Continue drafting your discourse community ethnography for this posting. You must write a 2-3 paragraph reflection at the top of your blog that emphasizes changes you are making to your final paper. After your reflection, draw a line
_____________________________________________________________________
And then go ahead and post your new version of the digital discourse community ethnography, but any new additions to your writing should appear in a different colored ink or in italics. I want to clearly see how your new drafting is taking shape. (It might also be a good idea to save new versions with new file names, so you can use these drafts in the final portfolio).
_____________________________________________________________________
If you have missed a blog for this term, you are welcome to deliver some peer feedback for the ethnography project. Your feedback should focus on global concerns (this means big picture things like how the evidence works, or how the analysis is done, or the how the overall point comes across) first, and then you can tap into some more localized concerns (this means punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, and so on). The feedback must be substantial in order to earn credit, and it must deeply engage in the text.
____________________________________________________________________
The initial posting is due by 11:59pm on Sunday, November 25th.
A peer's response (this is optional for all classes, including the M section that meets on Thursday) is due by 11:59pm on November 27th.
0037
ReplyDeleteI haven’t finished my ethnography from my last writing. I added two more sections to my draft before. In the first section I added, I continue to analyze the online community I’m working on. In the second section, I’m starting to summarize my analyzing of the community. During my writing, I often refer to my introductions for my rhetorical lens. I deleted one of the sections I was going to look at because I basically already answer it in the other section. To not repeat what I just said, I deleted a question.
I believe my paper have a good structural. The introduction state what I’m going to do, how the community is like, and what my rhetoric’s lenses are. The context thoroughly explains how my online community works. The last three topics refer to my analyzing of the online community. Each topic is cut into sections for easier analyzing and easier understanding.
Throughout my paper, I do little editing and revising when I’m writing. For this week’s blog, I added two more section (800 words) to my ethnography and edited them. For my next revision, I will revise the whole essay. Maybe add another section for a better conclusion. I’m not sure what to do about the conclusion yet.
Who Have Authority and How Do They Achieve it?
ReplyDeleteIn a live game, people who are doing the best in the game usually have the authority over others. To tell whose doing the best is easy. There’s a status menu anyone can look at. People who have the highest kill to death ratio are considered the best and they often have the most authority in the game. However, in the beginning, where no one has kills, everyone have equal authority. So then, it is like first come first serve. For example, when you first started, no one have any kills or attribution to the game, so if I first said I want mid. Then more than likely, I would get mid because I was the first person who called it.
You can gain authority in live game through high ratio of kills but you can also lose authority when you have high ratio of death and kills. This is also quite common in the game. When a person is weighting the team down, others will start telling that person what to do. For example, if I was on a death streak and I have very low authority in the game, people won’t follow me in the game when I try to take over a tower or when I’m trying to lead a battle. In this situation, I would have to follow the other teammates who have a higher kill’s ratio so I can boost up my status. The person I follow would have authority over me and might tell me what to do.
On blogs, no one have authority in the community. Everyone tries to state their opinion over others. It’s very chaotic compare to the live game communication. People are inconsiderate and hateful on online blog. They will openly put others down by saying stuff like; noob, stupid, and etc. I believe the reason they are so mean to each other on blogs is because everyone sees everyone else as an enemy. Their mentality is that they have to come up with something to counter what that person is saying and using. While in a live game, everyone you’re communicating is on your team. So subconsciously, you have a teamwork mind set and so the basic alpha and omega rules apply. But on the blog, you are you, trying to prove that you can beat others. For example, people say Darius is over powering but you can easily take him out with Teemo, so what do you do? You would say that he is NOT over powering and you can easily take him out. Your mind set would be, there isn’t a problem with Darius and everyone else is just being weak or stupid. This is why no one in the blog’s communication has authority over others because of the exigence of the game.
0M08
DeleteIn your essay, I think you choose a very interesting topic. I know absolutely nothing when it comes to the world of gaming. It was interesting to see how you compared communication in the game with communication on the blog, how the same people can go from friend to foe between the two different outlets. Without seeing the other sections on your paper its hard to judge but from what I do see I think globally that you are on a good path. The only thing I could think of to expand upon is in the last sentance of the other post, you start to tell about the different roles that people take on, maybe talking about what each role entails and how the structure is formed. I know you mentioned the kill to death ratio gives you power, but is there a certain point where a leader can be knocked out of power for a poor ratio or are roles established in the beginning and remain rigid throughout the game.
I am not the best at grammar so I don't know how much weight my opinion really has, but the flow and and semantics of the paper seem fine on a local level. I think the transition from one section to the next really helps to build up your point throughout the essay. The only thing I could pick out was the end should it be follower? I wasn't sure if Follow was a technical term in the game or if it referred to an actual person.
How Are the Blog’s Communication Different from Live Game?
ReplyDeleteBoth the blog and live game have different Discourses, making the exigence different for both of them. In the blog, people look at others through a different pair of eyes and the ones in the game. People see each other’s and enemies in the blog while they see each other as teammates in the game. This causes a big different in the communication style between the two.
