Blog 6: Proposal Blog

Dustin Ginsburg

            The othered community that I will likely write about for our upcoming project is the Muslim community. I think that it will be very interesting to research and discover the ways in which the Muslim faith has been affected by current world events. Conflicts and wars in the Arab world, terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and terrorist attacks in America and Europe have created an image around Islam depicting violence, ignorance, and hatred. As a result, the Islamic religion has been marginalized as a whole in Western society, creating a stereotypical and stigmatized view of their religion.

            My initial ideas for how I will go about research for this project is first to provide introductory information that will provide context and bring the reader up-to-date about issues that add to the marginalization of Islam. News reports, interviews, and informational videos will all probably provide enough information to get my initial point across. After that introduction, I will likely find statistics supporting the view that the overwhelming majority of Muslim’s have rational, peaceful ideas in regards to their own religion. After that segway, I will provide texts by members of the Muslim faith in addition to other supporting texts, that further detail how Islam has been marginalized, how the community has been affected, and what has been done by the community to distance themselves from ‘problem’ members of the community. I think that this project has the potential to be an eye-opening study into how Muslims are currently being perceived in Western society and how world events have shaped that image. At the end of this project, the ways in which our cultural ideas of “normal” are constructed and reinforced in regards to Islam will be discussed, analyzed, and theorized.

Blog 5: Hanfler, TED Talk/Radio Lab, Lorber, and Young

Dustin Ginsburg


Social construction is how members from a community group certain people into groups that are then portrayed in some overarching context as a whole. The impact that social construction has on people can become positive or negative for certain members or a group that do not fit the constructed image. For example, in the article by Judith Lorber, she delves into the social construction of gender and how the typical grouping of people into male and female does not fit for everybody. As a result, labels such as transsexual, berdaches, and manly-hearted women, have popped up in various cultures to describe people who do not fit the typical grouping of male and female. Lorber describes to great lengths how the idea of gender being only male and female has been instilled to people from birth, going so far as to say, “ gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes.” This is an important point to be made about social construction.

Before these readings, I had never considered how much our society has affected the social construction of gender. Growing up, I was only aware of gender being male and female, unaware that people existed that did not fit those traditional categories. As I grew older and became aware of other gender groups, they were often spoken of in a stigmatized and negative view, as if being a gender outside the norm was socially unacceptable. Since this is how I was exposed to this issue of gender, I could have easily just went along with believing the negative stereotypes associated with the transgendered group of gender. Social construction of gender, and many other topics, has been so ingrained into society that we can forget there may be other viewpoints or groupings of people that are not addressed with traditional groupings. In addition, stereotypes are created and carried on throughout generations because of the socially constructed views that are passed on over the years.

In the Vershawn Ashanti Young article, he explained that the strict education writing guidelines supported by school systems around the country is outdated and basically is prejudicial to groups of people. He explains how people’s backgrounds in language and culture are different from one another, and that people should not be forced into writing with a style that may be foreign to them. In his article, Young wrote, “you can’t mix no dialects at work; how would peeps who ain’t from yo hood understand you?”, and then stated that people with jobs in the corporate world don’t follow any standard English. The point he is making is that our society has developed a “standard” way of writing that has become the only acceptable form. However, many people speaking in different dialects may have more difficulties writing in such a style. The way in which we have socially constructed our views of appropriate forms of writing has therefore negatively affected people despite such standards likely being made out of the best intentions. I think that theses standards though are acceptable even if they are potentially discriminatory or biased against particular groups of people. By creating a standard of writing as the norm, it creates an easy to understand formula for how to write. Instead of having to read very carefully certain dialects, people are able to glide through texts much easier as a result of this form of social construction.

Blog 4: The Work of Each Section in the IMRDC Paper

Dustin Ginsburg

Eng 254, 035

Green

Introduction

“Pew (Internet and American Life Project) reports that this age group (18-29 year olds) is that most concerned with online identity management: 71% of them have changed the privacy settings on the sites they use.”

            Comment: This quote provides quantitative data confirming the idea that the most avid social media users are wary of their safety on the sites. Many people seem to not trust Facebook and other sites with their personal information.

“Living a “literate life in the information age” (Selfe & Hawisher, 2004) increasingly means learning to navigate these spaces, managing one’s identity and online data, and considering complex issues of privacy and representation. “

            Comment: This quote incorporates many aspects of social media use and factors that affect the way people use it. Privacy concerns and the way one represents them on social media are arguably the most important aspects of digital literacy. Patricia is very aware of Facebook’s security issues, and has altered her use of the site as a result. She has also used the site to create an identity for herself that I will try to explain with my next draft in the discussion section.  

