Thursday, January 29, 2015

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.

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