Blog #6 - boyd and Jones

In White Fight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook danah boyd focuses on taking about teens and their engagement with MySpace and Facebook. Throughout her essay, she shares teens’ opinions about why they prefer one social media platform vs. the other one. 

She starts her essay by quoting Kat, a white 14-year-old. Kat shares her opinion about why her friends are moving from MySpace to Facebook and she says that MySpace is just old and boring; but then she adds that MySpace is more like ghetto or whatever. Reading Kat’s opinion about this made me realized that I had never thought about MySpace vs. Facebook in such way. I thought that MySpace simply stopped being as popular around me because a new thing had come out and like anything, when the newer thing comes out, people seem to grow more interest for it simply because it’s new and different. I have never been huge on social media, so perhaps due to that, I had never noticed that teens actually had these kinds of opinions about it. As I reflected on what I’ve heard about MySpace throughout the years, I realized that I have not had many conversations about this. I recall hearing from friends and older family members that MySpace was more for bands and music rather that for you to be friends with your friends and that was their main reason for not having a MySpace account. I also heard from relatives that they no longer used MySpace because it was for younger kids. So, some of the comments I recall, kind of match with some parts that boyd talks about in her essay. Like teens saying that they rather Facebook because their college friends had Facebook and not MySpace.

          

Later in the essay, boyd quotes Tara, a Vietnamese-American 16-years-old saying that Facebook seems safer but that she doesn’t know what exactly makes Facebook safer, that just from what people say Facebook seems safer. Her comment about Facebook vs. MySpace made me think that she prefers Facebook because others around her seems to be saying something positive about it. This makes me wonder if she would prefer MySpace only if people around her think positively about it. Like many teenagers, Tara is not sure as to why Facebook is safer but she thinks it is because that’s what she has heard from others. I feel like nowadays the debate teenagers have is in between Instagram vs, Facebook. Or, are they just having a profile on each social media platform and not really making a choice? I noticed that majority of the teens in boyd’s essay said that they moved from MySpace to Facebook because their friends were on Facebook so they were on Facebook, too. This, in a way, makes sense. In a teenager’s mind, wherever your friends are at is where you’ll be. I don’t know if I’m right about this, but I think that many teenagers now have multiple social media platforms because that’s where their friends are at and they want to be where their friends are at.

Teens in boyd’s essay were also talking about the physical appearance options between MySpace and Facebook. A lot of the teens talked about MySpace having more options for you to personalize your page and really show more of your individuality while Facebook presented a more general look where everyone’s page pretty much looked the same. Some teens liked how MySpace had those features and other teens liked Facebook’s general look.

While the teens’ didn’t say that their preference between MySpace vs. Facebook had anything to do with race, ethnicity or class, boyd’s essay says that their reasons cannot be untangled from them.

         

The second reading for this week was Self-Segregation: Why It’s So Hard for Whites to Understand Ferguson by Robert P. Jones. This article talks about this incident and through the article we were reminded about the fact that since the incident, it was pretty clear that whites saw what happened very differently than blacks in our community. The article presented several statistics showing whites and blacks views about this incident. Some showed that most believed that this issue was part of a boarder pattern while others thought that issue was getting more attention than it deserved. I think that since the article presented several statistics and polls, it made it clearer for the reader to see what the author was showing rather than thinking that the article was written only from the author’s perspective.

As I read through the article, I was overwhelmed by the differences the polls were showing. One of the sections of the article that caught my attention the most was when a black man shared what he was taught by his mother as a young black man. He was told not to run in public, definitely not to run while holding something in his hands. He was told not to talk back to the police and to never, ever leave home without identification. This is just crazy for me to read because I know is true but I just can’t take this as a reality. I see these black males as victims of society because they shouldn’t be concern about this just based on the color of their skin. You would think that we are way over that since I thought America had come a long way regarding racism but this article showed that it is still very present in our society. 