Methods

“I believe this combination of methods can allow writing researchers to study dispersed literate activity in contexts where writing is often difficult to trace.”

            Comment: This sentence is important because it tells the reader the Buck is essentially making up his own standards for studying social media platforms. She seemingly does a thorough and extensive walk through of Ronnie’s social media, but at the same time her methods should be looked at a bit closer since it is a newer field of research.

“The information discussed in the profile tour gave me an overall sense of how Ronnie perceived his own identity representation online, some history behind that representation, and his perspective on what those representations meant to him.”

            Comment: I chose this quote because it exactly represents my findings in my own paper. The profile tour gave me insight into Patricia’s online identity representation, some history behind posts, and the perspectives behind those posts. Without the tour, it would be difficult or impossible to accurately represent her Facebook identity.

Results

“While users present their identities online in ways connected to their offline, embodied selves and often connect with people from their offline networks online, they may present different aspects of themselves for different “communities of practice.” “

            Comment: In my introduction, I touched on how people can represent themselves differently online compared to their actual selves. This quote argues that a reason that may be true is to connect with specific communities. By connecting to certain communities online, it may amplify or exaggerate their interest in that subject that is different from how they would normally portray themselves in the real world. At the same time, social media may be the only place they can connect with certain communities, thus creating unique opportunities to get involved in those groups.

“Along with moving across different interfaces, Ronnie’s experience also documents the complex ways in which activities on social network sites bridge online and offline spaces. Interactions are often initiated online and end in some kind of offline activity”

            Comment: I think that this is an important clarification in Buck’s article. Online activities are very often used for the ends of some kind of online activity. I know with my use of Facebook, almost anytime that I use the chat function it is in order to do something offline. Events are also another function of Facebook that leads to offline activity.

Discussion

“Shortly after Facebook changed its privacy setting configurations in April 2010, which created somewhat of a firestorm in the media,3 he went back to listing Alison as his girlfriend and added fake siblings. He changed his high school to Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and his current employer to the Ministry of Magic.”

            Comment: This quote goes back o the point of security and how people change their social media use as a result. In Buck’s findings, Ronnie provided fake information in regards to his school, employer, and family. In my own findings, Patricia has not kept that same type of information up to date. I think this may be a result of her hesitance to post personal information on the site. However it may just be because she hasn’t gotten around to it yet, so I will need to clarify this with Patricia in my interview.

“While social network sites often place a number of restrictions on users’ activities, individual users adapt these guidelines for their own uses and their own meanings.”

            Comment: In her profile tour, Patricia explained that she does not use the Facebook messaging app on her phone due to security concerns. As a result, she has adapted to the guidelines that Facebook has set. This quote also gives me ideas to queston further in the interview, how restrictions on Facebook affect her total usage of the sight.

Conclusion

“Viewing this rich literate activity as part of students’ everyday lives will give us a greater understanding of the literacy experiences they bring with them to the classroom.”

            Comment: In this day and age, students generally write the most outside of the classroom in the form on texts, instant messaging, and status updates. By throwing out these forms of expression when understanding their literary experience is a disservice. Through viewing ones literate activity on social media, it will provide greater insight into their history and method of writing.

“38% of the writing that the student participants completed happened outside of the classroom, and much of this writing happened online. Similarly, a study by Grabill et al. (2010) in the Writing in Digital Environments research group found that first-year college students engaged in digital writing most frequently, primarily on mobile phones, social network sites, and email.”

            Comment: This quote provides quantitative data showing that students participate in writing outside the classroom almost as much as the amount they write in class. Also, another study found that the most frequent form of digital writing from first year college students came in the form of mobile phones, social network sites, and email. These bits of information might be good to include in my introduction, as a way to introduce the importance of digital literacy on social media.

Blog 3: Question Brainstorming

Dustin Ginsburg

Eng 254, 035

Green

1. What metaphor would you use to describe your social media?

2. How do you use different social media sites in different ways?

3. How do devices such as phones and laptops affect your participation on social media?

4. What do you want out of social media?

5. What are some ways you share on social media?

6. How do you see your social media audience differently on sites compared to in person?

7. What aspects of your life do you enjoy posting about the most?

8. What is your opinion on the safety of information posted onto social media?

9. Why do you post or hold back information on certain social media sites as opposed to others?

10. What does your follower ratio mean to you and others perceptions of you?

11. Do you have any habits that relate to social media? If so, what are they?

12. Does social media affect the interests that you hold? Does it make you feel more connected to those activities/interests/groups?

