We are quickly approaching the end of the semester, and you will primarily be working on drafting the digital discourse community ethnography for the remainder of the term. This blog posting calls for a revision of your blog posting from last week. Your revision should focus on global concerns (big issues regarding
support, main points, and analysis) rather than local concerns (small
issues like grammar, punctuation, and mechanics). During conference we talked about ways to improve your draft, and you should also have feedback from one peer. If you still want more feedback to help with your next draft, I recommend you to visit the writing center. http://www.uwc.ucf.edu
Just a note* the writing center is not a remedial service, it is a consulting service- a place to go and get some feedback about your writing.
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After posting your revised draft of the digital discourse community ethnography, you should write a reflection about the changes you made to the text and your rationale for your revisions.
You should use a high degree of specificity when you describe what you changed. Giving a vague and general overview of the changes you implemented will not suffice.
This blog is due before 11:59pm on November 18th. There is no peer response requirement for this blog.
With every music group or artist comes a fan base. Sometimes they are crazy, rabid fangirls who buy tissues of their favorite musician off of ebay, and sometimes they are harsh music critics. Bandom, is a mixture of the two.
ReplyDeleteBandom is what you would call the fan base of bands. The members of Bandom are normally girls, ranging in age from about thirteen to twenty-two. (Although this is the majority of the population, people outside this identifier do exist.) These individuals are fans of multiple bands; sometimes they share a fondness of a band with other members of the community, but other times they might be the only individual to like a particular band. There is no specific genre of music that this community is limited to; as long as it is a band, it is included in Bandom.
Most of the time the community is referred to as “fangirls” by outsiders; although that term is partially correct, Bandom is so much more. Music lovers unite and become the support system for many of the bands; with the dedication of the fans, the bands can continue to create music and tour the country and world. Many within the community have dedicated certain aspects or even the entirety of their life to a band. Bandom is more than just a bunch of girls screaming and crying over band members; it is a way for people to escape their lives, be who they want, find someone else who feels the same way they do, and connect on that level. More than anything, it is a way of life.
As a member of Bandom, I have seen the positives and negatives that come with being a part of the community. People who don’t readily understand Bandom are quick to scoff and judge for the “outlandish” behavior we exude. However, people who are a part of Bandom and understand it, recognize each other as being on the same plane of “higher power.” (This concept will be explained later.) Although that some parts of Bandom are quite bizarre, the community is much more than that. There is strength and hope in the strangest of places, places that we wouldn’t have known existed without the music and the bands that we love.
People from all over the world come together, only having one thing in common: a love for a band and their music. The reason for this phenomenon is that these people individually feel alone or different; however, once they find this music that speaks to them, it “sets them free,” metaphorically speaking. As a result, these people feel compelled to honor those who made them feel so free and thus, enter Bandom.
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ReplyDeletepart 2
Because Bandom is such a large community, there are many ways for the members to communicate with one another. The particular method I have chosen to analyze is Twitter. This is the main means in which members of the community correspond with one another. It is more direct than Facebook, yet not as anonymous as Tumblr. On Twitter, members of Bandom tell stories, share pictures, and even tweet the members of their favorite bands. There is always an open line of communication between the members of Bandom and that is something that we consider very important for our growth as an individual.
Author Elizabeth Wardle discusses authority figures within Discourse communities in one of her texts. She believes that authority is granted through certain aspects of the community and can be a sort of “unspoken law.” However, in Bandom, there is no strict authority figure. Although “famous” individuals such as band members and clothing company figure-heads can control (or try to, at least) the community’s reactions to certain events, no one really has power over another. Even the famous can get cut down to size every once in a while. (For example, Ronnie Radke and his mistreatment of fans and the (angry) reaction from the community.) This lack of social structure becomes a problem when arguments arise between members of the Discourse. The tweeters normally “sly-dig” and insult each other and their opinions; arguments like these normally end up out of hand and affect more of the community as a whole. No authority figure means no respect (the same kind of respect that you would give your mother or father because they can punish you) and therefore, individuals can say whatever they want to whomever they want at any time.
An example of this would be two tweeters, Jenny and Ashley. They got into a fight over Jordan Eckes, guitarist of We Are The In Crowd. Ashley, knows Jordan personally and constantly complains how he has no time for her. Jenny, using her right to say whatever she wants, told Ashley to stop complaining because he was touring and that she should just be happy to be friends with him. In her defense, Ashley told Jenny to, “fuck off because [she] doesn’t know her relationship between [her] and Jordan.” Jenny replied with, “actually I do because you tweet about it all the time.”
Both of these girls used their freedom of speech to speak their minds to one another. Although what they were saying to each other was un-necessary and vulgar, they still had the right to because there is no authority figure to regulate the argument or stop it. However, another tweeter, Tay, tweeted both of them to “shut the fuck up and if you want to continue your little war take it to dm’s [and that] not everyone needs to see all your fucking drama.” Tay also used her freedom of speech to comment on the argument that Jenny and Ashley were having. But yet, because there is no real respect apparent in Bandom, both the girls told Tay to “fuck off and stay out of it.”
In this example we see the lack of authority in action. If Tay was the authoritative figure in the community, both the members would have stopped arguing or moved their argument to private messages. However, because everyone is equal in this discourse, Jenny and Ashley replied to Tay in a horrible manner and ignored her suggestion.
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ReplyDeletePart 3
When I made changes to my current draft, I kept a lot of factors in mind. I constantly kept the audience in mind, trying to clarify aspects of my Discourse as much as possible for readers to understand. I also tried to analyze my information as best as possible.
I changed / clarified a lot of my sentences and points that are currently in my paper. I added a way to tie in Wardle's point about authority directly into my example. I know I still need to add much more to my draft, but I am happy with what I have so far.
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ReplyDeleteI decided to change my community from Formspring to Youtube. Formspring was no very modern and it was presenting too many obstacles to get good data. I wrote an essay for Youtube and compared it to the one i presented at conference for Formspring and there was no doubt that it was best for me to change to youtube. This is what i have....
In John Suler’s Psychology of Cyberspace, the first thing he talks about is disinhibition. He seperates disinhibition into two separate catagories: benign disinhibition and toxic disinhibition. Benign disinhibition is described as someone who reveals secret emotions, fears, or wishes. Toxic inhibition is described as someone who uses rude language, harsh criticism, and, hatred, or even threats. Within his piece, Suler proposes ideas to explain why people act the way they do. I am going to use these ideas by Suler to analyze events that happen on Youtube.com. Youtube is a website where anyone from anywhere can post up a video. There is no restriction on the type of video as long as it is appropriate. You can post a video of you talking about things that get you mad, showcase a talent, or even post videos about songs and their lyrics.
Youtube is one of the most widely known website on Earth. Being one of the most widely known means there are millions and millions of viewers every day, all with different tastes, preferences, and opinions. Some people choose to make their opinions known through videos, while others choose to make their opinions known through comments.
One person that I like to watch is Jenna Marbles. She posts a video every week of her talking about any topic, or doing something crazy. When I watch her videos, I like to scroll down and see what people’s thought are on the week’s video. One video I am going to talk about is “My Boyfriend Does My Makeup Tag.” This video is pretty self-explanatory as Jenna lets her boyfriend do her makeup, and she can’t say or do anything about it. The majority of the comments state they enjoyed the video and thought it was extremely funny. One person by the username of “someusername121” had a completely different comment. It says “Holy f!@# she is insanely ugly without makeup on. I'd breakup over that shit in a heartbeat. F!@# no I don't want to wake up and turn around facing a troll.” Clearly this person did not agree with her showing her face without makeup. But that comment was extremely disrespectful. This person got into an online battle with multiple viewers who strongly disagreed with his statement. This person stuck with his opinion, and let everyone know it. The question becomes why did that person have to say that, why couldn’t they just keep it to themselves?
Another video that has been pretty popular to the public is “How to trick people into thinking you’re good looking.” In this video, Jenna shows the “ugly” girls how to do makeup and hair to make them look “hot.” Like most of her videos, the majority of the comments are people being nice and telling her how funny she is. But there is always that one person to come and ruin the party. This person was EstupedMexicanz who wrote “Why is this hoe popular, she looks like an ugly Chihuahua.” Other people comment back at EstupedMexicanz, but this person never responds to the criticism they were receiving through these comments. Maybe they read them, and decided not to comment, or they never went back to the page. The question once again is why? Why must somebody post a comment to bring someone else down?
ReplyDeleteThe answer to these questions may lies in Suler’s piece. These two scenarios have the one thing in common: they both have someone who uses toxic disinhibition to bring someone else down. Although they are both benign disinhibtion, they have two different philosophies behind them. In the first scenario, the person commented on the video and continued to comment as a part of the altercations with other viewers. As Suler claims, this person may be acting this way because of a feeling of “dissociative anonymity.” Suler says this is the effect of remaining anonymous, or not having a connection between your online actions and your actual life. This person, someusername121, is able to hide behind that username to say negative things about other people. None of the other users that are in this fight with someusername121 have no idea who this person really is. They may be the nicest person in the world, but they are able to disconnect and not take responsibility for their actions online.
In the second scenario, EstupedMexicanz also uses benign disinhibition and has the idea of dissociative anonymity. The person is able to post a comment under that username, and never go back to it again. The other users don’t have any idea who this person may be. They were able to disconnect themselves not only physically behind a computer screen and a username, but online as well, as the person never commented again. Another idea Suler proposes, is the idea of “asynchronicity.” Suler describes this as posting or sending something through cyberspace knowing that the recipient, or others, will not have an immediate response. In this case however, it was not that there might not be an immediate response, the user decided to disconnect themselves from the entire situation. Whether there was an immediate response or not the user never responded back. EstupedMexicanz may have checked up and read what other people said about their comment, but since they knew they would not respond at any time in the future, they knew there was no punishment for their comments.
How were these people able to post such undesirable things? In suler’s piece he talks about authority or the lack of authority online. For the most part, the internet allows everyone to be equal. The majority of websites allow equal access to all its users. Youtube is no different. Everyone has equal access to videos, and the ability to post their opinions in comments. Suler states in his piece that people are more afraid to say something face to face to an authority figure than online, or behind a screen. We do not know if that is true about these two users, or if they can very much speak up and express their true feelings face to face with an authoritative figure. But the fact that they are hiding behind the computer screen will definitely make it easier for them. Since there Is equal opportunity on Youtube, all users are given a minor slice of authority. All users are given the opportunity to report a comment as “spam.” Once a comment has been flagged as spam a certain amount of times, it is hidden. This gives the users the choice to pick if they would like to see the comment or not. In both cases, these two comments were claimed as spam. In some cases, the real authority steps in and removes posts that are over the top. A couple days after I found the comment by someusername121, it was removed by Youtube. All that’s left are comments in response to someusername121’s comment.
ReplyDeleteIn my conference, although it was a different essay, the point that was stressed the most was building context. I was still able to tie in my mistakes from the first essay and make sure to correct them in this piece. I decided that instead of briefly touching up on Suler's ideas in each paragraph, that it would be best for me to use a paragraph by itself to give a description of Suler's piece. I chose to put it as the first paragraph so that the ideas are already placed in the readers mind and they are able to begin to tie what the scenarios are, with the ideas of Suler. In the first paragraph i also hinted at some other ideas in Suler's piece just to prepare the reader for what was coming, and then in the ensuing paragraphs where those ideas are relevant, i explained what each idea meant.
I changed my first paragraph around to focus more on my topic and to make the introduction clear and concise. I also added more to make the lens for my piece more clear as i was using Wardle and Gee to support my claims. I also took out one of the examples I use in the "Fans" section because it didn't help to increase clarity, I had someone read it and they didn't understand it at all. I am still trying to come up with a way to work on an example that both gets my point across and is clear to the reader. Most of the refiguring that I had to do was because that I didn't look at my paper from the outside to try and find out which parts would of been harder for my readers to understand.
ReplyDeleteIntroduction
Everyone has that one thing that they absolutely “geek out” about for me its music. I absolutely love spending hours and hours listening to music and most of the time I have no clue who artist it is, but I know I love the song. What you are a fan of can greatly determine how the general public perceives you. For example a man who likes football or hockey might be seen as a mans man but people might think something is a little weird about a guy being a fan of the ballet. These personas that are adapted from what you find yourself enjoying trickle right down to how people treat you. Going along with my love of music I decided to explore the inside of one of the biggest music fan bases on the planet, Beliebers. Right now 30 million strong and ever growing. This particular fan base has quite a few misconceptions around them; most think that these are 13 year old, crazed, uneducated and socially awkward girls. When in reality where a small percentage of the fans might fall into this category the greater portion is nowhere near this notion.
There is no way to be one foot in and one foot out of this community, full immersion is the only way to fully understand their dedication. I started my research on a site called BieberFever.com, a online fan community for Justin Bieber. From there I looked at some of the forums to try to get a grasp on who is who in the realms of this world, just by simply asking on the forum who would be a good person to talk to for information about the community. Time and time again I got the name of a young woman named Shelby. Shelby is 22 and resides in California and has been apart of the community since 2009. I was also able to get a hold of another California native Bree who is 21 and Taylor a Floridian who is just 14, both Taylor and Bree joined the community in 2009 as well. Only Shelby and Bree knew each other but I found it interesting that even though there was a massive age gap between the girls in California and Taylor there answers were almost exactly the same word for word. The mission of this community is clear, it is to support the pop music sensation Justin Bieber and these fans have all banded together to do amazing things.
Anatomy of a Fangirl
ReplyDeleteA Belieber is a type of fangirl, which is defined by Urban Dictionary as a female who has overstepped the line between healthy fandom and indecent obsession. I presented this definition to each of the girls and they all laughed a little they say they agree with some parts of the definition and other parts not so much. They do agree that they are female and the fact that they are more than just fans, in fact I learned that is one quick way to offend a Belieber is to call them a fan. They see a huge difference in between the two, which I will later explain. All of the girls disagreed however that their obsession was indecent, they all admit while they would do some out there things for Justin like wait outside a venue for hours or wait until midnight to go buy a CD, they would never do anything illegal to put themselves in danger or him, that that is something that only a fan would do.
Although the forums keep great track of ongoing conversations, Twitter is the real means of communications for the members of this community. When using Twitter your conversations are reduced to 140 character messages, which makes communication a challenge but there are ways that online communities have overcome such shortcomings. With Beliebers there is a new sort of language that is formed, instead of fully typing out a member of the crews name simply their initials suffice for example Justin Bieber’s manager Scott Braun would be SB. Which makes trying to transcribe some conversations particularly hard if you don’t know all the players in the game. A Belieber has to know not only who is Justin Bieber is but all the members of his inner network.
Fan as an insult
“At first it seems like a lot to remember considering that he has about ten dancers, six to eight musicians, a tour manger, two body guards, a videographer, a sound guy, heck even the bus driver. You have to know the names of all of them.” Taylor explained. When you get down to it there are about thirty to forty people depending on the time of year that you have to know in relation to Justin to be an affluent member of the Belieber community. Beliebers operate under the notion that they are all a family and how are you going to be a family if you don’t know everyone in it. Beliebers accredit this for their closeness to not only each other but to Justin Bieber. This is one of the ways I have been told to distinguish a fan from a Belieber. A fan simply only knows who Justin Bieber is but a Belieber knows the whole family. Knowledge of the entire family shapes the communication between members Without fully understanding the discourse you cannot fully appreciate as Gee says in his work. Full appreciation of this means knowing who Scott Braun is and knowing the importance of the role he plays in the community.
Wardle explains how you have to adapt to new communities and show sin the story of Alan that your identity and perceived authority can play a role into which factors that you adapt to and which ones you don’t. In the case of Alan he thought he was above everyone else so he thought that they should adapt to his ways verses him trying to adapt to theirs. In the Belieber community as well you can see which members are have more authority by the way they communicate. These members will have full knowledge of the language and know what is happening at all times. Members who refuse to adapt the shorthand and abbreviations of the community are usually booted out. Knowing how to communicate with others is more than half the game the other chunk knows what is going on. There is usually about a two to three week period for each new member where they are sort of baptized by fire. In this baptism they are constantly bombarded with new information about what to say and what to do to fit in. How they handle those two weeks determines how they will be treated by the community for the rest of their time as a Belieber.
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ReplyDeleteIntroduction
The digital community I decided to investigate was Oxygen Online chat for the “Bad Girls Club”. This chat takes place online during the show. So whenever something spontaneous happens on the show people can talk about it. Since internet is a very popular thing when it comes to cellphones people can also use Twitter to make comments about the show by hash tagging it #BGC9. This categorizes the tweets so people can go back and look at the conversations that took place with people all over the world and the girls on the show. The online chat takes place online with one of the girls from the show. Here you are able to chat with one of the girls from the show and other people around the world. The only difference between this and Twitter is that with the online chat people can ask specific questions and get a response. Twitter is more of just voicing your opinion online..
Methods
I participated in an online chat and tweeted during the show to see how the interaction actually worked
Gee says that when it comes to Discourse you’re either recognized by others as a full member of it or you’re not. I think that when it comes to investigating the online community I can use Gee’s framing to see how the people that chat make themselves known in these communities. I observed and since there are so many people in this chat it’s hard to grab the attention of the stars from the TV show. I observed and when people begin asking questions that refer to them being weak or insulting their character seems to be the spark of attention. Many of the users on this chat site would make comments about certain stars from the show were their favorite but when someone began to attack one of the stars from the show that’s when things began to heat up. After the show airs the producers go back and take certain tweets and air them on the show so they play on the re runs. I observed the different conversations that take place on Twitter and how people are able to be noticed and get their comments on Twitter important enough to air on the show. I have come to a conclusion that people that point out random things that the audience doesn’t notice. For example someone made a reference to one of the star’s looking like a cartoon character or how everyone was fighting but there was one girl sitting in the back chilling eating ice cream. I observed different tweeting episodes for two different episodes to see the kinds of things the producers allow to appear on the show.