Blog #5 - Losh

Reading through Elizabeth Losh’s blog posts this week was fascinating. There is no doubt in my mind that many think of selfies as a personal thing to do that does not relate to academic work in any way. But Elizabeth does a great job in sharing a different aspect to this stereotype. She dedicates four blog posts to share the different important things scholars are doing when it comes to learning about selfies in the classroom. 

Losh shares that scholar Mariam Posner taught a class recently where her students spent a long time reading about and learning how to write a digital ethnography. Posner shared that there was a wide range of objects of study: “there was a huge range, everything from Yik Yak to a couple of Tinder papers. I also saw papers about women’s physical fitness culture on various social media platforms, along with outliers that focused on a very specific YouTube fan community or Twitter fan community.” All Posner shared sounds so interesting to me. It makes me want to take a course just like that one. It also makes me think about our final project and I’m sure we’ll end up doing something really cool.

Losh also shared that another scholar, Alice E. Marwick, worked on a paper on the duck face. How interesting to know that people are doing this kind of research. When I read about the term ‘the duck face’ and the research that has been done, my memory went back to when I was a child and I remembered taking selfies along with my older sisters with our disposable cameras. We would then run to CVS, a few blocks away from home, to reveal the roll using their one hour photo service. We would go through all that process to then find out, when looking at the pictures, that many of those selfies had half our faces cut off or were blurry. It’s funny to remember that because it was the coolest thing to do back then. How easy it is now to grab our phones, snap a selfie, retake if needed, to then share it with others all done in seconds or maybe few minutes. 





Losh’s blog posts also talked about scholars Terri Senft and Mark Marino. Senft mentioned that selfies in the classroom could be used for illustrating, opposing or complicating “what the text is saying”. Which I found important for her to say because I feel like selfies don’t take away from text or replace the text but they enhance and expand what it’s being communicated. Senft also states “at the end of the day, the object of analysis in my teaching isn’t the selfie. It’s the idea: the idea of identity, the idea of belonging, the idea of surveillance, the idea of the outsider.” Which shows that Senft is not focused on the selfie itself. But rather, in the idea that expands the selfie further.

Marino noted, like some of the other scholars mentioned, the privacy of the students. Which is always a concern for those who do not feel comfortable sharing private information online. I personally always opt to remain as private as possible so it is appreciated when privacy is acknowledge and respected. I remember recently sharing with a classmate from a different class, how we use twitter in this class and how Dr. Zamora has encourage us to use twitter as part of our class. Without letting me finish, she responded immediately that she would not feel comfortable at all having a professor telling her she must create a social media account as part of the class requirements. I then, instantly shared that we weren’t required to expose our identity and that we could maintain our privacy. It was only then that she had a complete different approach to using a social media platform as part of a class. This shows the concern people may feel when they think their privacy is going to be compromised in some kind of way. I found interesting the projects Marino shared that he did in his class with his students. The “know thy selfie” paper, the “specular selfie” which was nearly my favorite one, and how his students participated in two “netprovs”. Which I’m excited about ours coming up soon in this semesters. I enjoyed how Losh did a great job in bringing a total different perspective on what a selfie is and how it has been incorporated into the classroom.

Thoughts regarding the learning outcomes for our class

I’ve been thinking about our final project all week and noticed that I found myself almost confused about what’s old vs. new media. I think that we are in an era where the two are still being used nearly equally (at least in my world) so I had to take a step back and reflect to separate the two from each other. In my reflection, I noticed that I still carry around a planner where I write all the things I have to do but I also constantly use my reminder app on my phone to help me remember all the things I have to do. Another thing I noticed in my reflection was that by working HR I’ve been able to see how we used our LinkedIn page to recruit but we are still paying for our ads to be placed in the Sunday’s paper and this showed me how we are still using old and new media.