13. How often do you post vs. how often are you on social media. How do you use your time on social media?

14. How do you use your posts?

15. How do you use your pictures/images?

16. What is your community on Facebook?

17. How are you using the affordances that are apart of each social media site?

18. How do you think other people perceive your Facebook profile?

19. When do you use Facebook?

Blog 2: Social Media Articles

Dustin Ginsburg                        

Eng 254, 035                       

Green

           

The authors and subjects of these articles each use social media to create communities and identities for themselves. In the interview of Bev Goodman by NPR’s Audie Cornish, Cornish facilitates the discussion as a platform for hashtag activism. Following the release of Ray Rice’s domestic abuse video that became widely seen, Bev Goodman sent out the tweet, “I tried to leave the house once after an abusive episode, and he blocked me. He slept in front of the door that night. - #Why I Stayed.” The use of this hashtag draws attention to the commonalities in abuser statements and creates an opportunity for discussion on the topic. The article by Erin Zammett Ruddy titled, “Fakebooking: Why I didn’t post this photo to Facebook” was posted on a parenting blog. The photo in question depicts her three kids smiling around a snowman they had just built. In reality though, Ruddy explains that the events surrounding the picture were not as it seems. The children were bickering, whining, and needy during the snowman’s construction. By posting the picture, she would be posting a lie, but by not posting the picture she wouldn’t be able to share that moment with her friends. Ruddy declared that she would continue to post pictures like the one in the article, but with a disclaimer-type caption that was honest and accurate. As a result of this approach, she can relate to other parents reading her blog on a more personal level. Kima Jones believes that writers and poets of color have been told there is no audience for their work because it must be directed towards the universal human, which she defines as code for white person. In Jones’ article, she went on to give examples of writers of color who have used social media to create and sustain language as well as connecting with people who may not have found them otherwise. One subject, Roxane Gay, was an author who in her debut novel An Untamed State thanked her Twitter friends for, “making procrastination worthwhile.” Jones then used this point to describe how she has formed connections and found meaningful work through Twitter, a form of social media that allows for her to have access to the communities her message is directed towards. Joseph Harris explained the idea that, “ones aims and intentions in writing are thus not merely personal, idiosyncratic but reflective of the communities to which we belong.” Social media has become a staple of our society and as a result, online discourse, such as the articles provided in the readings, accelerate the process of creating the language to be used in that community that becomes, “our language.” An online community that I take part in is Facebook. The kinds of discourse within this community include sharing news articles and discussing day-to-day activities with friends. Those functions along with other forms of discourse on Facebook, shape the site by providing an environment of open communication with friends that people want to be talking to.

Blog 1: Harris and Writing

Dustin Ginsburg

Eng 254, 035 

Green

I am a sophomore criminal justice major with a minor in psychology. Last semester I was enrolled in the class ‘rhetoric as argument’, which is the only English class besides this one that I have taken since high school. As a writer, I like to write about topics and prompts that I can relate with in terms of past experiences and similar interests. That way I can easily input my own voice into the story at hand. I write to communicate with others. I write to remember past events. I write to study for classes. I write to entertain myself. I write because I am told to. I write to become better at writing. I am the kind of writer who slowly and meticulously forms each word on paper, rather than pouring them all out at once. I write to stay updated with current events in the world. I write to see how far I can take a story. I write to support and defend certain ideas. I write to oppose and reject other ideas. I write to analyze. I write to summarize.

A community is unified body of individuals with common interests or characteristics living in a particular area. Being a part of a community can offer a great deal of positive outcomes. For one, communities bring people with similar interests together. As a result, they are able to bounce ideas off of each other and practice together in order to continually evolve and become better as a whole. Communities also bring a sense of security to those that are a part of them. By having a group of similar people and ideas together, their motives and actions will be understood. Communities allow for comfortableness as well. As part of a community with similar attributes or interests, a person can easily become relaxed and feel free to speak their mind without fear of backlash. Communities bring people together. By having a common trait with others, people become connected through ways they otherwise would not have been. For example, I am a part of the community of students that attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. What makes it a community is that each student is either attending classes on city campus or east campus for a common goal of higher education. Writing and language plays a big role in making the university a community. Taking notes allows students to take out the most important information taught to them and write them down to remember for later. Assigned readings allow for students to learn about topics in an in depth context that explains and defines key terms and ideas. Tests and quizzes are written out as a way to measure a student’s knowledge of the subject being taught. These forms of writing and language are all functions of the university that serve their part in making it a community.