I will also use Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” because talks about how people find it necessary to get involved with everything they stumble across on the internet or just take the main topic of each article. Carr says that it’s better to skim information just to see the existence before you let your mind get wrapped around with everything on the internet. I think that this would be interesting to apply this concept to this online community because if people just skimmed through chat sites and tweets they wouldn’t get involved with arguments in debates about petty things on the internet.
Multiliteracies
ReplyDeleteMirabelli and Gee have a connection when it comes to framing. People don’t always read text they read situations. While investigating this online community I could see how during the live chat sessions people were trying to read situations as well. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but you could see during the live session how people were trying to mediate when arguments broke out over the live chat. It was clear while one person had a negative comment people were able to empathize with both problems. Also this applied to people who came in during the middle of the live chat. They were clueless but the way they talked told that they were able to read people and their situations over the internet by looking at different expressions such as smiley faces, capitalizing letters, and so on. This also falls into the theories about how language that is used in communities is applied in certain communities.
Conclusion
I realized that the Oxygen Live Chat is a very unique way for the producers of the show to get feedback from the show. I think that the way that people communicate over this live chat gives the producers insight on the audience’s perception of the show. I have concluded from my investigations that in my online chat and tweeting session that people are able to be a member of a community by the way they communicate. This is determined by the way people behave in a community, they type of language they use and how they express themselves. People can be read over the internet and by using different language can help people read them. Sometimes people do get caught up in the little things on the internet like Carr stated in his article.
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ReplyDeleteThe online community that my ethnography focuses on is known as Virtual Motorsports, which is a community of people that get together for competitive simulation racing on the game “Forza 4”. Virtual Motorsports is a very diverse community with people from all over the world. In this community, people discuss aspects of the common interest that brings them to the community, but like most communities, there are a variety of personalities. This leads me to ask: How is the discourse in the Virtual Motorsports community shaped by the individual personalities of its members, or audience?
Virtual Motorsports was formed in the Spring of 2011 by branching off from long time standing racing league, IFCA. Many people from the IFCA community moved over to the Virtual Motorsports community during this time. I was one of these people, and though having raced in the IFCA community for over 2 years, the management of Virtual Motorsports made it unquestionable that Virtual Motorsports would become better than IFCA ever was. Now, Virtual Motorsports consists of over 1000 gamers and car enthusiasts alike from all over North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and even a few from South Africa. Because of this, there are many types of discourse within the community and just one thing that makes it a very unique community.
Virtual Motorsports in particular is a very mature community, with an average age of 30 years old. I believe this is because for some to willingly participate in 45 minute organized simulation racing, they must have an interesting in clean racing, which is racing without any type of intentional collision. Most collisions in public racing on the game sadly are caused by young gamers that set their goal to upset the fastest racers and therefore affecting the overall outcome of the race. I believe the extensive replica painting and tuning required for each series often discourages less experienced drivers from competing, but all skills are welcome, as long as they race clean.
Discourse occurs in a multitude of ways on race night at Virtual Motorsports; from the talking in qualifying, with friends between qualifying and the race, and with competitors in the actual race. On Thursdays 11/15, I participated in Race 7 of the SpecRacing Series 3. I purposely took note of the discourse that took place during this particular race. It was a very talkative lobby; the people talking, including myself, were comfortable with discussing each occurrence in the moment. I assume there were people that would rather it be quiet racing with us, but they were surely outnumbered, so that wouldn’t happen. I usually don’t talk too much, but a friend of mine that I hadn’t talked to in over a year was racing with me so we were talking for a good portion of the race, mostly because it was such a close race. We were within a few tenths of a second of each other for most of the race and were comfortable making jokes about it with each other. Had this been someone I didn’t know at all, this casual discourse probably wouldn’t have occurred.
Professor Longhany suggested that I analyze the discourse that occurs during a race held by Virtual Motorsports. I was thinking about it during the race (which surprising didn’t make me crash) on Thursday and collected data I could use to write up an analysis on this. I also plan to do the same for the race next Thursday, which is the series finale. There were also a number of things I changed within sentences that was pointed out to me in my conference. One of those things was changing “scholarly counterparts” to “fastest racers” because it fits into the context much better.
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ReplyDeleteDigital Discourse Community Ethnography Draft 2
Note- the supporting information and examples are not in the draft because I am still trying to get information from members, it will be added once I get it. I am also currently working on presenting a different argument in communication.
Research question- what discourse drives members to this community and makes them interact in verbal and non-verbal ways=
The community I chose to investigate is a website called tattoobin.com. Upon entering the website at first glance you notice their slogan “A Community Hooked On Ink” which indicates that the members of this community are avid lovers of art and more specifically, body art. The website has 6 main tabs, Tattoos, Artists, Studios, Tat Chat, Videos, and Tattoo Battle. You can search for tattoos by body part, by category, or a keyword search. The website name comes from an idea of adding tattoos to a “bin” that peak your interest and they are basically a bookmark for later.
First Paragraph Revised-
Tattoobin.com is “A Community Hooked On Ink.” Members are great lovers of art, when navigating the website you can browse through 6 main tabs, Artists, Tattoos, Studios, Tat Chat, Videos, and Tattoo Battle. Tattoobin.com gets it’s name from an aspect that allows you to add tattoo pieces to your own personal “bin” that others can see when they view your profile, and bookmark your favorites
Each member of the community is able to create an artist profile that includes location, phone numbers, names, emails, other links, and descriptions. Many artists use this as a sort of marketing tool or an advisory method for new coming tattoo artists. Another interesting aspect is the tattoo battle section of the website, users can gain credibility and authority this way, by having the most wins and others can comment on their picture showing respect or congratulations.
Introducing an aspect of visual discourse and will continue to investigate it, Professor Longhany recommended visual discourse.
Visual discourse is apparent throughout, the community is based on visual art forms and their appeal to the members, and tattoo’s with great visual appeal to the members are ranked higher and create more authority for the individual. There are many kinds of visual discourses, for example one user had a bin full of mostly personal artwork displaying the aspects of early gothic design pieces that accentuated the shoulders with dark and smooth shading of a portrait of his grandmother. His grandmother raised him and the tattoo portrait showed the love for his mother figure that had passed. Visually communicating his pain and love for the individual, which others recognized, and those who have been in the same situation had great respect and authority for. He had revealed some of his invisibility in the community which led to others revealing part of their lives and sub cultures of a gothic art form.
When inspecting the community the first things I began to analyze was the anonymity of each user and their invisibility factor. The community does not embrace invisibility because you have to be a member to comment and use the functions that make it a community. But, others just like I have can examine and look through the community and be completely anonymous, but for my purpose it doesn’t matter because I am not a part of it. In regards to the members of the community’s anonymity, you can create any profile you would like, so essentially you can make a fake persona and have a real hidden identity that is never shown, others only see you as part of community in the light that you have created.
ReplyDeleteAuthority and Identity are very good aspects to analyze and further investigate, important things to look at to understand the structure of the community. When the member is creating his place in the community he can either be part of a studio or just a normal member, the purpose for being able to be classified as artists or studios identifies the members with the sub communities within the website and tattoo community. Those who are artists at shops have more authority and have better “bins” of artwork and showcases, their opinion is more respected throughout the community which is natural because they have more experience and a higher status of tattoo skill in the community. Members identities are portrayed in different ways, administrators or sponsor which are members who donated to the community, are more complete profiles and more trusted since the transparency level is more available to the average user.
Language in the community shapes the style of conversation through posts, tattoo contests or “battles” and an overall portrayal of emotion. For example a member had a tattoo that he named “Love for Breda” and posted for others to see. The tattoo got rated as five out of five, the emotion and language used shows the type of person the member is and creates a frame for which others think about and post in. “This tattoo shows my love for my city and my favorite soccer club. Everything I know and love lives in Breda and means everything for me. For that reason I wanted a reminder that I am a proud citizen of Breda”
The community of tattoobin.com answers a very specific question that my lens analyzed, what make a community run and continue to operate when there is no physical confrontation or communication to verify identity?
Central Claim- an idea is to be more focused on what drives people to browse the community, I have a feeling that the tattoos and getting ideas drive people to the communities so a sense of nonverbal communication is more prevalent than a written aspect, I need to alter the essays genre and point of view for this, to suggest more points on my lens but I am having trouble thinking of how to merge a nonverbal and verbal evidence.
I am focusing on big concerns and Professor Longhany suggested to look at Visual discourse, and to re structure my sentences as to avoid saying what I did, and just start off with what it is and go from there.
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ReplyDeleteTwitter Ethnography
Introduction
Twitter is an online community with millions of people; anyone can make a twitter account, which consists of a profile photo and a short description of yourself or any information you want to share with your friends or the world. My Twitter profile is set to public so anyone can view what I post, but you can set your profile to private so only people you approve can follow you. On Twitter you can post your thoughts in 140 characters or less. Within Twitter are a lot of different groups or communities; Each group within twitter has completely different ideas and posts about completely different things. Popular Twitter users can be anyone, many celebrities have millions of followers because there fans want to see what they are actually like, it also blurs the line between a regular person and a celebrity because you can interact directly with them. There are a few regular people who have created a Twitter and because of their unique ideas they have become Twitter celebrities. I am going to use Wardle’s “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces” as a lens to analyze Twitter.
Authority
Many average people have gained authority and celebrity status from twitter by imitated celebrities, for example, @Wizdom is a parody account for the rapper Wiz Khalifa. This account gained millions of followers because Wiz Khalifa didn’t have a verified account. This account retained followers because of the quotes and interesting things they posted. @TheFakeESPN has about 400,000 followers and they are a random group of people who post funny things about athletes and sports news.
I’m an average user of Twitter, I started Twitter about four years ago and I only post a couple things per week. Over the last four years I’ve only posted 1,300 tweets, when you compare this to one of my friends it would look like I’ve been using twitter for only a short time. @Dean has 24,000 tweets and he’s only been using twitter for a year. There is no set standard for how you should behave on Twitter, everyone has their friends that follow them and everyone talks about different things. You can decide on Twitter what type of person you want to be, and how you want to communicate and your followers will naturally start thinking like you do. The majority of Twitter users don’t argue with others because the people who see their posts agree with and are interested in what they are posting.
Learning The Language
There is a very simple language requirement on Twitter, firstly all of your posts must be one hundred forty characters or less. You also can post hash tags or pound symbols at the end of your tweet to give that tweet a category, when random twitter users want to read about Sunday NFL football they might search for the hash tag, #football #Sunday #NFL or they can go more specifically and search for the team they want to learn more about by simply searching #Chargers or #San Diego. Twitter is a very simple form of social networking, it’s for people who want to talk, not necessarily to their friends all of the time, and they want an easier way to do it. Each social networking site offers different things. For people who want to write brief statements or post things about wants going on a this very moment in time, then they use twitter instead of other sites like Facebook or Youtube. Members of Twitter are encouraged to post about anything they want to, for example, they can post about their life, sports news, world news, or anything else they find interesting or they want to share with others.
0037 cont.
ReplyDeleteHow do newcomers gain authority when they join Twitter?
New Users: Learning to fit in
New users can instantly gain authority if they have a lot of friends that use twitter, they will be able to gain a lot of followers just from that. After all of their friends have followed them they can gain authority from posting things that get retweeted by their followers. If some of their followers retweets a post it will be seen by all of that person’s followers and they might even retweet it, this could end up being seen by many more people than just your own followers.
Identity vs. Real Life Identity
I know that for me my identity on Twitter doesn’t change too drastically, I still post about sports and music, which I talk about with my friends in real life. Some things I’ll post on Twitter will be related to what happened in real life and I will say things that I won’t necessarily say to my friends in real life.
I did not do the blog last week so here is my first draft of my Ethnography.
ReplyDeleteIntroduction
The digital discourse community that I will be investigating is a football forum on ESPN.com. The general forum is for NFL talk about anything happening around the league. Then, there are separate forums, one for each of the 32 teams in the NFL. My profound investigation will be specifically concerning the Pittsburgh Steelers’ forum. I will use John Swales’ The Concept of Discourse Community to help further my investigation of this community along with Gee and Elizabeth Wardle’s Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces.
Purpose
The Steelers have a very fanatical and very hefty fan base. The fans across the globe recognize themselves as being apart of Steeler Nation. They have sold out every home game since 1972, a streak that is well above 300 games. They are also the reason that other teams are able to sell out one game in a season. If you look in the stands when the Steelers have an away game, you will sometimes see more Steeler fans waving the Terrible Towel then fans of the home team. The point that I am getting at is this forum brings together fans from across country. It is a place where concerns and praise of the Steelers can be communicated between fans from anywhere in the country.
Another purpose, or goal, of this community is for other fans (of different teams) to come into the forum and give their insight to the team. However, there is no “trash talking” that takes place, it is more sympathy if there is terrible officiating in the game of any sort. In case you are unaware, the Steelers seemed to have been targeted by officiating the past few years and have received calls against them that should not have happened. For example, on November 4th the Steelers were playing the NY Giants. The refs where clearly trying to swing the game for the Giants because of the hurricane that had hit the days before. It could not be anymore obvious then when Ryan Clark was called for a “blow to the head” of Victor Cruz. Cruz then left the game after this play for bruised ribs…just think about it. At any rate, this awful officiating led to someone by the name of RonBorges to post in the forum with the title of “Congrats Steelers from Pats Fan”. Steelers and Patriots fans do not like each other, which he also communicated in the posting. He also went on to say that he thought it was a great win with everything going against them.
Linguistics
To become an active member in this community, you must understand some of the rhetoric that goes on in such a place. There are basic things that one must know along with the more elevated terms. For example, there are references to OL and DL, which would be offensive line and defensive line. Obviously, a simple Google search would be able to solve this problem. However, if you are constantly Googling every other word then you are more than likely not going to be coming back to the forum or be able to establish much of a stance on a topic that is posted.
Conclusion
I have concluded that the Steelers forum is a lot more than just an area that people can talk about how great the Steelers are in comparison to other teams. It is a place where all fans can get together, discuss the team, and try to understand more about it. Fans can also get other viewpoints on common issues or thoughts that they have involving the team.
Michael Marinari
ReplyDelete0119
Caloriecount.about.com is an online website devoted to giving its members a way to accurate calculate what they eat and how it affects their diet. Since it’s creation in 2005, caloriecount has affected the lives of countless members and helped them to achieve their goals of weight loss. Community members have accounted for over four million pounds lost combined which is quite an incredible feat. The site offers an intensive food logging system with thousands of common food option for you to log and a vast activity log so you can log when you workout to help balance out the intake of calories. The site also offers a large community section where you can view journals, articles posted by the moderators and other members to help you in specific areas of dining, and a large forum where you can bring one question to the community’s attention and receive a helpful answer. This is extremely convenient for the members as they don’t have to go scouring the web for answers because all the moderators have exemplary educations within the health, fitness, and dietary fields and are only a quick email away and answer any question you may have. Also, a member can find his/her niche in the community through a group page that falls within their personal interests. Trying to lose weight and suffering from a ridiculous chocolate obsession? There is a group for that that not only keeps you involved with others but helps you to stay on target to your goals and still be able to enjoy what you love. Caloriecount is a perfect example of what Swales describes as a “discourse community” where the members share “a common goal…have intercommunication among each other..and genres to further its aims” (Swales 471-472). All members of the community are using caloriecount to keep track of what they eat and how that along with exercise affects their weight. Further desire to learn new things to help speed along progress of weight loss/gain leads members to branch out and talk to other members or view their reports to see how they receive higher grades. The members that always have the most “A” grades tend to have more authority and credibility in what say or do because they have achieved their personal goals before for example, a member of just one week. Authority is shown through in ways that Wardle describes, “must be maintained through an individual’s speech and actions”. The moderators answer almost every question thoroughly and quickly and take every opportunity given to them to improve the community’s wellbeing. It has been thought by some that dieting is one’s own battle between their stomach and their willpower. However, there is a direct link between the intercommunication of the members in this website and the success of their diet. These instances occur for three reasons: support from others, wide range of helpful sources, and incentives from goal achievements and the points and rewards they bring.
Most goals that members set for themselves are pretty hard to obtain and call upon a lot of willpower. Most members fall in the range of trying to lose 20-30 pounds and have a hard time keeping on their diet day in and day out for months. This is why co-founders Erik Fantasia and Igor Leboric created caloriecount with such a strong community. When members post about their day many can give them a thumbs up on how they did and choose to “support” them. This means that from that day on every time that member shares their report, the other member who supported them will receive their report in their feed. Much like how Facebook works with friend’s statuses, you’ll be able to see their posting and reflection on their day along with a report of what they ate so that you can understand what are good foods to eat to stay healthy. This allows for intercommunication further down if both members choose to message one another to share different diet tips. The support from other members in the community is obvious to even an outsider and it is that support which makes this community so popular and successful in it’s goals.
When some members feel like the dieting on their own is not enough to keep them satisfied they seek out the numerous journals, blogs, and forum posts that are available in the community tab. Inside are various helpful sources to help any member learn something new that can help improve how they diet an achieve results in reduced time. This is where Gee’s theory of secondary discourse (non-dominant to be exact) comes to reveal itself. Through conversing with the public about a specific type of workout or mix-match diet plans such as a carbo-loading lifting diet both members engaged in the forum discussion discover the exigence which is to learn something new to help them achieve the goals they have set out to make.
ReplyDeleteI need to do more research in the incentives an rewards area which I will probably interview someone about very soon…
Methods
I will probably interview one or two of the moderators and ask them specific questions regarding to why caloriecount is so successful and what type of language use do they have to do to inspire and help the members in the community who need the extra push to stick with their dieting. I will also observe and record notes about different reports made by members that are fairly recent (one week in) to those who are veterans to the community (week ten or more). I will record what they eat and what blogs and groups they are a part of and see if there is a connection between an “A” grade and how involved a member is in the community.
