Assignment Five.

In the first semester I was looking at how designers influence who we are and how we act. I was also curious if the media has created unrealistic ideals for the average person to keep up with. Especially for women and teenage girls growing up in culture where everyone wants to be attractive. I want to investigate further using research tools I have learnt throughout this semester.
I think for the most successful and positive way to discover what people think about the media I would have to use a combination of interviewing and observing.
I plan to observe the way people shop due to the trends. Discover the styles people wear in different seasons and why. Do people become influenced by what celebrity's wear? If so, which ones. How young do women begin to feel the strain of following celebrities? People often feel a massive pressure to wear the right brands, people will pay a lot of extra money for the brand name scrawled across the front of clothing. My little sister is only in first year of high school and when we were shopping for a new hollister hoodie (which had to be hollister), I picked up a blue plain hoodie and she dismissed it straight away because it did not have the logo clearly visible.
I know that some people do not like to wear brands at all. How many people know about hemp clothing? Or whether amnesty international sells clothing. How many people are wiling to pay the extra money for ecover?
I hope to interview dietitians about how popular different ways of weight loss are and what time of year people feel they need to do this. When do people want to look their best and why? All these questions I hope to answer using methods of research in due course.
Interviews with people shopping will be greatly helpful and will allow my understanding of what people truly thinks affects their daily life and what they think is expected of them by society. I will interview people on a Saturday at around midday as this is the high time for shopping and is the busiest time all week. The Overgate will be a perfect place to do so as it has such a large variety of shops that it draws many customers of all ages and not just from Dundee but from the countryside coming in to do their weekly shop.
In other research projects I have undertaken there has only been a very small number of people that have been questioned. To get a better and more precise sample I would need to ask a much larger and varied number of people. I will use a structured questionnaire instead of letting the interview go freestyle, this will mean I get useful information which I can precisely construct.
Perhaps I could put questionnaires through people's letter boxes and hope to get a response with an address to Duncan Of Jordanstone and a stamp. Although this could be expensive and insufficient, although the results would be thought through and give more information than a quick answer given in a quick interview.
Putting up posters for people to write there thoughts on has worked very well in the past and given me a large and varied response before as people can do it anomalously and do not get embarrassed by what they write down. Saying what they actually think and not just what they think people think they should.    
I plan to work alone although working in pairs has worked well in the past and can be an advantage as two brains do work better than one. The research for this project should be spread over roughly a week. Interviewing people on different days and not just Saturday should also vary results.