So in thinking about what do I want to learn in New Media Studies I think that it would be great to learn new tools that can show me how much better it would really be to use more new media in general as opposed to old media and I would like to learn how much more effective is that if it really is more effective. I hope to learn new skills that I can put into practice with my academic, work, and personal world. More importantly, I would love if what I learn in this class could somehow be incorporated with my thesis work. I’m not sure yet if it’s possible but I would like my thesis to end up being in a digital form rather than just a 30 page paper. So I’ve I can learn new tools here or just expand my knowledge about new media then that would be helpful.

Blog #4 - Chapter 5 and 6 by Rheingold

For this week’s readings we read Rheingold’s chapters 5 & 6. He started chapter 5 by talking about networks and he shared benefits and some guidelines as to basically how to network. As I read his chapter, I thought about how I’ve always heard how important it is to get to know people in person and also connecting with them online via the appropriate platforms based on the type of relationships you are building up with them. After all, it’s always important to build your connections/your networks. It was kind of funny for me to see how he talked about the six degree of separation between us and everyone else in the planet. It was funny because we were actually talking about this last class while we were talking ideas for our class final project. So, as he started his conversation about networks, I thought it was interesting how he touched upon this topic. I also found interesting how he later talked about another study where the following has been said: “according to Fowler and Christakis, friends of friends’ friends have about one-third as much influence as people you know directly.” He also added that the results of this study were tentative until others do more research on this matter. The conversation about the influence people around you have in you made me remember an old Spanish saying I’ve been hearing my entire life: “Mira con quién andas y te diré quién eres” which translates from Spanish to: “Look at who you are hanging out with and I’ll tell you who you are” this saying has the same meaning as the old English saying I recently heard: “birds of the same feather flock together.” I found amazing, based on what Rheingold shared, how people can actually have such influence in us. I think that when networking we should be conscience about this since, to an extent, others are influencing our identities.

Later in his chapter, Rheingold talked about another very important topic and he labeled it ‘Networked Individualism’. In this section, he talked about how parents currently have less control about the interactions and relationships their children have. He quoted a parent he knows saying: “I don’t know my children’s friends anymore. They used to have to talk to me when they called my house, but now they just call or text my son’s or daughter’s mobile phone.” As I read this, I remember when I was growing up because that’s exactly how things were in my home. My friends had to talk to my mom before getting me on the phone. Let alone hanging out with them outside school; my mom had to constantly talk to my friends’ parents before I would go anywhere. I think that it was important for Rheingold to share this because it is something that is definitely happening in today’s society. It’s useful for the parents to analyze what’s happening in their household and to think if they would like to make any changes (if possible) to how their children are building relationships. It is also relevant for those who don’t have any children to think about what they would like to do in these situations, if they are even planning on having children one day. Rheingold touched upon this parenting subject in chapter 6 as well. There, he shared what boyd has to say about this topic. Boyd stated that it is key to communication with our children, this in one of the main ways to be able to find out more about what our children are doing when they are online or using the different technologies to communicate with others. This communication will also help to guide the children into what they should or should not use since you’ll be building a deeper relationship with them.

As I mentioned in prior blog posts, one of the things I appreciated most about Rheingold’s book was the easy how-to details he shares. In chapter 5 he dedicated an entire section to Facebook which is a social media platform that I am not that familiar with. Then, he talked about Facebook again in chapter 6. I liked how he sounded honest about what he was sharing in regards to Facebook. For instance, when he said that we are able to change the privacy settings only up to what Facebook allows us to do I immediately thought, as a non-Facebook user, that Facebook doesn’t really allow you to have a complete private profile. Rheingold shared specifics, which I found necessary, about how to look under places such as “Account”, “Privacy Preferences”, “Customize settings” and so on to give us direction as to where to adjust, if we desired, our privacy settings.

He ended his book with chapter 6 overall saying to watch out for what we post online. He encouraged us to be mindful about what we post and know that people will see our posting. He also mentioned that, while you can, try your best to adjust your privacy settings on your accounts. But to know that you have no control over what your, for example Facebook friends, shows his/her friends about your profile. I totally agree with him when he talked about the publicity of your posts. He mentioned that it has happened that people are actually denied jobs, being demoted or fired over content they have posted online. This really grabbed my attention since I’ve seen how what you post online can jeopardize your job.

