The Illusion of increased Democracy in the

Introduction Existing literature and the popular press have lauded the digital revolution as a force that is democratizing traditional forms of journalism and destabilizing media power hierarchies. This paper aims to refute such claims of enhanced democracy through the lens of Fashion Journalism as it responds to the digital age. Questions of democracy have heretofore been debated principally within the context of the political sphere. The current study aims to augment the ongoing dialog on this issue with an examination of an evolving journalism within the fashion realm, an area largely neglected in such discourse. It will conduct an examination of the blogosphere, news websites, and social media tools supplementing and supplanting older forms of fashion media. Ultimately, this work encourages a hesitance in prematurely praising the digital age for its supposed democratizing influence on fashion journalism. A Brief Literature Review In Networked, Adrienne Russell examines the evolution of media between 1990 and 2010, the time period in which the growing popularity of the web elicited a corresponding decrease in the relevancy of the printed newspaper. Russell describes the new form of journalism in the digital age as " networked journalism, " in which the public has assumed the new role of active news creator rather than passive news consumer. Russell asserts, " …The variety of forms and perspectives that make up news in this environment and the number of connections linking creators to one another have significant influence on the news and have expanded Arnold – Illusions of Democracy journalism as a category of information and genre storytelling " (1). Russell compares old and new media models through the lens of coverage from the Gulf War in 1991 and the Iraq War in 2003. Journalism during the Gulf War was " characterized by the qualities of mass media – by the predominance of commercial and professional news product and a one-­‐way communication model to a national community " (3). The media landscape changed during the Iraq War, which coincided with the birth of the internet as a journalistic source. Russell notes, " By 2003, a vibrant field of readily accessible public communication had formed, for example, by academics, bloggers, citizen-­‐sponsored journalists, and…'second-­‐tier news outlets.'…The new material augmented and often clashed with material produced by the mainstream media " (15). Journalism has changed, she argues, to become conversation rather than dictation. Like Russell, a number of other sources have explored …