What is shopping and how is it changing?

Commentary

The current draft comprises a repeated set of statements that social media of different kinds are undermining high-street retail in the UK, with reference mainly to business studies literature.

Your Dissertation

A solid piece of dissertation research is not necessarily complicated, and all of the ingredients are things which you have done very well during the MA, it just brings them together. The thesis should be built on study during the MA, using the kinds of material studied and the thoughts arising. It engages with anthropological or material culture writing and literature, which shows how it contributes. It has an element of individual research or data (ethnographic, archival, library-based, interview-based, media-based etc). That means it has an observational element, observations linked to the data. It has discussion, which shows the researcher has explored a specified area, what has been published, and is able to work with the landscape of relevant ideas. Lastly, a good thesis shows awareness of what the issue is which it contributes to, and responds to that: for example, the introduction might asks a relevant question which the conclusion responds to or re-phrases. Putting these together results in a competent thesis, and theyre all elements youve done in the past.

Ethnographic work as well does not have to be an extensive piece of work, or large in scale. Its value is more about the appropriateness of the situation and context, and its capacity to explore cultural contrasts and comparison. It is possible (although unusual) to write a good dissertation about a single case study or person. So for the issue of online imagery and shopping, for example, one could take a single shop, and work with or interview a few staff, customers, and so forth, to gain contrasting viewpoints. A good thesis then is correctly targetted with an appropriate scope, and hence often small and in-depth.

My point is to try to make clear your course of action for a dissertation.

If you want to continue on the issue of social media & the high street, what you need for a pass thesis is, for example:

Set out and describe your interviews or observation: for example, a shop, talk with some staff,. some customers, about the issue of social media and clothes buying. Short conversations, about key themes (eg. social media used, recent experiences of shopping, wardrobe, images, key problems and motivations).
Set out literature on key issues: eg. studies of shopping (Miller, Lury, etc); studies of what difference digital media makes (eg. Latourian, Miller on facebook, Sarah Pink, Gabriela Coleman, Turkle, Nafus). Choose a limited number of approaches, state your understanding of them, compare them, position your own ideas with respect to them.
Then frame your issue – think of it not as the issue out there, but the issue which your train of thought and work addresses and can address. Eg. How is shopping changing for this brand/shop, or for this kind of person? How is X manifested through social media & shopping? (where X is relevant to the particular clothing or shop or people you talked with).

Possible Courses of Action

The options seem harsh, but I think you need to be pragmatic, and it is likely to take longer to get the MA.

As noted above, to do this you would need a wholly different literature, issue and data set. You would need to inject your own voice and work very much into the work, with confidence.
Write a dissertation on a different issue. As noted above, you have tremendous cultural knowledge around textiles, fashion design skills, new materials, and the UK and South Asian clothing industries. The current draft does not seem to draw on your own deep wells of expertise as well as it might, and it could be more easy for you to write an in-depth study on issues you have been working on for longer.
Submit a thesis which may not pass this time around. You would then be able to re-submit the dissertation the following year (check the two postgraduate handbooks – the one on the programmes, and the one on the regulations – for details).
Not to submit a thesis, or submit late – this is similar to the above option, in that the grade of a late thesis is often capped, and may not pass.

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