Blog #3 - Mozilla’s Teaching How to Read, Write, and Participate on the Web – Web Literacy for Educators

The reading for this week was entertaining and different. At first, I felt like I wasn’t too sure as to where to start but I quickly found my way around the website. I found the website to be full of different activities and useful information we need to know for when reading, writing, and participating on the web. One of the first features that caught my attention from this website was the part where it talked about passwords under the teaching activities. I think this was extremely important to incorporate into such a website since nowadays we are constantly asked to create online accounts that require passwords. I found helpful for this website to have shared data showing the worst passwords created in recent years because this really gives an example about what passwords we shouldn’t be using. I was particularly happy to see that none of my personal passwords were listed in the lists they provided for worst passwords – apparently I have created strong passwords.

Towards the end of the password activity page there were links for you to actually test out passwords and see how weak or strong that password you entered would be. I found this section pretty entertaining because I actually tested a few of the passwords they have listed as weak and they were indeed weak passwords. Before testing them, I thought that some of the passwords were different enough to have as passwords; they seemed to be random words that people probably wouldn’t guess as a password. Then, when I tested them, they were actually coming up as weak passwords. I have to say though, I kind of wanted to test out some of my own personal passwords but I didn’t feel safe enough to enter my own password into that website. I had my crap detector hat on and the website seemed okay to use but my gut feeling was telling me not to enter my personal passwords there. So by only seeing if my passwords had the features needed to be a strong password, like a mixture of symbols and upper and lower case, I feel confident enough that my passwords are most likely strong ones. 

While on the website, I also went through the tools section which I found was fun and welcoming. In that tools section, I found a feature where I was able to alter a picture by what it seemed to be coding. The picture I was able to alter is below. I was able to alter the message in the picture. I always wondered how so many people were coming up with so many different “keep calm and …” fill in the blank messages. It was simple to do and user friendly. I was able to replace the words that show on the actual picture that were embedded into the code and replace them with whatever I wanted to write. The only thing that I couldn’t figure out all the way was how to save the picture that I had actually altered. What I ended up doing was taking a screenshot and saving it in my computer. Overall I found the website helpful and user friendly. Below you can see what the picture I ended up with.

 

Blog #2 - Ch 4 – Social-Digital Know-How: The Arts and Sciences of Collective Intelligence by Rheingold

Reading chapter 4 from Rheingold’s book was very interesting. He started his chapter by sharing how the World Wide Web was invented. I think that it was perfect for him to share in the beginning of his chapter since he then moved on to talk pretty much about online collaboration. I found interesting how he talked about the terms: coordination, cooperation, and collaboration, since I had never thought about these terms the way he talked about them in the chapter. I found fascinating the example he gave from the Canadian person defining these terms. That person put it this way: “you need coordination to dance, cooperation to dance with a partner, and collaboration to dance with a flash mob.” I am no dancer, but reading this explanation really helped me see the difference between these terms. Indeed, when we participate online, we do it in various ways. I see these terms as he explained them as levels in which we start participating online. And to my understanding, they actually happen in the order that he had them. We first coordinate, then we cooperate, and then, when we’re ready, we collaborate.

Rheingold later on talked about the idea of collective intelligence. From what he talked about, it seems to be more powerful when humans put their ideas together to accomplish something. I loved how he said “when all of us can be smarter than any of us.” That said a lot to me because it made me think about all the times I’ve heard that it can be difficult to work in a group together and agree to the same ideas. However, I’ve learned over the years how powerful it can be to collaborate with one another to accomplish something. I’ve seen how the best ideas have come from group meetings. I liked how Rheingold brought in the idea of collective intelligence because it is indeed powerful.