First, the communication on live game is often shorter and more direct due to time constraint. Time play a big role in live game and it doesn’t take any role in the blog. During the live game, the most a person would type is two sentences, maybe ten words at most. While on blog, people sometimes write two to three paragraphs. This shows a different in writing structure through the exigence of the two communications.
Second, the Discourses in the two communication styles are different. The purpose of the blog is to discuss and the purpose of the live game is to interact. On the blog, people talk about fighting in perfect conditions. For example, if it Darius vs. Teemo one on one, Darius would will win all the time. However, in a live game, Teemo can run in, hit and run out. People never talk about that aspect of the game. I’m not quite sure why. During live game, the purpose of the game is to win. No matter who is on your team, you and your team have to find a way to win. I have win with a team of characters everyone think is useless and I have win with a team of characters everyone think would be impossible to lose. The communications then, matter a lot within live game. A good communication and teamwork go far in a live game while it doesn’t matter on the blog.
Third, the mentally between the two communications are different. Like I said earlier, people subconsciously make people on the blog their enemies. While in the game, everyone you talk to are your teammates. This set a different structure within the two communities. The blogs community is chaotic because every man is for themselves. The live game community is structural because in a group, there’s usually a leader, a supporter, and follow
ENC 1101-0037
ReplyDeletePart1:
The main change that I have made to my essay in this blog posting is that I have added an Authority section. In this section, I discuss how people in the Steelers forum gain respect from other members through their understanding. I thought that adding this section was a key part to pulling the entire essay together.
The second change, which was subtler, was at the end of my Linguistics section. I made this change because it helped transition into the authority portion of the essay. It also displayed more of the purpose behind the idea of linguistics. These two changes were key to the overall paper.
The final thing that I changed was the conclusion paragraph. I did not like the one that I currently had because the paper had changed so drastically. I decided to completely delete this portion and start from scratch due to the dynamic change that has occurred.
____________________________________________________________
Part 2:
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, if there is terrible officiating in the game of any sort the discussion turns sympathetic. 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 more 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 biased 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, but he also went on to say that he thought it was a great win with the officiating 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. This is because if you are unable to understand terms that are being discussed, then you will be unable to interact in the conversation. 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 keep coming back to the forum due to the laborious work that you are putting into it, nor be able to establish much of a stance on a topic that is posted. If you continue to engage the forum and then become fluent in the linguistics involved in the community, or if you are already fluent, then you have the opportunity to gain authority in this discourse community.
Part 3:
ReplyDeleteAuthority
A famous philosopher by the name of Plato once said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” This means that if someone is knowledgeable, speak (post in the forum) because there is an issue or topic that is worth discussing. Less knowledgeable persons post because they feel like they have to get their word out there for the pretense of having knowledge. This is a key way for one to spot authority in this digital discourse community.
When you post in the forum, it looks like this:
The first column is the title of their post, the second is the last reply in the post, and the third column shows the number of replies there are under this post (68 is a lot). On average, each post gets around 20-30 replies unless it is one of the people who post because they have to say something. Then the post looks as follows:
There was indeed some complaining on the forum when this was posted because this was the NY Giants game that I referenced above. At any rate, the reason that this post received no replies was because it was an uneducated post by frozenrain68. He may have been going for laughs, but as you can see, he did not get any likes. A more educated member, ATL1996Steeler, has about an average of 50+ replies on his posts. This is because when he posts he puts more effort into each post and analyzes every aspect that there is to explore. Here is an example of one of his posts that received 40+ replies:
It is evidenced by one of the comments on the above post that ATL has a high amount of authority in the group:
It all shows that he is educated in what he posts and he gains authority because of this ability to communicate within the linguistics and purpose of the group. Without this knowledge and understanding, he would be asking people if they enjoyed cheese with their whine.
Conclusion
You can see there is a variety of factors that play into the authority that one possesses in the forum. You must have an understanding of the game, the linguistics involved (communication), and the goals of the community. It is also shown, that if you present a non-biased post, you have a better chance to gain authority in the community. Taking a neutral stance that informs, reduces the threat to both side’s points of view and allows greater discourse among the members. We all strive for a position of authority in a community, so keeping these lessons in mind can help anyone achieve authority. ATL1996Steeler is able to gain authority as is demonstrated by do1202’s reply. ATL1996Steeler has authority in this digital discourse community.
(some areas have screenshots that may not show)
0119
ReplyDeletePart I- Refection
I have been making changes to my ethnography. I am struggling with one of my paragraphs, which is the one where I introduce the theories I will be using to analyze my online community. Originally, this paragraph was going to be my opening paragraph, but during my conference with Professor Longhany, we decided that it would be best to introduce my community first. Therefore, my paragraph explaining my community became the first one of my ethnography. After introducing my community, I elaborate on the theories I will use in order to analyze it. This is the second paragraph and I am still working it. I believe it will be easier to have it done once I finish the rest of the paper and know exactly how I have used my theories. For example, I do not know if I will use all of John Suler’s factors in The Psychology of Cyberspace, but I will only know after finishing the ethnography. Then, I will know which ones I will have to introduce and how much detail I will need to explain them.
