation interviews to access consumers’ inner thoughts and feelings. An illustrative example of how the research method was used to explore the complex identity negotiations of second and third generation British South Asians is used to provide pragmatic guidance on how to undertake participatory data collection, interpretation and analysis. Immersing participants in interpreting and analysing the data empowers them and provides researchers with rich insight into complex and fluid constructs

Constructing Consumer-Masstige Brand Relationships in a Volatile Social Reality

This article conceptualises how consumers construct their relationships with masstige brands. Drawing on a two-stage methodology of consumer interviews and online content analysis of brands’ social media pages, we offer innovative insight into how consumers navigate consumer-masstige brand relationships (CMBRs). We present CMBRs as multiple, dynamic and capricious relationships, departing from the view of enduring brand relationships as monogamous marriages. The unique symbolic nature and more central role of masstige brands in consumers’ identity projects, make CMBRs more intense and transient. The findings illustrate that ‘masstige’ brand status is continually negotiated within a complex web of on- and off-line dialogues between multiple actors (the consumer, masstige brand, other consumers and other brands (masstige, low/middle market and luxury)). Consumers expect masstige brands to be more responsive to their needs. The role of marketers as collaborators and enablers in consumers’ identity projects is therefore more intense in CMBRs

Constructing Consumer-Masstige Brand Relationships in a Volatile Social Reality

This article conceptualises how consumers construct their relationships with masstige brands. Drawing on a two-stage methodology of consumer interviews and online content analysis of brands’ social media pages, we offer innovative insight into how consumers navigate consumer-masstige brand relationships (CMBRs). We present CMBRs as multiple, dynamic and capricious relationships, departing from the view of enduring brand relationships as monogamous marriages. The unique symbolic nature and more central role of masstige brands in consumers’ identity projects, make CMBRs more intense and transient. The findings illustrate that ‘masstige’ brand status is continually negotiated within a complex web of on- and off-line dialogues between multiple actors (the consumer, masstige brand, other consumers and other brands (masstige, low/middle market and luxury)). Consumers expect masstige brands to be more responsive to their needs. The role of marketers as collaborators and enablers in consumers’ identity projects is therefore more intense in CMBRs

Constructing consumer-masstige brand relationships in a volatile social reality

This article conceptualises how consumers construct their relationships with masstige brands. Drawing on a two-stage methodology of consumer interviews and online content analysis of brands’ social media pages, we offer innovative insight into how consumers navigate consumermasstige brand relationships (CMBRs). We present CMBRs as multiple, dynamic and capricious relationships, departing from the view of enduring brand relationships as monogamous marriages. The unique symbolic nature and more central role of masstige brands in consumers’ identity projects, make CMBRs more intense and transient. The findings illustrate that ‘masstige’ brand status is continually negotiated within a complex web of on- and off-line dialogues between multiple actors (the consumer, masstige brand, other consumers and other brands (masstige, low/middle market and luxury)). Consumers expect masstige brands to be more responsive to their needs. The role of marketers as collaborators and enablers in consumers’ identity projects is therefore more intense in CMBRs.</p