Part 2
ReplyDelete0119
While changing my draft I was primarily trying to add a purpose to my research. Why was I researching this community? What is the point? I realized I'm trying to figure out what is the reason members continue to use caloriecount without becoming annoyed by logging everything they eat day in and day out. This topic became the forefront for my revision process. As I continue my research and analysis of this community I know I'll find the reason why and make a valid point for my audience of what the hidden exigence of my community is.
0M08
ReplyDeleteZahra Sattaur
There's More to a Song than it's Words
Song Meanings is a social networking for music lovers that allow you to search for your favorite artists and analyze the meaning of their lyrics. Members of this community all have a sense of commitment to music. Any member can choose a song from any genre of music and put their own interpretation in the comment box. Some people have various views of the meaning of a certain song and will try to correct other interpretations. I originally thought that you just listened to a song and obtained a certain meaning right after listening, but after looking at a few interpretations I saw how deep people go into analyzing the meaning of lyrics. Also, I came across a ratings box where people can rate a person's comment about the song. It's similar to the "like" button on Facebook except you can actually rate down to emphasize you're disliking of someone's comment.
Tony Mirabelli has a Ph.D. in Education in Language, Literacy, and Culture. Mirabelli introduces the term multiliteracies to show that there's more to a community than just reading a text. There are numerous means by which one can communicate an idea both verbally and nonverbally. These include the many sources that people use to analyze a song which are reading the lyrics, watching the music video if there is one, and obtaining some background information about the song or songwriter.
I also decided to examine authority in this community according to the ratings and comments using Elizabeth Wardle's theories. Wardle is an associate professor at the University of Central Florida and directs the Writing Program there. She was interested in how people learn to write within discourse communities and how authority is gained. In her essay, Wardle uses Bruce Lincoln idea to discuss that authority "is the effect of a posited, perceived, or institutionally ascribed asymmetry between speaker and audience that permits certain speakers to command not just the attention but the confidence, respect, and trust of their audience."
0M08
ReplyDeleteMethodology
I continued the tradition of Mirabelli and observed the different literacies that are used in this online community. I decided to create an account and join this community to have more access to the comments and posts. Then, I observed several songs that were quite popular today and read comments made by people to see how they interpreted the song. I decided to use one song in particular called "Some nights". Apart from the comments, there were little boxes next to the comments where a person can rate someone else's comment up or down. I decided use some of Wardle's ideas to take a look at how authority was gained in this community by examining these rate ups and downs.
I have been observing the online community for several weeks now, jotting down observations and writing a report with information of how the community works and patterns that I noticed while glancing at the many song interpretations available. The data collected was taken at no specific time during the week or day because I was able to get the same amount of information no matter when I looked. I sent emails to users trying to interview them to help further my argument but I wasn't able to get any responses but I'm able to get enough information about the community from my observations.
Some Nights- The Fun
The Fun is a music group that has been around for a long time but became popular after their radio hit "We are Young". They came out with another radio hit called "Some nights" that I thought would be a good song to examine because I know that there can be confusion about what it means. One could analyze the song differently depending on what they used to read the song (not just literally). This raised many people to interpret the songs in countless ways not necessarily making anyone right or wrong since it's mostly based off opinion, but the more resources that were used to communicate the idea of the song lead to the comment being more valuable amongst the other members of the community.
0M08
ReplyDeleteMusic Video, Lyrics, and Background Information
Numerous people usually go to a music video to look for the song's meaning. The music video to this song specifically makes a reference to war. This causes many people to take it literally and only interpret the song as simply being in a war. Seeing the visuals of the soldiers fighting gave them this idea. I observed this when I saw that people made reference to the video in their comments and gave their interpretation solely off of that. For example, someone posted this comment," Whatever the message is, it seems to be war related because the video showed something from the American Revolution."
Apart from the video, there were people who went straight to the lyrics to find meaning. I saw several examples of this when I saw people post the actual lyrics to the song in the comment box and then interpreted it after. Some would interpret the song in parts, specifically after each stanza of the song. Here's an instance where someone posts parts of the song then interprets it: "Some nights stay up.. some nights call it a draw. Despite all the indecision as noted above, I still wake up every day and carry on; but I wonder what do I want then?" Response: He is clearly referencing some past strife with his family and reflecting on past decisions he made in regards to his family situation; as someone else noted most of the songs on this album are about his family. Taken altogether, it seems like this song is about him just reflecting on his own life and searching for direction amidst a lot of indecisiveness – specifically in regards to past decisions about his family, his thoughts about himself, and his future and what he wants for himself. " This literal reading of the lyrics gave some people different ideas of what the song actually meant because they didn't see a picture of soldiers fighting but developed their own picture through the words as shown above.
Furthermore, there are people who go even further to research the background of the song by finding information about the person who wrote it. Here I observed people becoming even more analytical. Nate Reuss is the man who wrote this song and some people decided to take a look at the song from his perspective. Here is an interpretation of someone who has a little background information about the singer. "This song is all about Nate's transition from one life (his life at home) to a new life (his life as a celebrity). He wants to be famous and do what he loves, which is to sing, but he doesn't care about the money and doesn't want the fame to go to his head and change him. Because of this, he is conflicted. He's against all the attention that the world gives celebrities and doesn't want any part of it. He wants the world to fight back and be against the social norms of attention given to celebrities. However he has been exposed to this life and found some perks in it as well. Because of the perks of fame and this unwanted attention from people who are not his true friends, he is conflicted about this life. But, singing is what he loves to do and doesn't think it's work giving up even though he is against this life." This person developed a picture by looking at it from the songwriter's perspective of his life. This interpretation could not have been made by someone who didn't have any background information of the song writer himself.
0M08
ReplyDeleteSigns of Authority
In this online community, I was able to notice a pattern of who had some authority and who didn't in the responses by the amount of rate ups or downs that they received for this particular song. One person posted a response that got ten rate ups which is the highest I had seen because the rest had around 2-4. I also came across a comment that had 6 rate downs and comments following it. The person who received the rate ups had a deep analysis of the song making references to the video, the lyrics, and information about the songwriter and some extra personal thought. The comment can be found in Appendix A. In terms of the person who got 6 rate downs, it was made clear that he wasn't aware of what was appropriate to write in a comment box so he didn't gain the respect of others on the community. This is the comment that the user made: " um ... really i just heard Some Nights dude forgets to take his Prozac ... whine whine whine ... poor poor thing ... whatever ... don't we have a country station where all the cry fests get redirected to?? the only war is in his bi-polar brain ... missing mommy & daddy ... grow the flip up dude". The responses to this were, "Nasty, nasty comment." and " First, get the shift key on your keyboard fixed. Second, people with "bipolar brains" don't have the option of simply "growing the flip up." They have the option of letting things kill them or killing themselves first. At least in my case. Every person is different. Third, don't comment if you don't like it." People didn't hesitate to set the original commenter in his place because a comment like that was unacceptable to use here. It's clear that this person was misusing the website and you could tell that he didn't possess the same appreciation for music that the rest of the members did.
Results
I will be separating the results for multiliteracies and for authority displayed in this online communtity.
Multiliteracies
Most people wouldn't think that having literacy has anything to do with listening to a song to derive some sort of meaning to it, but literacy doesn't have to be something you physically read or write. According to Mirabelli, literacy exists in many forms that can be heard or seen visually as well. In the examples I displayed above, people not only read the lyrics of the song to give it meaning but they were also able to read a video and apply what they visualized to a song. Another thing that people did was actually read the songwriter. After gathering enough information about the artist, certain patterns become noticed about who they really are which becomes a form of communication to the song interpreters because they were able to tie that background information to the songs the artists composed. This helps form a better understanding of the story the artist is trying to tell through the song. An example to show this idea is Taylor Swift. Her personal life isn't kept private so everyone knows whenever she is in a relationship and going through a breakup. People then notice a pattern of a new song coming out relating to a breakup that she just had. They are then able to make the conclusion about what she is referring to in the song. I realized that the more literacies that were used as communication for the interpreter the understand the song, the more accurate their description was.
0M08
ReplyDeleteAuthority
Since this community is based off of personal opinions, I didn't think that anyone would have authority. But my observations show otherwise as some people either really respected someone's interpretation or were offended by what was typed. They voiced their respect or dislike by responding to the initial post or by rating the comment up or down. I observed the post and comments of someone who had a +10 rating and of someone who had a -6 rating. Those were the two highest numbers in terms of what was rated up or down. When something is rated up, it shows that people value the comment that was made and it steers other commenters to read it over any other comment. I noticed that when something was rated up, more and more people would post their own comments using the ideas from the original poster. When a comment was rated down, people would team up and insult person who posted something that wasn't appropriate.
Conclusion
A lot more thought goes into interpreting a song on this community than one may think. The actual interpreter has to refer to many sources to be able to communicate their idea such as reading lyrics, viewing a music video, obtaining background information on the song writer and obviously listening to the song. These are the multiliteracies used as a form of communication to the song interpreter for them to be able really analyze a song's meaning. Some people incorporate all the literacies I discussed into one song, providing them with a more descriptive analysis of the song. It was observed that there was an ample amount of thought that is put into most of the comments displayed on the online community which in turn earns them a plethora of respect. To show this respect, other users will agree with the comment by posting their own comment using the original commenter's ideas and rating the comment up. When someone just posts something to try to be funny, other users will say anything to put that person down. In the example I provided, the user wasn't able to adapt to the ways of the community. He didn't have an understanding of how the community works. I believe that the user was known as what Mirabelli calls a "tool"- not a true member of the community . Instead of keeping his thoughts silent while others presented their deep analysis, he gave his own "interpretation" in a way that was deemed inappropriate to display as a comment. This example goes back to what Wardle talks about when she wrote about authority in her essay. She stated that if someone is new to a community and is given some authority but doesn't learn how to communicate properly according to the etiquette of the community, then that person will lose the authority they were granted with from the start.
0119 Part 1
ReplyDeleteIntro:
As the internet's primary user uploaded video streaming website, YouTube not only does youtube have an incomprehensible amount of videos, but communities exist for any topic known to man. Among a variety of other topics which I find interesting, the YouTube community I'm most involved in is that of airsoft players. Airsoft is a military simulation game, similar to the concept of paintball, in which players equip themselves with realistic gear and firearm replicas that fire six millimeter plastic pellets. On YouTube, players share information about experiences, opinions, and technical advice in an effort to better inform others in the community. Although YouTube is seen as primarily a video sharing site, a large portion of the information exchanged is done so through text comments left under each video.
To many people, YouTube is seen as somewhere to waste time watching stupid internet videos; however, this community is not purely based around mindless entertainment, but rather a market of potential airsoft buyers. Because of this, there is an obvious presence from large international airsoft distributors. These companies are most often present in two ways: having their own channel to make reviews and advertisements, or by sponsoring an already established channel with free products to promote. This creates an incentive for users in the community who post videos to create a respectable image for themselves in an effort to not be overshadowed by these colossal companies and to potentially be noticed and sponsored by one of them.
Method:
I've been a part of the YouTube airsoft community for just under four years, which is a substantial amount of time to observe a community. Shortly after I started watching airsoft reviews, tests, and game footage, I thought it would be fun to start my own series of videos to get in on the action. Since then, I've amassed over fifteen thousand subscribers and six million total video views. Over the time of growing my channel, I've devoted many hours to not only watching videos from other channels as a way to research airsoft gear that I'd like to purchase, but I've also answered tens of thousands of comment questions and read through enough text conversations to fill a novel. Although I have no way to read through personal message between other users, I do have more personal messages between myself and other YouTubers to study than I could possibly read though. On my channel, I've filmed, edited, and uploaded over 300 unique videos. I have also dealt with six unique companies who have sponsored me at different times in the life of my channel.
0119 Part 2
ReplyDeleteResults:
The user's age is not required to be displayed on their YouTube channel, but through text communication styles, a users level of education and maturity can be easily determined. The majority of serious airsoft players are in their teens and early twenties, although the distribution of age grows as a direct result of the growth of the sport. The amount of effort put in and what a user wants to achieve through their channels is apparent as well. Some users are in the community purely to see cool airsoft videos and contribute nothing to the sport or community. These users tend to be on the younger end of the spectrum and utilize the anonymity to troll more serious community members. Others are there to further their own knowledge by researching new and existing products. Although not always the most influential in the community, they do contribute to some conversations and do so with a moderate level of respect and formality. Channels which contribute the most are those who post regular videos; whether it be reviews, tests, or game footage, and frequently participate in text conversations. These users tend to be the most mature and knowledgeable about airsoft
This group of users who regularly post is the most interesting because they have the most to gain from the community. From my experiences as well as those of my friends in the community, these videos are carefully filmed and edited to present the information at hand in the most professional manner. Each video is scripted and, if needed, filmed several times over until perfected. Users develop a proficiency with a variety of picture and video editing programs in the continual attempt to perfect their videos. Once uploaded, work still needs to be done for these videos in the comment section. With the steady flow of people clicking each video, all questions have to be skillfully answered in a kind and informative manner in the hope that the new viewer might choose to watch other videos or subscribe. This phase of video upkeep will never end, but will actually increase as the video receives more views and grows in popularity. As these airsoft review channels grow, they gain the attention of other channels looking to do a cooperative video, and sometimes even companies looking to sponsor new reviewers as a marketing technique. Due to the personal business nature of these conversations, users send personal messages back and forth with each other until some sort of agreement is made. An obvious example of what not to do in these situations was clearly demonstrated by a conversation I had with a viewer several weeks ago. As a larger YouTube reviewer, I was approached by a newer reviewer who asked "Yo bro can you give a shout out to me?" This request was immediately off-putting because he called me "bro", but I still proceeded to check his channel for on the off chance that he might have good content. I was greeted with a troll-face background and a video of him puking after trying the cinnamon challenge. I replied "Sorry, I no longer do shout outs upon request" and was almost immediately greeted with his reply of "Fuck you and ur reviews." As someone who receives this hate on a regular basis, I wasn't shocked, but rather amused. On the other hand, I've dealt with extremely respectful channels who professionally requested that I look at their channel and, if I saw fit, mention them in my next video. One of these channels did have a expertly designed channel with well edited videos and received a shout-out from me. Over the following week they gained close to five hundred new subscribers because of it. Conversations between YouTube channels and established companies go much the same way, with immature messages being denied or ignored, and formal requests moving closer to a company sponsorship.
0119 Part 3
ReplyDeleteI cannot speak for the agreements between other channels and their corresponding sponsors, but from my experience with certain companies, I've found that mutual respect is required from both sides to make a sponsorship work. One example is my sponsorship with Airsoft-Club.com, a Hong Kong based retailer that I've partnered with. My representative, Dennis, is prompt to respond to any of my questions or concerns and was quite generous when we first ironed out our business partnership. Because of the promptness and professional tone of each side, this partnership has lasted over two years. Another company which I've dealt with was Airsoftstation.com, which is a company based in Minnesota and is known for sponsoring many younger YouTube review channels. While I was grateful that they accepted my sponsorship request and the generous amount of products and store credit they gave me, I quickly grew tired of their slow or nonexistent responses to my questions or requests. That partnership eventually faded away as they replaced older sponsored channels, like mine, with channels that they had only recently acquired. While I did deal with Airsoftstation for around a year, only several months of that was frequent conversation while the rest of that was idle time where I waited for their response to my email.
My approach to communicating with these channels is always very similar in the beginning: respectful and not too aggressive. I understand that these are large companies with a lot to deal with, and a YouTube reviewer constantly pestering them isn't going to help them in any way. Once we do arrange some sort of partnership, I give them the option to assign products to me, or in the case that they let me choose what to review, I start with items from a lower price range and work my way up over time as they become more comfortable with me.
0119 Part 4
ReplyDeleteDiscussion:
Tony Mirabelli, a graduate of University of California-Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Education in Language, described in his paper "Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers" the literacy which can be learned by working as a waiter or waitress in a restaurant. Giving examples of different situations experienced by restaurant waiting staff, he demonstrates different literacies learned in this job that aren't openly acknowledged or known about by the public. This same view can be applied to the certain YouTube communities and the time spent there. Through practice, communicating with other users and sponsoring companies on YouTube can help someone develop a more mature and professional tone to their speaking and writing. The ability to be anonymous in the comment section of a video and through private messages on YouTube eliminates any prior judgement from the recipient of the message. Reviewers learn a literacy which helps them more efficiently communicate with other users requesting more information about a product. In a way, these reviewers are a third party salesforce for these companies and can benefit from increasing the sales of a product which they reviewed. A customer will never buy from a salesman who is impatient or too aggressive, so reviewers must learn to be respectful and accommodate for the customers lack of knowledge and confusion about what they really want. By gathering information about what style of airsoft match and what competition the player will experience, the reviewer can become better acquainted with what the customers is looking for, even when the customers themselves don't know. Making useful recommendations based on personal experiences can be the turning point of a sale for a company.
0119 Part 5
ReplyDeleteAs for dealing with companies, a professional and accommodating tone needs to be taken as to not seem too aggressive, but sponsored channels shouldn't be afraid to make a request slightly out of the comfort zone. Dealing with larger companies who don't necessarily need my support because there are other channels like me to fill my spot, I've learned how to more efficiently negotiate partnerships and business deals that will benefit me later on in life when starting my career.
Possibly one of the most important skills learned through running a successful YouTube review channel is self-image management. Not only do I have the responsibility to advertise and sell products for companies, but I, over the life of my channel, have turned myself into a commodity. By upholding a respectable and professional reputation, I try to advertise myself with each review in hopes to attract new sponsors in the future. As companies grow, they look for known figures to represent them and create support in the community for their company. As one of these figures, anything I do is indirectly reflected onto the companies sponsoring me. Because the partnership only lasts as long as they see me useful, one rude comment or streak of hate towards my users could give me a bad reputation, causing them to cut off all associations with me.
