Second Hand Clothing Platforms: A Media Analysis of the representations of consumption in the UK and Italy

.The following paper discusses the phenomenon of the use of second-hand clothing platforms (SHCP) through the lens of an analysis of four major newspapers in the United Kingdom and Italy. A history of the market for second-hand clothing from the 16th century to the present day and of the commercialization of the internet alongside a literature review of consumer use of SHCP provide the basis for an analysis of consumer use of the platforms. From the literature review, three factors for consumer use are highlighted: environmental motivations, economic motivations, and hedonic motivations. On the basis of these categorisations a media analysis of sources drawn from the United Kingdom newspapers, The Guardian and The Telegraph, and the Italian newspapers, Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica, is conducted with the articles included in the analysis being grouped into the three categories identified in the literature review. The finding of this media analysis is that the least contested and most consistently highlighted reason for SHCP use across the four sources is economic motivation.