Rheingold ended his chapter by talking about Wiki Collaboration. This section of the chapter was also very interesting to me. Although I’ve been more involved online now than I have in the past years, I still feel like I need a detailed “how-to” when it comes to certain things online. I appreciated how Rheingold took the time to actually go through the details about how to collaborate online. He also makes you feel so confident as he states: “contributing to Wikipedia is simple enough. Here’s how:…” and then he goes on with a detailed yet simple enough list as to how to contribute to Wikipedia. I have to admit, I once was asked by a professor to input information into Wikipedia as one of our class projects, and I have NO IDEA as to how I got that done. I clicked on things and figured it out but I have no recollection as to how I did it, so Rheingold’s list was a helpful reminder for me. Now, I have a go-to list that I can use in the future if I decide to ever post anything on Wikipedia again. 

Blog #1 - Rheingold, Rosenberg, and Postman

In Rheingold’s chapters 2 and 3 we were presented with the idea of Crap Detention and Participation Power while being online. I liked how Rheingold stated in the beginning of the Crap Detection chapter the following: “don’t refuse to believe; refuse to start out believing.” Here, he is referring to the information we find online. I think that what he says is very important to remember because sometimes we can easily fall into thinking that everything we find online in not true. But that is not always the case. There is countless information online that we should never believe but there is also a ton of information online that can be useful and more importantly, true. As Rheingold mentions, nowadays it is our job to figure out what is true and what is not true from the information that we find online. We won’t know how to do this right away though, but with practice, Rheingold says that we will be able to tune our crap detectors.

I agree with Rheingold where he shared from a source that stated that “a search engine is not a human, it is a program that matches the words you give to pages on the web.” I don’t only agree with this but I find helpful how that source went on to say “use the words that are most likely to appear on the page. For example, instead of saying [my head hurts], say [headache], because that’s the term a medical page will use.” It is more likely that by searching with more direct words what you find will lead you to web pages where the information will be trustworthy rather than fake or irrelevant information. This is especially helpful to know since people are searching for all kinds of things, from what movies are playing at the theaters to finding more information about a disease they were just diagnosed with.

Similar to what Rheingold talked about in his chapter 2, Rosenberg and Postman talked about crap detection in their articles. I particularly found helpful how Rosenberg mentioned on the “Is the content original and unique” section that is good to copy and paste the information into other search engines to see if the information we are finding is unique and original. I feel like this can be helpful so that you can check how valid the information you are finding is and also to expand your research sources. From Postman’s article I liked when he said that “Each person's crap-detector is embedded in their value system; if you want to teach the art of crap-detecting, you must help students become aware of their values.” I can agree with this since very much of what we believe to be true from what we find online is connected to our values. Our reactions towards what we find online are also, in a way, connected to our values. So, I think that it was important for Postman to point out this idea.

            In chapter 3, Participation Power, Rheingold talked about how people online are not only there as viewers or consumers but also as participators. I was stunned by some of the statistics Rheingold shared in this chapter. For instance, he shared that “thirty-five hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Flickr reported its five-billionth photo uploaded in 2010.” I think is amazing how this statistics show that as a society we have evolved so rapidly within the online community.  

I particularly liked when Rheingold talked about bloggers and how by starting with commenting work by people whose publications you admire is a good way of interacting with them. Sometimes, I feel like I am not too sure as to how to start sharing more online or interacting with those who seem to be skilled in sharing all kinds of information online so reading this was interesting to me. Maybe I’ll try more of that and see what happens in the future.

Towards the end of his Participation Power chapter he talked about Footprints and Profiles and he shared that boyd (no capitals in her name) said how she feels embarrassed about work she has not only posted foolishly but also embarrassed about some scholarly articles she’s written and published. This makes me see that in a way maybe many have felt like what they are ready to post publicly or publish is such an amazing work but later on they may feel the complete opposite about it and to an extend that’s okay because if we don’t post anything then when will we post. If we don’t start somewhere, we’ll never start.

See you all tomorrow,

-Maria