____________________________________________________
Reflection
In this revision of my ethnography, I focussed primarily on beefing up my analysis and giving examples of my experiences with established companies looking to sponsor YouTube review channels. These examples included my prosperous partnership with Airsoft-club.com, a retailers based in Hong Kong, and the frustrating correspondence which I endured while working with AirsoftStation, a similar retailer. In my analysis section, I looked at the hidden literacies that can be learned from running a successful YouTube review channel. These include the ability to negotiate in a professional manner with established businesses, the literacy of marketing and sales, and most importantly, upholding a respectable presence in a community which can be later sold to a company looking for semi-celebrities to be the face of their company.
0037 Part 1
ReplyDeleteBackground of Tumblr
Tumblr is an online blogging community that was created in 2007 and has quickly gained popularity since its conception. Once you sign up, you are immediately given your own blog space which you can design and format however you wish. You must pick a title for your blog, as well as your own personal URL and, just like that, you are ready to begin blogging. Because the piece of personal information required to join Tumblr is an email account, there are very few ways to search for someone you know personally through the site’s database, so there is a very large veil of anonymity cloaked over your identity on your blog. Your followers and other users of Tumblr only know as much about you as you are willing to tell them, so I find that it is a very good place to vent, express myself, and say things that I otherwise would never say.
There are no restrictions on what you can or cannot post, only warnings that offensive posts will be investigated. So, really, you can post anything on your blog that you want. As you make more posts you gather more followers who subscribe to your blog. This leads to higher levels of authority, which will be discussed in greater detail later.
There are a many different types of blogs, as well. Many blogs serve one purpose by posting in only one genre. For example, there might be blogs dedicated to food, art, politics, movies, or a specific television show (called ‘Fandom Blogs’). These different types of blogs usually tend to flock together, following one another and form their own close knit clique. Within the cliques exist more specific rules, norms, lexeis, and ways authority is dealt out.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteLexis of Tumblr
Wardle explains that certain types of ‘lexis’ exist within different communities and that these specific ways of speaking are unique to the communities. The lexis in a community offers a sense of unity as well as a way of effectively communicating between members.
When I first joined Tumblr I quickly noticed the very specific lexis used in certain situations. In the fandom communities it is common for excitement to be conveyed using nonsensical ‘keysmashing’ or by responding in small simple questions. For example, when news about a very popular show is released comments on the posts may be ‘aksldjfwiejf’, ‘can’t’, or ‘WHqaT Iz t hIs I caQN’t eAVen’. These comments might be pared with images or gifs, a short, repeating, animated clip, to convey emotions. The use of images and gifs on Tumblr is a very popular practice and helps distinguish between those who are new to Tumblr and those who are not. Users who are new to the site are considerably less likely to use images or gifs in their posts, I didn’t begin using them until a few months after creating my blog. Because the use of images and gifs especially is not common in other online discourse communities, it gives Tumblr users a better sense of individuality and uniqueness from other social sites like Facebook and Twitter.
In more formal blogs, such as political blogs, the lexis is considerably more professional. Many of the political blogs that I follow participate in open debate. To gain validity in these debates proper grammar and intelligent speech is an absolute must if you wish to be taken seriously. There are, of course, exceptions. On many occasions these political debates begin deteriorating into profanity spewing matches, much like any political debate on MSNBC or FOX News. On these blogs, use of gifs or images to convey emotions are not as popular, users rather explaining their opinions through text.
Part 3
ReplyDeleteStructure of Authority of Tumblr
The formations of authority figures within these two particular communities are just as different as the forms of lexis. Generally, one’s authority is decided by the amount of followers he or she has. I may have 200 followers and be considered to have more authority over a blogger with only 30 followers. However, blogs exist that have tens of thousands of followers and these bloggers are referred to as ‘Tumblr Famous’. Some of these ‘Tumblr Famous’ users include internet sensations such as John Green, Tyler Oakley, and even child actor Cole Sprouse. This process of gaining authority brings about issues within the communities though. Just because a seventeen year old blogger with twenty thousand followers does not mean they are more qualified to speak intelligently on a certain topic than someone with twenty followers, but because the second blogger has less followers and is less well known his or her opinion will carry little weight even if they are actually more qualified to speak on a certain topic.
Fandom blogs, blogs dedicated to a certain tv show, movie, or book series, develop authority figures based on talent. Those who are artistically talented are considerably more likely to have authority within the fandom. In the Sherlock fandom, one of the most popular artists goes under the URL GeotheBio, who states that she has around forty thousand followers. She is considered an authority figure because of her artistic talent seen through her artistic Sherlock comic strips and her follower count.
Part 4
ReplyDeleteIdentity on Tumblr
As I stated earlier, Tumblr offers a very thick veil of anonymity on the site, and that allows identities to be formed from scratch. Suler states that the internet provides a false sense of security and allows people to say things they normally would not as well as express themselves without fear of backlash. Suler’s ideas are seen in practice on Tumblr on a constant basis.
Because the users are completely in control of their own identities on Tumblr, many blogs users appear more aggressive and bolder than they really are. On Tumblr, there are instances when a blogger receives something called ‘Anon-Hate’. Each blogger has an inbox where anyone may send questions anonymously or not. Anon-Hate is simply a term to describe a form of cyberbullying that occurs quite often on the site, and because there is an anonymous option, many of those who leave Anon-Hate are fairly ruthless with their insults and criticisms. This definitely support’s Suler’s claims.
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ReplyDeleteLeague of Legends (LoL) is an online video game that contains a multitude of discourses within its own general discourse. In this game, players strategize and brawl in a 5 verse 5 or 3 verse 3 battle to try to get to the enemy teams base and destroy their nexus, which ultimately wins the game. The discourse language of League of Legends is the discourse that is recognized by all players. We all know that certain phrases like adc, mid, jung, support, and top are to show which of the 3 lanes of the map the player would like to play in or if the player would like to fight in the jungle instead of a lane. Typically the adc (attack damage carry) and the support would go bottom, the mid would go middle, the top would go to the top, and the jungle would run around in the jungle and help all lanes. A feeder, probably the most commonly seen term, is used to describe how a character “fed” or gave too many kills to the enemy player without getting kills for themselves. These kills allow the enemy to gain gold and buy items from the in-game store that can cause your team to lose. However, since the game is constantly evolving, so is its discourse and play style. New meta, a common phrase of LoL, is used to describe a new way of playing and can be good or bad. This has been a very common phrase because tournaments for the game have been going left and right and the players determine to make a new meta strategy that will leavers viewers in awe.
Most players of the game speak English on the North American server, but occasionally a team is not able to do well because one player speaks Spanish instead. The primary language of League of Legends North America is English, but on the Asian servers this is not the case. Though each server has it’s own dialects, LoL is one of the only places that can enable communication even through diversity of language because of it’s text based discourse. Instead of group chats, there is a conversation box and all player know what mid, bot, adc, jungle, and support are no matter of dialect because it is essential to the game.
In LoL, there are 2 different types of matches you can go into: ranked and classic. Classic is a mode for people who either want to have fun or try some sort of new meta strategy with the occasional hard head, while Ranked is for players who are all about winning and occasionally throw people under the bus as much as they can to try to divert attention from their own flaws. When I started this game I used it as a means to keep in contact with friends from my middle school that all enjoyed playing video games. This is generally why most people play; there are very few players that would like to play alone. We kept in the classic games (often just called classic) which were there for the players that just wanted to play for fun and occasionally a completely competitive hothead that would try to make orders for the rest of his team. Classic is known for having people like us; people who want to win but don’t freak out if they lose a game. However, there usually is at least one person on the team that is not like the others whether it be because they are self reliant or speak a different language (i.e. Spanish instead of English). Most times this is accepted because the game is for fun, but some times they are lashed out at and leave the game. We all enter the game with the same exigence: beat the team, win the game. Sadly, there tends to always be one person on the team who tries to be as brutal as they can, often saying phrases like “worst jax na”, a reference to the champion (Jax) that the person is playing and the na (North American) server that we play on.
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ReplyDeleteThe reason that I establish the change of discourse between classic and ranked is that in ranked you experience the opposite team composition from the team composition we see in classic. As opposed to the 4 nice people and 1 mean person, it is often that there is only 1 nice person and 4 judgmental people. Though both ranked and classic share the exigence to win, the fun that comes from simply playing in classic is lost if the game results in a defeat. The discourse of this is fairly set in stone unless you are a professional gamer; you have to play safe and harass the enemy as much as you can without dying. Feeders are often ridiculed for their behavior and are not given advice on how to play better but rather shunned for the rest of the game. There are essential discourse phrases that make or break a players game such a mia, b, ward, re, care, and gank. Mia, missing in action, is the typical League speak for when an enemy moves out of their lane and is no where to be found. Typing mia makes your team aware that your opponent can pop out at them at any time. It’s counterpart, re, means return or returned to lane. This makes your team aware that they can move out now without a fear of being ganked. A gank occur when an enemy either moves out of their lane or comes out of the jungle to attack one of the lanes and try to kill all or some enemies in it. However, if you are going for a gank on an enemy player, the person you are tying to help must type in ward to acknowledge that there is a ward in the bush you are standing in that allows the enemy team to see your location. Without this warning, you can be ganked and killed without a clue of what is going on. Often times if an opponent player is seen moving from their lane, the player in the lane will type care top, bottom, or middle to acknowledge the direction the opponent moved to.
Recently Riot Games has added incentives to act nicer, play better, and work together. Now, after a game a player may or may not choose to reward another player one of four rewards: honorable opponent, teamwork, helpful, or friendly. After a player has been awarded 30 points in any of these categories they get an emblem on their name. Though this is not a major change it effects how people play because they are being rewarded. After Riot Games put these emblems into the game, people started to play more kindly and dropped the asshole-ish ego they had before.
LoL focuses on teamwork through discourse. Without the discourse the team would fall, and without a team working together the discourse would have no meaning. The play style of the game is what gives the discourse meaning, just like it would within any other discourse community. The language of League speak is constantly evolving with every new meta idea and crazy glitches within the game. As the game and the players continue to find new combinations of items bought and plays that can be with the items, the game will continue to grow it’s discourse and welcome new ideas that may erupt.
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ReplyDeletePart 1
Reddit.com is a popular social media and news website that has grown and become very popular since 2005. Known as “the front page of the internet,” it has become a base for current news as well as for entertainment found on the web. Reddit is divided into many “subreddits,” which are sections where a specific topic is discussed. For example, the subreddit “politics” is a place to share links about and discuss United States politics. Just another example of the many is “AskReddit,” which is a subreddit where users ask and respond to stimulating questions and share relevant stories. These are two of the over twenty default subreddits on the site, meaning that content submitted to them makes up what is seen on the main page of reddit.com. Unsurprisingly, these are the most popular subreddits of Reddit; however, according to metareddit.com, there are currently over 189,000 subreddits overall.
Anyone can access Reddit, but only registered users may submit, comment, vote on content, and create and subscribe to subreddits. It is very simple to register and there are no restrictions on who can and cannot register. Registered users can unsubscribe from default subreddits if they wish and subscribe to many of the other subreddits that exist. This allows different users to view content that they feel is relevant to them and hide content they do not wish to see.
There are no indications of real-life identity as long as the registered user does not provide personal information in their username, submitted content, or comments. Users who submit content do so in the form of links, such as to an online article or picture, or in the form of “self-posts,” which are texts posts on Reddit written by the user. Each submitted link or self-post on Reddit has a comment section, where users may discuss the content.
Reddit utilizes what I will refer to as the “upvote/downvote system.” Registered users vote favorable and contributing content “up,” while voting unfavorable and noncontributing content “down.” Registered users may vote on submitted content as well as the individual comments left on the content. The net amount of upvotes and downvotes determines the ranking of content and what is seen first by users. When visiting reddit.com, the default view for content is set to “hot,” referring to “hot topics” that are ranked by their net amount of votes. For example, if a submitted link has 1000 net votes, and another has 900 net votes, the first link will rank in a higher spot on the page.
Comments are also subject to the upvote/downvote system. Like submitted content, the default setting is to display “best” comments, meaning comments with larger net amounts of votes will be seen at the top of the comment section, followed by those with fewer net votes. When a comment ends up with an excessive amount of downvotes, it collapses, meaning a user would have to click “show” to be able to see the unfavorable comment.
The personalization and upvote/downvote system of Reddit and how it affects content and comments are viewed on the site comes to resemble the concept of the online filter bubble. It is an idea put forward by Eli Pariser, political and internet activist and author of The Filter Bubble, and it can be expanded to explain how users of Reddit create their own personal filter bubbles within their community.
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ReplyDeletePart 2
Online Filter Bubbles: The Term Coined by Eli Pariser
Online filter bubbles are situations Internet users are placed in when a website algorithm attempts to guess and show a user what it thinks the user wishes to see, based on their location, search history, and what places they have visited on the Web. The term comes from the idea that users are being isolated in “bubbles” filled with information that is relevant to them and supports their viewpoints, while irrelevant or opposing information is kept out. Pariser’s concept of the filter bubble emerged from the way Google tailors a user’s search results to try to present them with information that is relevant to them. A prime example of varying search results is presented in Pariser’s TED Talk:
“But a couple of weeks ago, I asked a bunch of friends to Google 'Egypt' and to send me screen shots of what they got. So here's my friend Scott's screen shot. . . When you put them side-by-side, you don't even have to read the links to see how different these two pages are. But when you do read the links, it's really quite remarkable. Daniel didn't get anything about the protests in Egypt at all in his first page of Google results. Scott's results were full of them. And this was the big story of the day at that time. That's how different these results are becoming.”
Google isn’t the only place applying algorithms to create filter bubbles according to Pariser, however. Facebook, the massive social networking site, is also creating filter bubbles for its users. Pariser discusses Facebook’s censoring and filtering in his popular TED Talk as well. He describes how Facebook seemed to cater to his personal views, while filtering out what was deemed irrelevant to him:
“So I first noticed this [filtering] in a place I spend a lot of time -- my Facebook page. I'm progressive, politically -- big surprise -- but I've always gone out of my way to meet conservatives. I like hearing what they're thinking about; I like seeing what they link to; I like learning a thing or two. And so I was surprised when I noticed one day that the conservatives had disappeared from my Facebook feed. And what it turned out was going on was that Facebook was looking at which links I clicked on, and it was noticing that, actually, I was clicking more on my liberal friends' links than on my conservative friends' links. And without consulting me about it, it had edited them out. They disappeared.”
It’s evident that popular websites have begun the content viewable by them in order to keep user’s interests and have them feel the content is relevant to them. Online filter bubbles are most often associated with algorithms that are responsible for censoring the content a user sees; however, what about filter bubbles that are actively created by the users of the website? We can take the concept of the online filter bubble a step further by studying online communities that are actively participating in creation of the bubbles, rather than simply ending up in a bubble where a website tailors their content for them. Google and Facebook have been most popularly recognized as creators of online filter bubbles, but I am presenting an online community that takes a different approach to filtering content: Reddit. The upvote/downvote system and contributes to an online filter bubble for the individual as well as the subreddit communities.
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ReplyDeleteI originally started this ethnography investigating the discourse NaNoWriMo, or the National Novel Writing Month website. Due to some issues on the site and a lack of usable evidence I ended up having to change my discourse community that I was investigating to Tumblr.
I focused mainly on explaining what Tumblr is and trying to provide a deeper analysis for each section. I began by giving some basic background information on Tumblr, such as when it was created, what it is used for, and some of the mechanics of the website.
I’m not able to provide a lot of examples within the ethnography, but I do intend on providing printed out screen caps for each of my claims. I also added a section on identity. For the original discourse community I had planned to do, identity didn’t necessarily play a large role in the community, but on Tumblr, your identity is very important in determining your status within the community and how people interact with you. I wanted to focus particularly on open the identity creating process is done on various blogs. I also wanted to take a look at how Anon-Hate is influenced by the concept of identity.
Blake Anderson
ReplyDelete0119
A Face to Face Interaction Gone Viral
Longboard and Me:
In today’s society, almost every person uses the internet or some sort of networking device almost every day of their lives. The internet has expanded communication to an entire new realm, digital communication. Before the internet, many discourse communities had to act face to face or through other means of communication such as mail; now, the internet can be used in seemingly endless ways to expand communities and advance their communication and influence. One specific community that I noticed evolving is the discourse community of longboarding.
I find this community to be very interesting because even I had not realized that a common hobby had turned into an expansive network. A few years ago, my brother and I invested in longboards and it became a causal pastime that we would do during our free time. As time went on, we both became more interested and attempted to learn more about longboards. We would ask our friends questions, experiment with our own boards, and if we had any other questions, we would “Google” them. It wasn’t until I went online that i truly found how vast and expansive the longboading community is; websites, blogs, Facebook pages, business sites, pictures, videos, and so much more, all relating to longboarding!
Introduction:
Unfortunately, the common perception of long boarders isn’t the most respected stereotype. Many people think that if you ride a piece of wood with four wheels, it’s a skate board and you are a skateboarder and skateboarders aren’t known to be the best contributions to society. Let me just say that destruction, trespassing, vandalism, and drugs have been tagged to their names. However, some of this may be true, but there is much more to this hobby of mine.
To me longboarding has always been relaxing and an escape from everyday life. It releases stress and it is a way to make new friends and be involved in something that I enjoyed. Many of the people that I met who know something about the community also feel the same way and take the activity in the same manner of relaxing and laid back. These aspects also became apparent throughout my research and to me and this is the perception that people need to have about the community.
History:
ReplyDeleteThe perception of longboarders being like skateboarders is untirely untrue. In relaity, the are a lot like sufers. The idea of longboarding initially originated in Hawaii. When the waves were dull, surfers would grab their boards and imitate the motions of surfing by switching positions and skimming their hands across the ground to practice surfing. It wasn’t until the 1950s that longboarding was commercialized and sold on a mass scale. Companies such as Makahas and G&S were the original makers of longboards, but at this time they were very dangerous. These boards were made from metal and flimsy wood. As the motion expanded, other companies arose and developed safer and better boards. Society had changed this practice of surfing and turned it into its very own x-sport. Once online sites and advertisement became easily accessible, this pastime became viral and ever more influential; soon enough it found its way to me.
