Sophie Sinclair

你好！Today was our sixth class on Tuesday, May 26th. There are three more classes in the course and we are now working extensively on our research projects. 

Some exciting GEA news from today’s class: Happy-birthday-weekend to Garrett’s mom and Professor Sheehan’s sister. We also found out Garrett supports both UCLA and USC within the confines of his bedroom. Keegan has promised the exercise class dance routine will still happen. We celebrated Keegan, Kerrigan, and Callie for great quiz one responses. We also found out a large majority of us prefer to “couch” than to do cardio or strength training and Sean has offered to watch everyone exercise from the comfort of his couch. 

Today’s class was split into three parts: lecture, discussion of readings, and sharing research findings thus far. During the lecture portion, we learned the last part of the 20th century is considered the new golden age of globalization and is characterized by the re-division of world labor forces, the spread of consumer products, increase in trade and capital flows. We also studied a map of greenhouse gas emissions within a conversation about globalization as a means of sharing the air and planet. 

Globalization as sharing the planet.

We read two readings for today’s class. The first reading was about the international marketing strategies of Chinese enterprises. This reading discussed why and how Chinese enterprises are participating in international marketing strategies. We learned export is the most common entry strategy, strategic alliances are beneficial, and about the strategy of mergers and acquisitions. The second reading is about Chinese fashion brands increasing presence internationally.

We reflected on our research thus far, and five members of the class shared their findings: Callie discussed her findings on TikTok’s collaboration with Amazon to encourage Amazon users to download TikTok as well as shift their marketing from a quirky and artsy platform to be more mainstream social media focused. Callie also concluded that social media (especially TikTok) has two purposes: to capture memorable moments and to express individuality.

Sarah shared her findings on a fashion brand, Shein. Sarah analyzed Shein’s focus on western trends, specifically Eurocentric beauty. She found that many of Shein’s advertisements show trends that are associated with European fashion, such as ruffles on the clothing which are associated with European beauty. As well, Sarah found that many of the models in the advertisements fit stereotypical European beauty standards.

Keegan shared his findings on TikTok, focusing on the videos on TikTok’s website. Keegan discussed TikTok’s role as an outlet during this pandemic. Videos on TikTok serve as a reminder of things we enjoy and the interconnectedness we had before COVID and will hopefully regain after!

I (Sophie) shared my findings of Shein, as well. I focused on the background and setting of Shein advertisements to analyze themes that Shein marketing might have strategically putting into the advertisements for western millennial populations.

Sean shared his findings on League of Legends and discussed the video’s diverse settings and characters that increase the game’s influence around the globe.

And now, an update on everyone’s lives outside of class: