ITAA-KSCT Joint Symposium

The Influence of Korean Instagram Users’ Cultural Disposition, Social Capital, and Instagram Usage Propensity on their Evaluation Attributes for Fashion Influencers

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Abstract

This study investigates on how Millennials evaluate fashion influencers on Instagram whom have been slowly leading the micro-cultural trends. The users tend to selectively compare, choose, and evaluate these influencers in terms of their own tastes and propensities, and also their cultural and social characteristics. Literary reviews have been used to evaluate categories of individuals’ cultural disposition by vertical-collectivism, vertical-individualism, horizontal collectivism, and horizontal individualism. Furthermore, there are two types of social capital in social networks, which is that people value the “bridging” nature of what links them with influencers, and people use a “bonding” nature to seek emotional stability while being involved in their ideal social gatherings. This study conducted a questionnaire survey of 467, 20 to 30-year-old male and female Instagram users. The questionnaire contains 2 sub-dimensions of Culture Disposition: Vertical Collectivism and Vertical Individualism; 2 sub-dimensions of Social Capital: Connective Social Capital and Bonding Social Capital; 2 sub-dimensions of Instagram usage propensity: Relationship Seeking Propensity and Information Seeking Propensity; 3 sub-dimensions of Fashion Influencer Evaluation Attributes: Professionalism, Attractiveness and Intimacy. It is meaningful to provide basic data for understanding the characteristics of Instagram users who utilize fashion influencers, for the purpose of market actualization. As a result, Vertical Collectivism and Vertical Individualism were found to be related to Relationship Seeking Propensity; Only Vertical Individualism was found to be related to Information Seeking Propensity. Furthermore, Relationship Seeking Propensity was found to be related to Intimacy, and Information Seeking Propensity was related to Professionalism, Intimacy and Attractiveness.

How to Cite:

Shin, E., Lee, S., Kim, S. & Koh, A., (2018) “The Influence of Korean Instagram Users’ Cultural Disposition, Social Capital, and Instagram Usage Propensity on their Evaluation Attributes for Fashion Influencers”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 75(1).