Methods:
Familiar with the community, I knew that I need to get involved with digital spaces that related to longboarding to further advance my analysis. Some of the methods I used to acquire data were interviews, experiments, former knowledge, analyzing sites, and throughout my research I came across different tools that shine light onto the community and bring new aspects into it that I had not realized before. I also, used concepts from various author such as James Paul Gee, Grant Davie and Joseph Williams. These concepts will be further elaborated upon throughout the analysis of my research.
One of the key pieces of my studies was an interview conducted on the creator of the Facebook Group UCF’s Longboarding Knights. Sean Roberts, the creator and an accounting major currently enrolled at UCF agreed to a very informal interview over Facebook message. The interview was only six messages but it held key information that supported my thoughts of the community.
Browsing through websites, I had expected and somewhat overlooked the digital media that was on these sites. But as I became intertwined with UCF’s Longboarding Knights, the indirect meaning behind the digital media became apparent. According the Roberts, “The reason for creating the group on Facebook was to try and get many people to go together on longboarding runs”; but the group had changed to be much more. People had started posting videos and pictures of them longboarding or their own longboards or related paraphernalia. This brought an entirely new type of communication into the community, one that consisted of not words, but pictures.
Results:
ReplyDeleteTime and time again, I noticed a general personality that many of the members of this community held. From UCF’s Longboarding Knights, the multi-million dollar corporations’ websites such as loadedboards.com and originalskateboards.com, to forums, a sense of informality and affability revealed itself. Grant Davie’s analytical concepts are easily related to these places when regarding the informality of them. In both of the different domains mentioned earlier, brand name websites and forums or groups, the exigence, or reason for communication, ranges from the reason to make money as a business or to meet new acquaintances and be surrounded by people who share common interests. However, even though these two areas are on different sides of the spectrum, they carry the same audience and the tone of personal writing, informal and friendly.
This tone also relates to James Paul Gee’s idea of an “identity kit” that comes along with a Discourse. Discourse, as defined by Gee, is a community that consists of a different type or literacy, or mastery of a language within the community. Most of the people in this space, or the parts of it that I am exposed to are amiable and welcoming, whether they are corporate business men, or a local long boarder just trying to find some buds to cruise around with. This persona makes it very easy for new members to be enculturated and adapt to the literacy within the society. As mentioned before, the reason, or activity system, the common goal of the community, could be to make new friends and learn more about the target subject. Who wouldn’t want more members in the community who could fulfill this goal?
Because of the informal nature of the community and overall general atmosphere, errors within writing are usually disregarded or entirely irrelevant. The ideas of Errors comes from Joseph M. Williams. Williams questions the social and linguistic forms of errors such as grammatical and spelling mistakes, and says that they are different to each and every person in each and every community. In UCF’s Longboarding Knights, someone could write a formal business proposal that is notarized, or could just write “YO WHO WANTS TO CRUISE?! HMU.” Either way, the audience understands the rhetor’s exigence and will respond without question or second thought.
A rhetor is anyone who uses a type of communication to convey a message. I noticed that the rhetors, the people who speak or in this case post, that create or post on forums and groups all have the same desire of exigency in the actions. Roberts states “I never considered the informality of how the comments would be but informal is good, as long as people meet up and have fun boarding around that’s all that matters.” This makes the exigency behind the creation of the group simple and narrow but it does not restrain the potential outcomes of communication within the community, just the same as many other spaces of this digital discourse community.
Another lens that I viewed the community through is the use of visual types of communication. Pictures and videos are commonly shared within this community regularly and sometimes more often than words. Also, the results of some of this visual communication and meaning results in a heightened interest of new members because they can see what longboarding consists of and the interaction of members face to face; this is an aspect of this community that I do not believe many other communities contain. A simple picture of a longboard may seem to be so minor but sometimes the little things of an environment can mean everything to its members or others who may just be metaphorically passing by. This type of lens directly correlates to my first outside experience of UCF’s Longboarding Knights.
One of my very first studies was accidental. I was with a few friends one night and I mentioned that someone had posted a picture of his and his friends’ new boards online. One of my friends said that he was an administrator of the group and he messaged them to see if they wanted to ride that night with their new boards. This was so spontaneous and unexpected, but they agreed and soon enough we all met up on campus and longboarded around for at least three hours. These people had no idea who any of us were, the only thing they knew was that we shared the same common interests as them and that was all they needed to know. The invitation was so informal and the reasoning behind it correlates to everything that I believe the casual activity side of digital longboarded spaces consists of. This entire experience was initially unrelated to my research but it resulted in being one of the most influential pieces of evidence I have.
ReplyDeleteConclusion:
Through my research, experiment, and interview, I can concur that the specific aspects of this community I am focusing on are, mostly, local and informal. The obvious background of the exigence and atmosphere is to be friendly and make friends. The act of longboarding for many is an act of relaxation and hanging back; this same attitude is carried on throughout the communication. The initial goal of the site has also expanded and members are posting pictures of what they have done to their boards and also their late night adventures with friends. Even corporate sites such as www.loadedboards.com hold a modern and urban feel to them.
For this draft, I focused mainly on the corrections that I was given by Professor Longhany and the review that I received from my week 13 response. The suggestions from both people focused mainly on the methods sections and grammatical errors. I easily corrected the blatant errors that I missed before and proceeded to analyze and add more examples and information to my paper. I created a new section titled history for the beginning of my methods section. The beginning portion didn’t quite fit in and both reviews made this obvious. Also, because it was a very short introduction paragraph, I expanded on its content and gave my essay a little bit more background information. Finally I reviewed over my results sections and combined some of the repeating details in separate paragraphs and moved them to ones that better relate. Lastly, I formalized my works cited page which i did not post in this blog.
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ReplyDeletePart 3
Methodology
As I discussed before, Reddit.com is broken up into many subreddits, each catering to specific topics. In this study, I have focused on the United States politics subreddit, reddit.com/r/politics, which I will refer to as “/r/politics.” I chose this subreddit because of the presence of strong political opinion and viewpoints that create a lot of discussion. /r/politics is one of the default subreddits, meaning it is one of the most popular. It currently has over 2 million subscribers. As a user of Reddit, I can securely say that /r/politics is overwhelmingly leftist and progressive in its discussion and in the content that is posted and upvoted.
In order to analyze this community, I have observed content on /r/politics and the comments that followed. The data I have collected came from screenshots I have taken of /r/politics headlines and comments. I was simply an observer during this study; a “lurker,” as some would call it, referring to someone who reads Reddit but is not actively participating. I paid attention to the sources of the content that /r/politics users were submitting, and if there were commons sources that users link to. I looked for similarities in the ideas expressed by users on /r/politics, and how those with opposing ideas were treated. I noted the default settings of content and comment display and how it affects what is seen by the user unless they choose to change the view. Overall, I focus on the participatory behavior of /r/politics users: the
upvoting/downvoting regarding content and comments.
The Content Within /r/politics
Observing the front page of /r/politics, where the content with the highest amount of net votes are ranked and displayed, confirms the leftist nature of this subreddit. One of the first things I noticed about /r/politics were the headlines ranking on the front page, which immediately tell the reader about the liberal and progressive attitude prevalent in this community. For instance, this is an article that immediately shows a progressive standpoint in /r/politics: “Former cop: Time for Obama to lead on marijuana legalization.” This article ranked second on /r/politics at that time. Another example is the article titled “UPS ends charitable giving to boy scouts of America over Anti-gay discrimination,” and this headline ranked third at the time.
The 2012 Presidential Election has just passed, with President Barack Obama elected to another term. /r/politics was clearly happy to have him as president, rather than his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. Many headlines at the top of /r/politics after the election are casting Obama in a positive light while denouncing past Republican President George W. Bush and Governor Mitt Romney. One example is the headline ranking fifth on the front page:
“Laws passed during the Bush administration along with the wars and the bad economy over a decade made up 86% of the debt we’ve accumulated since 2001. President Obama’s budgets and the stimulus are responsible for only 14%”
The headline instantly gives off the opinion that President Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush had been. On a similar Republican-bashing note, this was the first post on /r/politics one day:
“Paul Ryan: Obama won because so many “urban” voters went to the polls, not because Americans rejected my Medicare and budget policies.”
For the unaware, Paul Ryan ran as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential candidate and obviously lost to Barack Obama/Joe Biden.
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ReplyDeletePart 4
Once I was acquainted with the type of headlines that were being posted in the community, I began to look at the sources of the content. The following are five popular sources for content on /r/politics: nationofchange.org, thinkprogress.org, theatlantic.com, politicususa.com, and freakoutnation.com. I began investigating each of these websites to get an idea of the political views supported at each. Unsurprisingly, nationofchange.org and thinkprogress.org are liberal and progressive movement supporters. In addition, The Atlantic is an American magazine that also has a liberal nature to it in its politics section. When visiting politicususa.com, the first thing a reader sees is the slogan “Real Liberal Politics – No Corporate Money. No Masters,” clearly identifying the site as liberal. Freakoutnation.org claims “If we don’t speak out, we’re part of the problem,” and it is not difficult to spot the articles that criticize right-wing politics.
From viewing these headlines and many like them ranking top positions of /r/politics, any member or visitor to the community will know there is a dominant left-wing political position among its members.
The Comments Within /r/politics
Any given post on /r/politics has a comment section where the post may be discussed. Often there is a similarity in ideas among the comments that follow the left-wing nature of the posted content. For example, a top comment on a post titled “Democrats are not anti-business. What democrats oppose is the republican model of capitalism” explained:
“What Americans reject is an entire party platform. . .that has punishment at its core. Punishment for being poor. . .for wanting equal rights. . .for wanting a middle class. . .for being a woman. . .Punishment is a core feature of the GOP platform. ”
The comment had 21 upvotes and 8 downvotes, and a string of replies agreeing and discussing it. However, there was a reply that stood out to me, because I had to click “show” to be able to view the comment. It had received many downvotes and it collapsed. The reply was as follows:
“That’s not at all what it is. Someone not wanting to pay for your stuff is not them punishing you. Punishment requires action; inaction is not punishment.”
This comment had 8 upvotes and 16 downvotes, and not much of a discussion took place after this comment was posted, downvoted, and collapsed.
Similarly, in another thread about health care and “Obamacare,” someone commented about the term:
“I find it hilarious that something with care in the title is seen as a bad thing. . .I wouldn’t be surprised if the expression Obamacare subconsciously gives people positive feelings about Obama.”
The comment was the top comment in the thread at the time and had 11 upvotes and 1 downvote. An antagonistic reply to this comment followed after: “That’s part of why people like the idea of universal healthcare. It sounds good. Who cares about the side effects?” Shortly after receiving a few downvotes and having a negative net votes on his comment, the user added “Edit: Now downvote me, you bastards.”
When observing the comments on content in /r/politics, there were a few things to keep in mind. One, comments by default are displayed by “best,” meaning comments with higher net votes are displayed first, followed by those with lower net votes. Two, we must realize that comments are essentially anonymous, only tied to the person’s username. As I explained before, the only way a user’s identity may be revealed is if they do so in their comments or posts or let people know their Reddit username.
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ReplyDeletePart 5
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Although I didn’t post in last week’s blog, when the blog was due, I know I had stopped right after my first section in Methodology. I have since added in more evidence to the methodology section concerning content and comments within /r/politics. I knew I could claim that /r/politics was a very left-wing community but I needed evidence to back that up, and so I provided it. I looked for headlines posted on /r/politics that made good examples, and I briefly noted some of the sources that the content was coming from. I began to develop my idea of the filter bubble within /r/politics, and came up with some main concepts to support it: the similarity of ideas among posters and commenters, the way opposing ideas are treated and downvoted, and the anonymity of users on Reddit and how that contributes to discussion and voting. I recognize that I have provided evidence, but will need to start an analysis section that connects my evidence to the idea of the online filter bubble.
Introduction
ReplyDeleteLeague of Legends is an online computer game played by millions of people all over the world. In the game, the player, called a summoner, controls a “champion.” The objective of the game is to destroy the other team’s base before they destroy yours. There are three lanes the player can choose to defend and use to get to the enemies base defended by turrets and enemy champions. The game is played for fun or very competitively from player to player. Depending of the level of seriousness the player applies to the game, there can be a massive amount of strategy and teamwork involved. It is a huge discourse community with many different blogs, forums, and websites committed to it. The maker of the game listens to what players say on the forums and if they believe it will make the game better, the suggestion can be added into the game. The jargon of the game can get very advanced and can be hard to understand. I, being a novice player, hardly understand anything posted by advanced players. The two forms of communication in the game occur on the blogs or forums and during the game or before the game in game chat. To study this discourse community, I will be observing how game chat varies from discussions in the forum and how a player learns to play and gain authority in the community of League of Legends as a form of literacy.
Game Chat
Game chat is any communication between players who are either about to play a game, are playing a game, or after a game. The first communication people have during in-game chat is at the champion select screen. While your team is picking their champions, everyone has a chance to discuss anything for about 60 seconds. From my experience, people usually start by saying things like “mid” or “I got bot” to inform the team which lane they are going to be attacking/defending. Some players make recommendations on which champions should go together; for example “Ashe go mid, Taric and Garen go bot.” Another discussion I see from time to time is asking how the player is going to “build” their champion (what items they are going to buy to give stat boosts to different abilities). In one discussion I observed while playing, two players got in an argument on how a particular champion should be built; the first player started off by asking, “Are you building ap (ability power) or ad (attack damage) Teemo?” to which the other player responded, “ap.” The other player was upset by this and replied, “Ap Teemo is useless we’d be better off if you were afk (away from keyboard) you’re just gonna feed the other team.” An interesting insight I have gained from these observations is a team that communicates a lot during champion selection frequently communicate more during the game.
Once the game begins, the conversation shifts from players discussing about their champions or lanes to strategy discussion. Conversation during the game is key to success so if there isn’t a lot of communication going on between teammates, it will be difficult for that team to be successful. If a team is actively communicating during the game, they can warn teammates if they are about to get “ganked” (double or triple teamed). For example, if one player is on the bottom lane and he sees the enemy champion in the top lane with him disappear, he can warn he teammates by saying “Pantheon mia.” His teammates will then be aware that there is an enemy champion lurking out of sight waiting to ambush them with a 2 on 1. However, sometimes the communication happening between teammates while the game is going on isn’t to benefit the team, but instead to insult other players. I have seen games where one player keeps dying over and over again and it is upsetting their teammates since each time he dies, the enemy gets gold they can use to purchase items and get even stronger. After the game is over, there is a brief period of time where all players in the game can communicate with each other. Most players simply say good game and leave, but some continue to insult players they were insulting during the game. They also might argue with the other team saying things like, “u suck we only lost because our Garen was feeding Darius.” These people are usually the same people that were highly competitive during the game and get very upset when they lose.
ReplyDeleteForums, Blogs, and Websites
ReplyDeleteOn the forums of League of Legends, people often complain about a certain champion being overpowered. In one observation I made, someone posted a thread about a certain champion, Volibear, being overpowered. In the opening of the thread, the poster begins by pointing out that the he is a high-level player on the most competitive server in China. He then goes on to say, “there is no way to counter Volibear, with skill or different champions. He is OP (overpowered) as hell.” There are many responses to this, most saying he isn’t correct. Some are saying that the original poster is not a skilled player and Volibear is not overpowered. Others show how he can be countered with correct champion choices or by playing the right way, for example: “Pick Caitlyn. Pick Vayne. Pick Taric. Pick Janna. Pick Alistar. Vayne, Janna, and Alistar all can counter-initiate. Vayne with her oversized crossbow bolt and tumble away. Janna with her ult, and Alistar is Alistar. Taric and Caitlyn both can stop a charging Voli dead in his tracks.” This shows some forum users post to help other people get better at the game, while others post just to insult people. The posters insulting the thread creator can see by clicking on the original posters profile that he is a very high level player, yet they still insult his thoughts. This is a good example to show that just because you are at a high level in the game doesn’t mean you have authority in the League of Legends community.
Differences Between Game Chat and Forum Discussions
Authority
Reflection
Since I haven’t received any feedback yet since I didn’t do the blog last week and my conference was cancelled, it is difficult for me to know what to revise. My own thoughts for revising my first draft were adding two new sections to what I already had. The new sections will be called authority and differences between game chat and forum discussions. I will analyze how a person gains authority and gets respected in the community of league of legends in the authority section and analyzes the fundamental differences between in game chat and open discussion on forums.
om08
ReplyDeleteThe twentieth center was an interesting turn of events for the human element1. In middle of June 2006 Dow Chemical launched a reimagined campaign that pandered to the hopes of a growing eco-conscious populace. In reality Dow Chemical is quite dangerous and is the antithesis of their viral campaign which was mostly seen on Public Television. Dow Chemical is not the basis for this article but it serves a platform to launch for organic and raw living nevertheless. The Dow Chemical Company was founded at the turn of the century in 1897 with the desire to sell bleach; Dow has come a long way since the latter half of the nineteenth century2. Dow Chemical has delved into different avenues of revenue. Today Dow markets genetically modified corn3. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) aren’t new to the grocery stores but have been linked to numerous negative side effects.
GMOs have been linked to reducing genetic diversity, extensive exposure to them has yet to be studied and their cultivation requires massive amounts of poisons4. Under the guise of perfecting their company, Dow Chemical has created a layer of deception that screams to the world: “Dow Chemical is there to help you! We want to help make the Human Element (Hu) better”. In the wake of the chemical savior a few have turned against the tide of chemicals and have returned raw and organic foods. As the nineteenth century slipped into the burgeoning 1900s, the giants of the producing world rolled out GMOs, trans-fats and artificial sweeteners coupled with pesticides to shoo away the tiny critters that could ruin crops. It wasn’t until the mid-sixties and the pinnacle of raw living, Silent Spring, did Rachel Carson shed light on the future issues of living with so much chemical integration.
part 2 omo8
ReplyDeleteRaw and Organic Foods have not been met with open arms. A stigma follows those who desire to live in a clean and natural state. These purists have decided to fight against the conglomerates of refined and processed foods. Now, one might be curious to wonder why we need to revert back to the organic and raw food style. Through the many weeks following those who adhere to such outlandish claims of raw living, I have come out with a very unbiased idea of these self-proclaimed Health Nuts.
