Blog Post #3

 As of right now, I have a few circulating ideas on what to base my research proposal on...(quick reminder that my Lit. Review was on the effects of social media communication on consumerism)

1. Something to do with the environment? When I was doing my literature review, there was a lot of missing information about green initiatives or how social media can impact 'buying green'...I really only found one or two articles, both of which were very generalized. I would love to focus in on a certain area - maybe saving the oceans or bees, to see what the implications of social media communication can do for environmental consumerism. 

2. A specialized review or study of one particular social media platform - preferably Pinterest - and it's affects on consumerism. Pinterest is a unique social media platform because it's almost entirely based on pictures - it's a shopping site and social media meshed into one. A lot of the information I found while writing my literature review were generalized overviews of social media communications in general - I only found one study that focused in on Twitter and Facebook specifically, but still was decently generalized.

3. Finally, I am thinking about playing around with demographics - how are groups with specific characteristics using social media communication in relation to consumerism? Once again, all the studies in my research were very generalized, although I found a few articles relating to age demographics. I would love to see how women vs men are affected, how the LGBTQ+ community is affected, how college students are affected, etc. I think specific studies in those areas would be very interesting and could contribute a lot to the existing knowledge of social media communications. 

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