Introspective Quandaries:
For my paper I wanted to look at myself and make up my mind on the subject. I wanted to know if the hype at Lush was correct and Dr. Oz was not just a sellout but rather on the medical community avant-guard. I went in with an open mind and did research on Organic and Raw foods as well as the modern view of chemicals. I came into this paper as a woman and future bread winner. I know that one day I will be a mother; I know that one day I will have to make the hard questions for my offspring. I wanted to be more productive for myself first and in the ensuing years my children who will either fail or succeed because of me.
part 3 om08
ReplyDeleteMethods of Multiliteracies
I chose to research the blog Organic Authority; Organic Authority is a chronological ethnography of researchers and authors. Organic Authority posts photos, links and articles that don’t push their agenda but merely espouse the facts they find through their researching. I went online with the sole intent of finding the alternative world of organic and raw foods. I finally stumbled across the perfect blog. The blog was wonderful and integrated news, photos and a hodgepodge of random tidbits that showed the world how to ride their body of chemicals that lace their innards. Organic Authority was a Health Nut’s dream and allowed its readers to Tweet, Facebook post, StumbleUpon and Google+. This was a great boon to the Organic Community as it allowed more people to be drawn in.
College has finally allowed me to research something I have always been interested in but never had time for. Traversing the rugged lifestyle of a modern day student I had no time and almost no extra spending money. Thus the idea of eating organically and raw was a bit out of my reach. Organic living was nothing new to me. As a Freshman I came across someone who believed wholeheartedly in returning to the human evolutionary dietary concerns the modern world has seemed to have forgotten. Brandon Stone, a self-proclaimed novice Health Nut, first waltzed into my life during Stephen Neil’s Introduction to Communication. Currently enrolled and loving his chosen career path—Stone plans to become a small time business owner by selling organic soaps, snacks and scents—he introduced me to the Organic Community.
Before I ventured into the online community I wanted to get in touch with the tactile Urban Health Nut. The Vegan/Raw/Organic lifestyle can be seen at the mall quite readily in a store called Lush. I had bought a few things from Lush in the past; some soaps and a lip scrub made from brown sugar5. Lush is a whole in the wall shop in most malls spread out across more than two dozen countries. Most organic lovers shop here for the soaps—die hard Health Nuts make their own. It was here at Lush that I saw what organic lovers look like. They are a monotony of Hipsters, Yuppies and retirees who want to prolong their dwindling life. I went to Lush a few times just to sit and watch the people move in and out of the store. The smells of organic scents and perfumes would waft into my olfactory nerves and make me want to buy some scents. In the end I succumbed to my wants and bought organic cosmetics from clearly lovable and modern twentysomethings who believed in the progressive movement. With a clear idea of what vegan/organic/raw enthusiasts looked like on a large scale, I went to the Internet and studied Organic Authority for two weeks, twice a day between regular business hours.
The Multiliteracies of Blogging:
ReplyDeleteMultiliteracies were made popular by Mirabelli. In his article, Learning to Serve: the Language of Food Service Workers I was introduced to the subject. To Mirabelli words are only part of literacy. Emotions, pictures, snippets of a trolling feed all impact how we read into situations. Nothing can be accomplished without communication. Communication is the basis for all knowledge sharing. For eons humans have communicated their growth with more than just the primordial grunts that evolved into full-fledged language systems. Before pictures represented the antelope that grazed the grasslands of the bygone African planes; now they represent what the community wants to explore. Pictures have been an emerging literacy since the beginning and only recently been seen as an actual literacy. On my community pictures proved an important part of their discourse. Words on paper can’t convey the emotion that pictures do. Humans are a visual creature and need to see something to truly be enthused to do something. The language of my community was not that different than any newspaper put online and it relied heavily with the main picture in the article to prove a point.
To illustrate the fact an article entitled What’s in Fast Food Chicken? (Hint: it’s NOT Chicken) displayed two chicken nuggets crafted to look like real chicken eating out of a sauce container. This was very disturbing to me, and I am sure others, and caused me to read the article. As I finished the article I read the comments posted by followers of the blog. The blog followers had joined via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and could comment through those social media outlets.
part 5
ReplyDeleteDavid Lemmo posted in response to a question—and GMO canola is bad because—via an RSS feed.
“James Wacker GMOs contain alien genetic material for producing toxins, resisting primary effects of herbicide, boosting output, promoting spliced in genes, and many other traits beneficial to chemical farming. Herbicide tolerant plants such as those immune to the Roundup family of weed killers contain higher amounts of uptaken herbicide chemicals, and are nutritionally deficient, especially when Glyphosate is the active chemical ingredient. Gloyphosate blocks nutrient uptake in plants, even if immune to the primary effects of exposure. Second and Third hand exposure to these chemicals through consumption leads to increased levels over time, due to biological uptake. The same situation occurs with toxins, and spliced genetic material. Consumption leads to biological uptake, and subsequent concentration of these compounds.”6
The language used by Mr. Lemmo has scientific terms that are out of the natural jargon of the public and are easily searchable if the reader desires to further their knowledge. Knowledge gained through this website is more than just the website alone. People must commit themselves to learning more and more in order to be able to keep up with the heard. Background knowledge is not needed but it is needed once one goes deeper and deeper into the community.
part 6
ReplyDeleteRhetorical Situations of Blogging:
Online communities need to find their niche in life before they can expand and show more people what they believe in. This is hard on the Internet as more information is put on the Internet daily than any one person can digest in the same period. The Raw and Organic Community has established themselves on the Internet to stay. Before the Internet these neo-Healthofites would read magazines published once a month and try to grow their own food without much direction. Grant-Davie’s article in Wardle really struck a point. The community is quite informal and only wishes to be rather than to create twisted representations of itself. Grant-Davie’s ideals of exigence, rhetor, audience and constraints were vital to this research paper. As I more and more on the community I realized all the core concepts and their proper label as I never knew before. Clearly the exigence (to tell the world of the news and techniques of raw and organic living) was created by the rhetor (Health Nuts) for the audience and were only constrained by the boundary of the Internet and the income of the audience on a personal level.
Discourse of Blogging:
Through the readings, Gee and Wardle’s papers on identity and literacy/discourse let me see the correlation between the two seemingly unrelated topics. Gee’s most important theme was doing-being-valuing-believing that was sewn intricately in my online community. The community was behaving in a way that they believed was most beneficial for the human race. By helping others they affected the world as a whole if more chose to listen to them. The identity and the rhetorical situation they had created were intertwined in everything they posted on their blog. The community’s identity was whole and completed long before their situation was plastered on the internet but through the discourse and literacies emplaced by the authors the online community grew into its own living organism.
Conclusion
Only by reading all the authors this semester could I come to the thought process I have now. Reading the authors each week gave me ideas that I had yet to think of; this is important as it showed me how literate people think and do when they read. As I conducted my research the weeks prior came flooding back and I had to go back and see where the ideas came from. The ideas soon became part of my reading analysis of everything I read. The analysis included articles that had nothing to do with my research. This paper let me fully appreciate the art and crafts of the authors this semester.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3byt7xMSCA
2. https://www.dow.com/
3. http://www.naturalnews.com/037191_Dow_Chemical_GM_seeds_GMO.html
4. http://www.saynotogmos.org/
5. http://lush.com/
6. http://www.organicauthority.com/foodie-buzz/what-is-in-fast-food-chicken-hint-its-not-chicken.html
Revision Reflection:
ReplyDeleteI began to rewrite my essay the day that I had a chat with Professor L. I took his recommendations to heart and wanted to really have a feeling for my essay. I went back to the book and looked over the people I wanted to use as icons in my paper. The men and women we had learned about this semester had rolled together so this was a nice refresher for me at the very least. I rewrote about 80% of my essay and added in citations. During my interview with the Professor he commented that I needed more resources. So I did as he asked and went back to my sources. I looked more at the modern aspect and went looking for points of view that seemed to mesh well with my essay. I wanted my essay to flow nicely so I went perusing through the web. I stayed with my online community—Organic Authority—but went to YouTube as a source for a commercial concerning my introductory paragraph. I believe this essay began to change as I looked more and more at the time and energy I did to make the first draft.
0119
ReplyDeleteTwitter
Introduction
Twitter is an online community where people communicate with others through tweets which are 140 character posts. You can set up your twitter so that either everyone online can view what you tweet or only people who you approve can view your tweets. Twitter consists of many people from nobodies to famous people. You can have little to no followers but also have millions of followers if you’re popular enough. People could be actually famous or just twitter famous. An example of someone who is twitter famous is “Men’s Humor” which is just a group of people who think of things that guys find funny. While anybody can tweet, some people tweet a lot more than others. While an example of a person who's actually famous is the twitter account for Lebron James. Twitter is a digital community where anyone can post their thoughts and ideas for others to see.
Context
On twitter, everyone tweets what they would like to. While most people tweet their own ideas, others tweet for attention from others. People can literally tweet about whatever they would like. One person could tweet about pretty rainbows and butterflies, while someone else could tweet about how they think the government sucks. Twitter is your own playground for you to say what you would like to. Also some people tweet more than others. For example, my friend Michael and I created twitter around the same time. He has been tweeting a lot ever since he started, while it took me a while to start truly tweeting. As of now my friend Michael has 2,127 tweets while I have 961. The more you tweet the more you show up on your followers timelines which helps spread your thoughts and ideas because it's more likely someone will see it. If they agree or find it entertaining, they will more than likely either retweet or favorite it. While some people tweet about actual thoughts and ideas, other people use it as a social media similar to Facebook where they just post what they're doing. The social goal of twitter is who has the most followers. It’s more of pride for the people who have more followers. Also the more followers you have, the more your tweets are seen. While the main goal of twitter is not to get the most followers, avid twitter users try their best to get as many followers as possible.
Authority
Twitter’s authority is based off of who has the most retweets, favorites, or followers. If a nobody in twitter standards tweets something meaningful and gets millions of retweets or favorites, not only will many people see their tweet but they will more than likely gain more followers as well. But if someone with a lot of followers tweets something meaningful or funny, they will already get a lot of retweets or favorites which will also get them more followers. The authority is solely based on how many people see your tweets because it helps spread your ideas to others. The more likely your tweet is to come across somebodies timeline, the more general authority you have on twitter. What you tweet about is not what gains you authority, rather how many people see what you tweet is what measures authority on twitter.
Reflection
I did not post a blog post last week because I was still somewhat confused as to how I should write the ethnography. I am still doing a lot of research into specific parts of twitter, trying to find a specific group that I could study the literacy tendencies of. Twitter is such a broad and generalized digital community that it is a lot more difficult than I had expected to find a specific group to analyze. I tried to focus on describing twitter as a whole for now while I proceed to look deeper into twitter's smaller groups.
0M08
ReplyDeleteDigital Discourse Community Ethnography
The community I chose to follow was a missionary blog site which is compiled of bloggers from all over the world that share one thing in common. That one thing they share is Jesus. The site is split up into continents and then into different countries within the continent that they have missionaries blogging from. I chose to explore the missionaries to countries in Europe. Specifically I followed a few from Romania. This site is a place for them to share their views and show people around the world the impact they are making. Within their blog they'll post pictures of their family to create a profile of themselves. So you can understand who is behind all the work being done. They also post video blogs of a chapel they had or a speech they thought was interesting. This creates a visual for people like me reading the blog and allows me to create an image of the missionaries themselves. Just like a normal blog people can comment at the bottom of a posting, but the you don't find many comments on these sites. I think the main audiences are family members, friends, and other missionaries. These are people that want to know how they're doing and where they're going.
One of the authors of the articles we read, Mirabelli, had a lot to say about a discourse community. He explains how these communities are made up of people that share the same common goals. The goal of the missionaries is to spread the word and their own opinions. They not only share it in this community but outside. That's what makes this community so interesting. These are people like us sharing a natural community in a network community. Multiliteracies are found throughout this site and in their blogs. When speaking to some, like friends or family, it's in English but if they are holding a sermon they will speak in that countries language. This is how are able to interact with both communities. They communicate with their followers through videos, postings, and by sharing an opinion of someones else which is like their own. What I mean by that is they will post a quote by another pastor who shares the same view. So they are not sharing their own thoughts but thoughts from someone else.
My methodology was done through observing the different literacies in the blog and follow a certain couple . I chose this particular couple because they seemed to have the authority which Wardle speaks about in his article. One quote said that authority "permits certain speakers to command not just the attention but the confidence, respect, and trust of their audience." This couple was the first listed on the blog for Romanian missionaries. They are the Bunnell's, husband Dave and wife Lili. Before you open their blog the site shares a little information about them. They have been blogging for 6 years now and are missionaries out of Buzau, Romania. While researching the different bloggers I also found the Dunn family who seemed as if maybe they were the authority seeing that they were first on the site. But when I clicked their blog their sites were all shut down. So this put me back at the Bunnells. So for a while I have been observing their bog and writing down how the community functions. I was unable to make contact with Dave, the main blogger, but I will include any information I receive from him later on.
part twoThere are missionaries all over the world serving different in different lands. These people are so different, from how they dress, talk, and interact with one another. But this blog brings them together to share what they have in common. That is; their lifestyle. most missionaries have complicated lives. There are some that have their life threatened every day by the government or citizens of the places they conduct missions work. Some people are in captivity still today for speaking the name of Jesus, but they are willing to do that in order to spread the word. They call themselves disciples. People of God that lead others into eternal life. The stereotype is that missionaries are only in other countries, but no there are missionaries right here in Orlando. Missions is everywhere, it doesn't specify that you must risk your life or go to another country. It is defined as "proclaiming the Gospel message outside of your culture," by churchleaders.com. America is filled with different cultures and backgrounds. These people have changed their lives and some do this without pay, in order to save others. They make their money through donations and fundraising. This lifestyle can definitely be drastic and scary, but it is a choice they are willing to take in order for one purpose. This purpose brings them all together: Spread the gospel.
ReplyDeleteI have discovered a personal profile from the Bunnells. Their family consists of Dave, Lili and their 7 year old daughter Briana. They also have a adopted daughter, Nadia who is in hungary for Bible college. As soon as you open their blog you see a gorgeous picture of their family. While observing the blog it is easy to tell that Dave is the main poster. The "About Dave" section gives that away. He goes on to explain his background and more about himself which made it easier to create a profile. Wardle talks about an authority and the Bunnells are the authority of the Romanian site but Dave is of the blog. He is a missionary and pastor.
Their profile explains where they serve out of and has a blog you can follow. To further your interest he has devotionals, scriptures, opinions, sermon audios, and videos. Under the audio sermons he offers up some english only as well as Romanian translations. After watching his videos I was able to realize that he was also fluent in Romanian. When speaking to his followers he is more relaxed and speaking informal. But as a pastor and missionary he speaks formal to conform to the group. This is where conformity comes in. In order to relate with each group he takes on the persona of that group. This allows for casual talk and a more serious conversation.
There are thousands of missionaries across the world. They all have different profiles, situations, problems, and cultures to deal with. But they conform to the group in which they contribute. They make themselves like them in order to relate. We all have things that bring us together no matter how different we might be. For them it is their beliefs and what they do with them. Through multiliteracies they are able to share their beliefs. With video blogs, audio sermons, or just chatting about their everyday lives. These are all ways they communicate with the public and its our source to use and relate.
part 3
ReplyDeleteI made no changes because when I went back to read the responses I couldn't find last weeks post. So my guess is it never published. So this is my ethnography, and I am emailing it out asking for a peer to take time to revise for me.
0037
ReplyDeleteDigital Discourse Community Ethnography
Lonelyplanet.com is a website basically a place for people from all over the world to share their experiences from their travels. People will post little blurbs under different categories where they talk about the area they visited. They have a section for almost every corner of this earth with a variety of different people’s inputs. I noticed while reading these postings that majority of the population is not even from The US. This website is open to the public and anyone with a computer is able to have access to it. The site can be extremely helpful to people who are planning a trip to a foreign place because they are able to get someone else’s personal view on what to do and what not to do. A person who visited France may suggest not trying the chitterlings and go on to explain that it is made from pig intestines. This is not a typical dish here in the U.S. and a comment like this could save a person from having a not so good experience. The website offers a ton of information on all parts of the world and some might even say that it is like a free travel guide.
The observations that I have collected so far have been in the form of screenshots. I sorted through the hundreds of pages for each category in the website and chose the postings that were most relevant. I am using this information to support the idea that people from different countries have different ways of discourse. People who come from different cultural backgrounds have different ways of communicating with each other and this is apparent throughout the website. A certain phrase that is used in Canada may not be appropriate to use in The U.K. and may even go as far as to offend someone. It can also be very confusing if someone is unfamiliar with certain terms used by other members in the community. If they are trying to collect information about a particular travel site it is important that they do additional research to make sure that they fully understand the postings. When I was sorting through the different postings I noticed that even I was not accustomed to a few words and phrases used. I can only assume that these people are posting from places like the U.K. or Australia, where they have a different way of communicating than here in the U.S. The website does not reveal any information that the author does not wish to put out there. There is no way of knowing exactly where every person is from unless they include it in their writings.
Another important question that was raised while I was completing my research was how authority is gained in this community. By reading the postings and responses throughout this website it is easy to see who holds a higher ranking. I considered whether this sense of hierarchy is entitled with more experience with the website or more experience with traveling. Language usage can even denote identity in this online community. There is no way of knowing if these people are being honest in their postings which is why it is important to be cautious of the information you use from here. The website even advises you to just use their writings as a small portion of your research. They intended for this website to be a starting point for people trying to find information about different parts of the world and what you do with the material is entirely up to you.
0037
ReplyDeleteAside from the person’s name, on this website it is fairly easy to determine if someone is from the United States or not. The type of language that they use always gives a hint as to where they are from. I have come across the words such as ‘mate’ and ‘cheers’ multiple times used in a way that I am unfamiliar with. The travelers probably did not think anything of it when they used these phrases because they hear them all the time where they are from. The different cultures involved in this website make for an interesting mix of language used. I think that the different language used gives the bloggers a sense of Identity. They can easily relate to other users who use similar language to them. I think that this also makes it easier for the travelers to trust other travelers who are from the same area as them.
In reference to Suler’s article, people have an interesting way of interacting with other people from foreign lands. I noticed that the different language used does give away cultural distinctions and it also exposes people’s true colors. People tend to be more outspoken when they can hide behind their computer screen, and this website is no exception. I took a screen shot of one example I found.
As you can see this author is very passionate about their opinions on traveling in war zones. It may seem obvious to most people that traveling in an area where there are battles occurring is not a very good idea, but some people are blissfully unaware of this. This post is in reference to another post that was previously put up on the website. The author does have their name displayed but does not connect this posting to the original author who said they had a wonderful time in Syria. This gives the author a sense of security by having their thoughts out in the public for everyone to see but at the same time being able to sit back and hide behind their computer screen. They will most likely never have a face to face conversation with the person who this posting was in reference to, but they gained a sense of authority by putting down another person’s ideas with their logic.
_________________________________________________________________
I made adjustments to the introduction of my Ethnography by contextualizing it and giving a more descriptive background. I altered the way that I introduced the name of my online community and I went into a deeper explanation of what it entails. I also clarified certain sections of the paper and went into further detailing explaining certain references as to make them more easily understandable. Certain grammatical issues were addressed in addition to this. I continued the analysis of the section about the different discourse between people from different countries.
Background
ReplyDeleteInstagram is a website where people can take a picture of anything they want, edit it with the few options of effects, and then post it for their followers, or friends to view. The Instagram app was launched on October 6th 2010 and in just two days, the app gained nearly 40,000 users. In three months, it boasted a million registered users, and six weeks later, it had a second million. It has become one of the fastest growing websites due to the amount of users and photos that are uploaded daily. The fact that it is one of the easiest ways to take a picture and make it look professional with the effects and to post to show their friends what they’re doing, who they’re with, and whatever other details a photo could possibly portray.
Photographically active?
Each user has their own part as being an “active user”: to post photos often that may attract “likes” from their followers and to comment and/or “like” their friends’ photos. Instagram’s real purpose is for people to share their photos with friends and family. The relationships between the user and their followers may be silent and passing: one may view an image and move on, with no trace left to the photographer of the visit. Or the engagement may be the beginning of a distinct exchange, in which a question or in-depth response to the image prompts a conversation between photographer and viewer. Instagram photos and comments are social interactions that build digital world and real-world relationships. Every “like” on an image is a gesture of support and compliment. The amount of “likes” an image generates is how it will be assessed as “popular” or not, but it’s also a social action in that it creates a relationship between that user and the photograph. Popularity is a big deal on Instagram because it almost seems like it could be a competition between friends to see who could receive more “likes” on a photo. Popularity for that reason does not seem that important, but people who truly have talent behind the camera and are popular for the amazing photos they post is a more valuable reason to be “popular” and to have many followers. The exact criterion to be a “popular” image is not completely clear, but
any user’s photos with sufficient “likes” (30 or more) may be featured.
Discourses
Discourse, with a capital “D”, is the way of being accepted in the world based on specific directions on how to speak, write, and act in real life. The way Gee focuses Discourses with writing, doing, being, valuing, and believing rather than language and grammar is a huge aspect of Instagram. Through this analytical lens, I focused in on the way people take on certain roles in their online community and show what they value and believe in. In almost every online group, there are constant opportunities to show the community what is important to you: in ways one may type, what one may speak strongly of, what photos one may add, and what different online blogs or groups one may be a part of. Gee states that while language is extremely important, grammar shouldn’t be the only aspect that is viewed when looking at a posting of a blog or online community. It should be the values and beliefs behind one’s postings for it to be powerful rather than focusing in on whether the language used is grammatically correct or incorrect.
While posting on Instagram, it is all about what the user is trying to portray through their photo. The well-known quote “a picture is worth a thousand words” is perfect for the investigation of Instagram because of the limited amount of communication used throughout the website. After one posts their photo, adding a caption helps explain what the photo is saying (in case the viewers don’t know what the photo is already portraying).
BLUECANVAS: THE VISUAL LITERACY
ReplyDeleteArt has become increasingly overlooked as a vital mode of literacy and I feel the plasticity of communication within visual literacies is something that can become important in developing a broader understanding of My initial leap to look into this group came from a passtime that I had abandoned sometime in high school. With my grades and college in my future, I was forced to set aside a passion that many people find hard to believe I have, which is art. I saw this as an opportunity to not only further my own new findings of the various types of literacy but as a way to revisit something that I enjoyed.
Because the visual arts are not typically what jumps to mind when hearing the word “literacy,” I chose to expand on the ideas we touched on this semester about multiliteracies and literacy beyond the traditional sense of the word. This portion of our lessons jumped out to me most simply because I had never touched on before in any previous writing classes or lessons. While I had a sufficient sense of writing for audiences and identities, I had never considered the possibility of literacy outside of grammatical writing.
What I found in this community were a number of ways to communicate through not only what I could read (i.e., the members comments to each other on their blogs) but also communication through photographs, paintings, drawings, and symbolism in poems.
THE MULTILITERACY OF ART
ReplyDeleteTony Mirabelli, a lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California-Berkeley, developed a thesis pertaining to the specific knowledge and communications that exist within specific job environments, specifically with restaurant workers he used to exemplify this point. In Mirabelli’s “Learning to Serve: The Language of Food Service Workers,” he emphasizes the importance of mulitliteracies, a diversity of communication tailored to specific situations to include a literacy that “extends beyond the printed text involving other modes of communication including both verbal and nonverbal”. The fact that there are multiliteracies allows us to identify the identities generally characteristic of these communities and what sets them apart from others. The key to success within these groups also lies heavily on whether the members themselves can identify with the communications of this specific group.
Within the Bluecanvas community, there is certainly an evident shared terminology among the artists. While the terminology used is not so extensive as to exclude any nonveteran artists (an aspect that I noticed helps welcome in new members), there are still shared characteristics among the communications of the Bluecanvas artists.
To illustrate, I chose to visit the photography subgroup of Bluecanvas. I chose to visit a few of the blogs to get a feel of how the photographers may communicate. I also tried to make note of another aspect of the communication in particular. Knowing very little about photography myself, I chose to test my ability (or inability) to understand the discussions of these blogs. I was actually surprised to see that I was not too hard to decipher. What I did discover, however, is Mirabelli’s argument for mulitliteracies. Many of the posts contained a shared vocabulary pertaining to light, positioning, and shadowing. Most interesting, though, is what one photographer stated in her correlation of the knowledge of the terms to develop visual meaning:
Lighting is very important when taking a photography, but its more important that you know how to use the light. Understanding the change in light, direction it's coming from and how the lighting can make a photographs mood. When you're shooting outdoors and clouds darken the sky, you change position so that you subject is lit from behind, or you move from a brightly lit spot to a more shady one will all result in a different looking photograph. If you make a point to look at the lighting on your subject you'll soon be able to predict what kind of feel it can give to it. The direction of light is important because of shadows, mainly those that are visible to the camera. Light cast shadows that can emphasize or diminish the texture and volume of your subject.
This was exactly what Mirabelli tries to argue for in his own essay. Understanding a specific literacy goes beyond what is written. It requires a sense and knowledge that goes beyond that to include those other modes of communication, in this case, photos taken by the artists. Another example, one from the painting subgroup, I found a little harder to understand considering I myself don’t paint.
If you are using oil paints, you can just add some Liquin into your paint piles. Actually, just to as much as you'll use in that one sitting, due to its fast drying times. I've used Liquin successfully as a glaze, right over a completed charcoal on canvas drawing and it turned out fine. I use it in portrait underpainting all the time. I guess if there were areas in the painting that for whatever reason had you wanting to go wet into wet, you could always just add a different type of medium to your paints (Stand oil or maybe linseed oil) to extend the paint's drying time, allowing you more time to rework an area.Here's a link to what Liquin is and looks like.http://www.winsornewton.com/products/oils-solvents-mediums-varnishes/oil-colour--oils-solvents-mediums-varnishes/mediums/liquin-original/Hope this helps you.
Jim
Clearly, one is required to have some background knowledge on the way paint behaves in canvas and have some experience with it as well. This type of communication, I noted, was shared among the more experienced artists of the community.
ReplyDeleteI also went into other painting and drawings sections of Bluecanvas to try and uncover the implicit meanings of some of the pieces that jumped out at me. For example, I came across an artist’s painting done with very scratchy and rugged brush strokes. The colors used, black, red and white also gave off a sense of what the artist was trying to convey. When I looked at it once more, I noticed a hand and a face. I concluded that the painted was trying to convey a sense of anger or of wrath but it was not simply because he used red or because of the style he chose to paint with. It was the artist’s knowledge of body language in the painting as well. The angle of the subjects face, and the wrenching hand dominating the painting is what communicated this message. It was through the multiliteracy of visual art that the artist communicated the emotion of wrath (the painting was titled Seven deadly Sins #6-Wrath).
IDENTITY
ReplyDeleteOne of the most prominent characteristics of Bluecanvas’ members is the zealous attempts to establish their own personal identities within the vast community of other artists trying to do the same. Elizabeth Wardle, a director of the English Department here at UCF developed a piece titled “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces”. Her work as well as James Paul Gee’s “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics,” touch on the link between a rhethor’s sense of identity and a literacy situation. One aspect in particular, Gee’s doing-being-valuing-believing combination, was utilized quite frequently in the community. This combination, also referred to by Gee as Discourses, help to explain the sense of “being in the world”; it analyzes the identity we develop in discourse situations. Gee goes further to present his idea of primary Discourse, the more intimate interactions among a group. This interaction, Gee notes, also tends to be the most informal.
While fully aware of being a part of a society larger than themselves and one they find comfort in being that they all share the common interest of art, each individual artist creates his or her own unique, artistic style to communicate their values, ideals, or experiences, therefore revealing to their audiences who they are.
When viewing the profile of a user by the name of MMMSTYLE, I noticed after gaining an overview of his work and descriptions, he was able to develop the deep, dark, and whimsical personality type that has become stereotypical of many artists. Many of the colors used we opaque and the subject of the pieces were significantly hidden. This profile in particular leads me to then question another issue; how can widely accepted stereotypes influence identity as well as how they are accepted? I myself held a very little grasp of this stereotype as I began researching the community due to the fact that I have grown up around artistic people who go against the status quo (i.e., my parents, both of whom are artistically inclined yet are generally outgoing. I then went through the community possibly trying to work through this stereotype to find if most of the artists conveyed other identities other than dark and depressing.
I was very relieved to find that there were in fact other identities present within Bluecanvas. One profile (Ariana), was a profile for a photographer on the site. Many of the photos were of what looked to be her children. The other photos mainly consisted of brightly lit pictures of nature. Her work suggested an identity of someone of a nurturing and caring personality as well as one a little more upbeat than many other artists. Others were not so simple to decipher; I happened to stumble on a profile who’s work had no clear direction, as some of them were paintings of transvestites, the other half flowers, and a few of demonic, winged aliens. Taking a little more work (and courage for this particular profile), I could still conclude an identity for this individual. The eccentricity of the work revealed just the same about the artist and (no question about it), separates him from the overall identity of Bluecanvas as a unique individual.
AUTHORITY
ReplyDeleteWardle also makes an important note of authority in her piece. This goes hand in hand with identity. As she puts it in her piece, “authority (like identity) is continually negotiated within communities of practice”. In much the same way the Bluecanvas’ members strive to define who they are as artists, they also reach out for the support and respect of their community peers.
One of Bluecanvas’ features, the advice forum found in one of the main tabs, provides the foundation for this argument. What I found out while during an introductory video to the site was that Bluecanvas is also the publisher of their own self-titled magazine. The founders of this community then browse the site for any particular piece that jumps out at them. If they like it, they publish it, simple as that. The discussions I see in this forum consisted of questions about “promotional tools” for their art, how to get published and discussions about contracts.
I also looked back on a few of the profiles and noticed that many of the more “popular” artists received a lot of comment from community members either congratulate them on a recent publishing or assurance that they did an “awesome job! You’ll definitely get published again”. The sense of authority in this community (though some artists within the community itself deny this), is getting work published and sold. For these members, as it is for members of most trades, more attention equals more authority within the community.
Wardle states that authority is “an intangible quality granted to persons through institutions”; this is in fact the case with Bluecanvas. While we may not recognize who these artists are or believe the work we observe is “weird,” “confusing,” or “ugly,” these individuals still hold a very powerful influence over a very large community. Why? Because the community they identify with and have a multiliteracy knowledge of allow them to be. It is that knowledge of the mutliliteracies of that allows them to showcase these abilities to then gain credibility among their peers.
CONCLUSION
The true extent of literacy and communication goes beyond that of what is written down on paper or typed out. In particular, it extends to visual projections of an individual’s “thesis,” “arguments,” etc. Through art, the members of Bluecanvas have shown that communication through visual literacies is in fact a solidified method of communication. Rather than reading words, these Bluecanvas audience instead must retain the “gramattical” rules of art and read through abstract concepts and images to gain the overall understanding of a piece of art.
Reflection and Revisions:
ReplyDeleteI tried to keep my overall main arguments the same throughout the paper simply because I feel I have developed a well-founded argument. I have, however, chose to tweek my introduction to give the opening and the overall essay a more personalized tone just so that it doesn’t come off as “this is some assignment for a class”. Giving a little background information of myself and adding a more clear statement of what I’ll be discussing (communication within visual literacies, first couple sentences). I also revised one section (“THE MULTILITERACY OF ART”) to give a better argument for defining the identities within a specific community. I was also advised to add a little more background information for some of the authors I chose to reference in my piece and I feel this may add a little more credibility to the evidence used. I also chose to add in a short conclusion, as I have begun to reach a more clear thesis for my essay. I chose to wait until I had a clearer view of where I wanted my argument to go This section, I feel, I made even revise later as I collect more data.
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ReplyDeleteIntroduction
Despite the often individualistic qualities of the movie-going experience, the power professional movie critics have weighs heavily upon the average moviegoer’s perception of a film. All moviegoers have their own personal critique or opinion of the films they see, but their views don’t reach far beyond the company of friends and family. “Movieforums.com” is a online community of amateur critics and casual moviegoers that wish make their voices heard or obtain new perspectives on classic, new, and upcoming films. Created in 2000, there are thousands of registered members and countless guest users posting and reading up on all things movies every day. The investigation will focus on the process of gaining identity and authority within a digital discourse community where subjectivity is often mistaken for objectivity.
Methods
After periodically reading the reviews and discussions the site had to offer, I registered on “movieforums.com” in the Fall of 2012 specifically for this investigation. I focused on recording the discussions and reviews of several new and upcoming films at the time, including Seven Psychopaths, Cloud Atlas, Skyfall, Looper, Wreck-It Raplh, and Lincoln. Threads pertaining to these films were the conversation hot-spots of the website, so I was able to gather a substantial amount of communication in the community. After reading thread screenshots and the notes I took, I was able to make certain observations about identity and authority.
Identity
Whenever a person joins a discourse community, there is always a process of establishing identity that they must go through. Within a digital community like “movieforums.com”, creating a digital persona is part of establishing an identity. The use of the Internet gives members the ability to create a persona that gives them more credibility on the site than their real persona allows. For example, I’m much more inclined to read what “Master Yoda” has to say than some guy named Chris Bowyer (Chris Bowyer a.k.a. “Yoda” is both head moderator and creator of the website). Others Have intimidating pictures that give them a certain amount of respect when they post (i.e. Bruce Willis whipping open a pocketknife, or a picture of Clint Eastwood pointing at you with that classic menacing mug of his), while those with funny avatars might have a harder time having people take their serious comments seriously, because that’s all other members have to go on to judge. ...
Continued...
ReplyDeleteMany people on the forum will fill out the “About Me” section of their profile, which includes their biography, interests, location, job, and favorite movies, but rarely do people include their real name or a picture of what they look like. While this is a community where someone can completely take on a new persona, it isn’t that common. Each member puts enough of their “real selves” into their account because one of the main uses of the website is to add one’s person ideals and insights into a movie discussion. Newcomers adapt to the community over time by first posting in the “Birthdays/Introduction” section of the forum, where people can wish others a happy birthday and introduce themselves to the community. The veteran users who post in this section often welcome new members and offer advice or help to the new members so that they won’t get chewed out in the other sections of the forum for making a newbie mistake. This thread is the most tolerant of all the threads in the forum.
Authority
Once a member’s identity has been established and has become acquainted with the community, the process of gaining authority begins. The members who have been a part of the community for a long period of time are usually the ones with the most authority on the site. By posting often and for a long period of time, you increase your “post count” and members become more recognizable to the community. If people like what you post, whether it be clever insights on a movie analysis or a well-written movie review, people will be more inclined to read future posts. This puts that member in an authority position, influencing what others think about the movies they watch.
This kind of exposure isn’t always for positive reasons, however. Members who are constantly initiating arguments, spamming advertisements, or double-posting (posting twice in a row when one would suffice, usually to increase one’s post count) can lose authority by angering others in the community, making it less likely for that member’s opinion to be taken seriously or be given a positive reception in the future. Good grammar is not the distinguishing factor of an authoritative figure on movieformums.com, but each moderator has it. All five moderators’ posts have clear, organized, and grammatically correct posts. Even the User Reviews that are highly rated are the ones that have proper grammar, otherwise members will lose credibility as a movie critic on the site. The proper way to show authority in the community is by first posting helpful, positive, and non-threatening responses to others’ posts and threads, then by creating one’s own threads and user reviews, gaining positive reputation along the way.
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I didn't post my 1st draft last week, but I edited it an made a few big revisions. The first draft seemed to broad, and so I decided to focus on Authority and Identity instead of cluttering the ethnography with things that didn't directly influence my major observations. This draft is significantly shorter, but I believe its more "on track" than the previous one.
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ReplyDeleteIntroduction
For over a century, automobiles have played key roles in the lives of people, and ever since their development, people have been fascinated with modifying and tuning different aspects of their cars, hence the name “tuners.” GolfMkV.com is an online discourse community of tuners, more specifically, a forum dedicated to Fifth-Generation Volkswagen GTI owners and enthusiasts. This beneficial site provides a medium through which individuals can discuss and collaborate on different vehicle modifications, maintenance tips, and also share photos of their rides. This forum has tens of thousands of members from all across the globe. GolfMkV.com contains multiple threads that allow users to post discussions, advertise about upcoming events, deliver product reviews, and make suggestions to fellow users (including newbie’s).
For the past few weeks, I have observed this discourse community by scrolling through a couple different threads, particularly the ones pertaining to engine modifications, exterior modifications, and Do-it-Yourself descriptions.
I, myself, drive a VW GTI and find this forum very useful for discovering new information about my car and possible modifications that could be done. Many newcomers to GolfMkV.com will attempt to become an equal member of the online space by posting an introductory paragraph, focusing on their ride and its modifications. But, this action usually separates the newcomers from the more-experienced users since most newbie’s have not likely made any modifications to their rides.
Authority
Based on my observations of the Golf MkV forum, authority is held by members who retain a superior number of posts and maintain high ratings. To be specific, the rating system of this format is very similar to the “like” function on Facebook, in which users have the ability to “like” posts of different threads based on personal opinion.
In addition, members who obtain authority in this online discourse community are highly respected by fellow users and are also viewed as vast sources of knowledge and expertise when it comes to vehicle modifications. Another characteristic of individuals who hold authority in this community includes what some call a “mod-list”. On GolfMkV.com, most users post their entire list of modifications alongside the original posting data, which lets every reader know what they are about. Many members of this online forum community would agree that more modifications to your GTI equals more authority held. A great example of this would be Euro Boost’s “mod-list.” The modification list belonging to Euro Boost is quite extensive, including: aftermarket wheels, a short-shifter kit, sport-suspension, smoked side-markers, a turbo-back exhaust system, a high-pressure fuel pump, body kits, a high-performance turbocharger, and the APR Stage 2 ECU (On-board computer modification) chip upgrade.
Context
ReplyDeleteOne of the major components of GolfMkV.com is the Do-It-Yourself thread, which contains detailed descriptions on how to successfully complete modifications to your ride, without the need of a professional. In response to this data, many users will rate the thread based on its instructions and the final outcome. For example, blkmagic2006gti, a prominent member of the GolfMkV Community, posted a D-I-Y for the installation process of a short-shifter kit. Based on the appearance of the post, it is apparent that the author has a fairly deep understanding of the subject. Through the use of photographs, part numbers, and numbered lists, blkmagic2006gti is able to strengthen his explanation for the completion of the kit. The bottom of the page reveals the responses made by fellow users regarding the product’s installation. For instance, ReflexMkV, a fellow member of GolfMkV.com, praised this D-I-Y by stating, “Great write up. Very well done,” and went on to recommend a similar product, which he felt was superior to the one provided in the thread. This is a great example of how communication and collaboration play key roles in this online discourse community.
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Revision Notes: In order to strengthen this paper, I included more information in the introduction section to deliver a background for the forum. In addition, I provided an in-depth example of authority in this community. In areas where the reader may have had a bit of confusion, I supplied more explanation to aid the strength of text. In later revisions, I plan to include examples from Writing about Writing to better analyze the topic. In a few days time, I believe I will have a better understanding in how I would like to proceed in further analyzing and contextualizing the subject matter.
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ReplyDeletePoetry, as defined by dictionary.com is “the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.” Poetry is a form of expression that many people use as an escape goat from the real world. People who compose poetry most often recite it to an audience in order to evoke a certain emotion or message they want to convey. However, what makes for good poetry? How can beginner poets learn to write poetry that evokes emotions or a message?
Methods
My digital community is called The Poet’s Sanctuary where novice and amateur poets can post their poems and receive feedback from others. I chose this community because I write poetry myself and I could potentially become an active member of this community. People tend to join communities to create identity, fulfill a sense of belonging, and also receive benefits from that specific community. I want to find out if novice poets achieve what they seek from this community. Poets come here to improve their poetry and better themselves as poet.
In order to find this out I will analyze the community physical attributions, but the way that the members interact. In order to analyze this I will be using multiple readings taken from Writing About Writing. Some frames of lens that I will be using are the lexi theory and identity theory by Wardle, James Paul Gee’s concept that language is not what you say, but how you say it, and multiliteracies by Tony Mirabelli. Also, I will post one of my own poems and see how the feedback that I will receive, or if I receive any feedback, will benefit me as a poet. Will the feedback be general? For example, will I receive comments such as “Great poem!” or “Very inspirational!”, or comments that specific critiques that will help me to become a better poet.
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ReplyDeleteThe Categories
The foundation for writing good poetry derives from knowing what language to use in order to effectively convey your emotion and message. If you use incorrect or misleading language in your poetry then the reader can be confused on the purpose of your writing. The Poets Sanctuary allows its users to post the poems into different categories such as The Sadness, The Enlightened, The Heart, and many other categories. The language and word choice will display what emotion the writer wants to convey and why they chose their piece in the category they chose.
I browsed around two categories on The Poet’s Sanctuary: The Sadness and The Enlightened and selected a couple poems to analyze. One poem from The Sadness category called “Build-a-Girl Work Shop” speaks about how a girl feels like she needs to be “manufactured” in order to be her lover’s perfect girl. She uses language such as “instead of being perfect, like I know you want. I ended up an ugly little Chucky doll” and a lonely little Chuck doll, pleading for your forgiveness. I'm sorry.” Then I went to The Enlightened category and picked out one poem called “Its Amazing”. I noticed language such as “It's amazing what you can do” and “But you fight on You get through it You find the strength To get out of bed.”
Both these poems use very different language choices to convey their emotion and purpose. This exemplifies Tony Mirabelli’s concept of multiliteracies from The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers and Elizabeth Wardle’s concept of lexis. Mirabelli explains in his piece that waiters and waitresses must be able to read situations and adapt accordingly to that situation. The concept of lexi developed by Wardle demonstrates that you must use the correct lexi, the language used within a discourse community, in order for you to correctly identify within that discourse community. Poets must be able to read emotional situations and respond accordingly to that situation by using the correct language. They should “…[Understand] that literate acts are embedded in specific situations and that they also extend beyond the printed text…” (Mirabelli 542). Poets must treat the emotion they want to portray as a situation and adapt accordingly to that. If they are unable to read their situation correctly then readers might be left confused or even miss the message or emotion as a whole. For example, if they used language used in the previous examples were switched, but still used to same emotion, then readers would not fully comprehend what the author is trying to say.
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ReplyDeleteThe Author’s Message
In order to evoke a specific emotion that a poet wants their reader to feel, the poet must first be comfortable with the audience. A poet must be able to adjust and be aware of their situation in order for them to convey every emotion in the poem. On The Poet’s Sanctuary homepage it states “We hope you find comfort among our site and encourage you to take a seat, stay a while, and hopefully make The Poet Sanctuary as much of a home in your heart, as we have in ours.” The Poets Sanctuary wants their users to feel comfortable to post their poems on here, and to create a sense of feeling of “a second home.” When I perform my poetry, I must feel in tuned with my audience and adjust myself to whatever situation that I am in.
The Poet’s Sanctuary is trying to make their website be a primary discourse and a place of belonging for their users. A primary discourse as defined by James Paul Gee in Literary, Discourse, and Linguistics is “…[Initial Discourse] we first use to make sense of the world and interact with other.” (Gee 485) Primary discourses include your home or even your group of friends. In order for a community to serve as a place of belonging it must have three modes: engagement, imagination, and alignment.
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ReplyDeleteReflection: In revising my paper, I re-organized my paper. I looked back on the CARS model and developed a niche and gap. Previously, I have a gap but it was incorrect. I had a gap about what I wanted to find out from analyzing my community, instead of finding a gap about poetry. I also changed my analysis. I re-read the pieces I was using for my analysis so I could deliver a more accurate anaylsis.
YouTube is an online community where its user’s upload videos of different genres that include anything from politics to humor to informational guides. YouTube has become so popular that on any given day 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. Some users may log onto YouTube to fulfill time during their leisure period, however, YouTube may mean much more to that than other users. Some users log on to create and identity, become famous, or even make money from YouTube. In my research I wish to see what users really log on to do. In doing so I will be using Suler, Wardle, Gee, pieces from Writing About Writing.
ReplyDeleteYou don’t necessarily need to be a member to view videos on YouTube unless you wish to upload videos yourself, rate videos, or comment on certain videos. When signing up to YouTube to create your own channel, users create their own username when and through this they are able to create their identity in this community. Usernames hide your true identity and in John Suler’s “The Psychology of Cyberspace” he talks about how this sense of anonymity and invisibility gives a person control of their actions knowing that whatever they may say they don’t necessarily have to take responsibility for whether it s through comments they may post or upload. Another way of looking at the YouTube up loaders and their identity is that they start off as an identity and stick with it and try not to change it because that may be the reason why people watch them. An example is “Fred”, this kid made his identity known by the high pitched voice he talks in in his videos and that is the identity he has carried and defines him.
YouTube authority is established through the amount of likes you may get on the videos you upload, the amount of subscribers that follow your channel or the number of times your video is viewed. A great example of an authority on YouTube is Ray William Johnson. Ray has been on several news articles because of his impressive popularity on YouTube. Ray uploads humor videos, and his popularity placed his channel in the first position in 2011 with over 3.8 million subscribers and over 1 billion video views. YouTube also rewards YouTube “uploaders” through monetary compensation. For example, Ray will often earn $5 to $25 per thousand views, and with over 2 million views on his latest video (well you do the math). Ray’s net worth is estimated to be $5 million.
What I believe YouTube brings to this world just another way for people being able to express themselves. On YouTube the way you express yourself is by uploading a video, commenting on a video, of liking or disliking a video. An example of expression through video is the “am I ugly?” videos that have started to become a disturbing trend in the YouTube community. This was recently broadcasted on the news; these videos are about young girls asking the YouTube community of their opinions on how they look. Because bullying has become a problem in today’s society the negative comments on these videos have become detrimental to these young girls and as a result these videos have multiplied. The form of expression through commenting is an important aspect in this community because you are free to express how you feel about the videos you watch. The username that I chose was one that didn’t expose my identity because I was aware of the commenting I would be doing. I commented on a soccer video that showed highlights of a game of my favorite soccer team, Barcelona against their rivals Real Madrid. In the commenting area I noticed that there was a fight going on that involved may users so I decided to join the war and I went there swearing and made the fight into an all out brawl to a point where I was no longer able to comment because of what I was saying. I noticed that this was out of my character that I portray in face to face interactions, but after I read Suler’s piece I realized the reasons why I had acted the way I did. What really got me thinking was that Suler also mentioned (aside from what he had stated about of anonymity and invisibility) about how he wondered if these certain behaviors that are expressed in these online communities reflect the true core of these people (myself).
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started researching online discourse communities I took a very lacksadaisical approach with the idea that I would be able to use pretty much use any community that I came across. Originally, I chose a blogging community called America’s Greatest Sports Fan’s with the idea that I would be able to easily relate and become quickly acclimated within the community because it was on topics that were sports related in which I had prior knowledge of. When I started trying to incorporate different framing mechanisms displayed by the authors we have previously discussed, I soon realized that the community that I chose didn’t have enough users interacting to provide me with solid evidence to support my arguments. Troubled by a lack of interaction, I then quickly had to reorganize my ideas and make a transition into another community in which I chose the popular social network of Twitter. Having such a large community and overall user population, Twitter has provided me with a prime source of contextual evidence. For those out there that unaware of the types of communication taking place on Twitter, it basically consists of users interacting through “tweets” which can be any bright idea or random thought that an individual feels the need to share with his or her followers. These 140 character posts provide its users with a place in which they can freely express themselves and gain feedback on their ideas.
ReplyDeleteThrough speculation and analysis of the multiple arguments posed by the several authors we have already discussed I came across many different interesting topics that are prevalent within the Twitter community. Whether it’s Mirabelli’s introduction of multi-literacies, Suler’s ideologies of disinhibition or one’s “true self”, or even the several other authors that disputed concepts of authority and identity. They are all very much alive within the community. Being a part of “Twitter Nation” for quite some time now, it came to my attention that there are many different complex literacies that users must learn in order to fully understand and successfully communicate within the community. Through contemplation within the multiple arguments I was able to reveal the overarching relationship between new my newly formulated ideas of concision and popularity versus authority. Its seems as if these factors all come into play under a centralized theme.
Methodology
ReplyDeleteMy initial course of action when establishing my argument comes through defining the key concepts within each authors individual arguments. I have come to realize that if I am able to provide solid definitions of each individual case it becomes much easier to create parallels within my own experiences on Twitter. Instead of specifying or isolating an individual author I found that there is such a wide variety of communication on Twitter that I was able to touch on topics from each different author. Much like in my construct essay, I have come to a consensus that if an individual limits or restricts himself to only a certain supply of information it inhibits his ability to prove his argument. This is why I ultimately feel that it is very important to provide multiple different forms of support and resource in order to establish a strong foundation.
Multi-literacies
Just like in every other distinct discourse community, Twitter also has its own set of literacies that one may pick up through interacting with its other users. The aspect that I would like to ultimately touch upon lies within the feature that user have adopted in “hash-tags”. Hash-tags are simple subtweets that people use at the end of their tweets that may reflect how they are feeling about their previous statements. One who is not familiar with the ways in which users use the hash tag may be initially confused. For example, a user who is trying to create a sense of humor may make a statement and follow it up with a specific phrase within his hash-tag that lets users know he is being sarcastic. Others may use hash-tags with the purpose of reflecting multiple thoughts about a specific issue. Ultimately, hash tags are a newly incorporated part of communication that is trending across not only Twitter but other social networks such as Instagram, and at times Facebook.
Popularity versus Authority
ReplyDeleteThrough analysis of the Twitter community I have accumulated a need to discuss the relationship between popularity and authority. Many authors that we have discussed have noted that an individual may gain popularity through establishing a sense of authority which in many cases holds true. Users may choose to pursue gaining authority by making posts that people find interesting. However, in the Twitter online community there are many users who gain authority based on their outside or previous fame. Their followers are based on people who know they from outside the Twitter community. These people usually consist of celebrities, sports players, comedians etc. For example, four-time Olympic Gold Medalist Missy Franklin has over 350 thousand followers on Twitter. Now in most cases popularity tends to reflect authority, but in this situation Missy Franklin doesn’t necessarily hold any sort of authority within the community. Her “tweets” aren’t displaying any power or importance. It seems that people simply follow her because she is an Olympic athlete not because she is sharing anything that is monumental. In another situation there is a user that goes by the name of Wizdom which is an off take from the newly popular rapper Wiz Khalifa. Wizdom’s tweets however, reflect a lot of quotes that are inspiring too people and also deal with relationship issues. Although this user may claim an offtake name of some celebrity, prior to Twitter, his sense of authority would have been overlooked.
In my conference on Thursday I seemed to run into the problem of treying to connect all my ideas to support a unifying argument. After working through some different point within my ethnography it seems that my project is coming together a little more smoothely. There are still several issues that I have yet to discuss such as concision, and other required literacies. I am still having trouble incorporating the authors arguements into my paper and I know that it is important to use quote them in order to support my arguement. Ithink its definately coming along and hopefully I will be able to work through this and find a way to add a little bit more structure throughout the organization of my paper.
ReplyDeleteIf you are a woman then you have probably heard of the book 50 Shades of Gray and even if you are a man, you most likely have too. Have you ever wondered where this series of book originated? While I was deciding which discourse community to research about I came across an article about 50 Shades of Gray and how the story came about. The book originally was titled Master of the Universe and was published on a site named Fanfiction. The plot of the story was centered around Twilight’s two main characters, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. I immediately began to research the site Fanfiction. The stories that are written on this sight are all fan made and are typically centered around a certain TV show, book, movie, and so on. These fans create different stories based on their perception of what they would like to happen on the show/book/movie in the future. This site also allow for reviews, which provides feedback for the authors and gives the readers a chance to voice their opinions. Another feature on this site is the communities’ tab. This tab is for authors/readers to discuss current TV shows, movies, books, and so on.
ReplyDeleteIn the text, “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces,” Elizabeth Wardle states and argues that identity and authority directly affect and discourse community, or in her case “activity systems.” According to Wardle, everyone must learn to write for his or her new community in order to earn an identity and to gain authority. A simpler understanding of a discourse community would be to think of a discourse community as having a common set of public goals. Everyone in this community share one common goal: to write a story the fits their desire about a certain show, movie, book, and so on. Wardle states that to have identity within a community you must be able to adapt to the new communities needs. This means that you may not write a story about Edward and Bella under the Gossip Girl tab. The Gossip Girl tab is strictly for stories about the tv show and book series. Edward and Bella would belong under the Twilight movie or book tab. To have Authority within a community the stories that you write would receive a considerable amount of attention. The story The Master of the Universe was a story that gained a lot of authority within in the community that it was involved in. The reviews and number of chapters would be the determinate in how much authority one has in their community.
Thanks for the Great Post!!!
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