In addition, when I started my ethnography I tried to create an opening that would grab the audience’s attention and make them relate to the online community I will be analyzing. However, my introduction did not work at first and I had to change it in order to let the reader’s know about my community, which is not familiar to many people, and the framing lens I am using to analyze it.
I have also been adding to my ethnography by looking for data in my community, or examples that show the different ways in which identities and Discourse play a role in the members writing in this community. Some examples are better than others and I have to look for the best ones to analyze in my paper. My ethnography not only becomes longer but also contains more analysis as I find more examples and look for the theories that apply to each one.
Part II- Ethnography Second Draft. Parts in Italics represent changes. Entire paragraphs in Italics are new.
ReplyDeleteA Whole New World (This paragraph was not the first one originally.)
Surfing the net for exciting communities related to the areas under the Hospitality Industry umbrella, I discovered an interesting one called Flyertalk.com. Members in this community are referred to as Flyer Talkers, or “FTers” for short, and publish posts about positive or negative experiences while traveling, places they consider worth visiting, or the most attractive deals out there for frequent travelers. Other FTers read the posts and have the option of responding to them. Visitors are allowed to see highlighted stories and jump to different forums according to their interest. Forums are divided into categories, which include but are not limited to, travel technology, travel news, travel safety/security, luxury hotels, cruises, travel with pets, and many others. Members log in to their accounts and are able to post stories or news related to travel and share them with the world. Some do it with the intention of entertaining other FTers, while others do it to receive feedback or advice from FTers when they are not sure what to do after a particular experience. There does not seem to be a limit on the length of posts, although the majority seem to be no longer than a paragraph, with responses usually being even shorter. This community provides members with the opportunity to share unique stories from their lives as regular travelers familiar with several parts of the world. Flyer Talkers appear to be a very diverse group, taking into consideration that anyone can join the community and the settings of stories posted consist of various cities and countries.
Communication in Communities
Most individuals in the 21st century are familiar with social networks. However, users of these communities enjoy spending countless hours on the internet without thinking actively how this has changed the way in which we communicate. Our communication in social networks differs from that of our real lives. To further analyze this, choosing an online community, observing it, and becoming engaged in it for a period of time allows us to see the distinctions of the way of communication between its members. The lack of face-to-face communication provides people with courage to express opinions they would otherwise keep to themselves. I will analyze this phenomenon in my chosen online community, Flyertalk.com, according to John Suler’s online article The Psychology of Cyberspace and the theories presented by James Paul Gee. In The Psychology of Cyberspace, Suler presents various factors, which include dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, and minimizing authority. In addition, it is important to note that language varies in all online communities. In FlyerTalk.com, although the language used is not very formal, words and phrases specific to that community are present. I will apply the theories of James Paul Gee to analyze this. Gee emphasizes the “saying-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” that he calls Discourse, with a capital D. According to Gee, these “are ways of being in the world”. In other words, language goes beyond the classroom and is learned through social practices. This is what Gee calls enculturation. Enculturation is an important part of the community I am studying as I notice that many terms used by members are specific to the Hospitality and service industry and only people who have been involved in it for a reasonable amount of time can use these terms as everyday words.
Parts in Italics did not show but I changed some sentences in the second paragraph.
DeletePart 3- continued
ReplyDeleteA Passion for Traveling
I have enjoyed the time I spent observing the online community Flyer Talk. One of my biggest dreams is to travel the world. I want to accomplish this goal in my future and open my eyes to new cultures and languages. I hope that my future career in Hospitality Management leads me to this unique experience. Flyertalk members have had the incomparable opportunity to spend time in a number of countries. Although it has been less than a month of observing this community, I have noticed that most people have positive learning experiences to share, which makes me want to pursue my dream even more. The negative experiences of members also teach me about travel, but they draw more attention to the behaviors of the members in the online community.
I have collected data of different posts to analyze using the theories previously mentioned. The posts I chose to highlight are the ones that caught my attention the most for one reason or the other. Because I have not traveled to numerous countries, the information I look for and stories I read probably differ from those of frequent, experienced travelers.
Up in the air: Identities during story telling
The first factor from John Suler’s The Psychology of Cyberspace, dissociative anonymity, applies to the community members when choosing to tell a story, especially a negative one. Because they are anonymous and the site never forces anyone to use a real name, we do not know who the characters in the story are, where they work, or where they traveled. Unless the writer tells us so, we may not know what hotel, airline, or restaurant provided them with the negative experience they are sharing. An example of this would be the following story about a flight attendant:
“I was on a flight last night and apparently took a little long to put my baggage in the overhead bin. An apparently angry American Airlines attendant stated the following: ‘You stinky doe-doe head, please be courteous to the other passengers.’ She was not smiling or laughing at all. I was shocked that she would use such strange language. Later during drinks service as she was serving me water she apologized for calling me a doe-doe head. But then she said ‘I should have called you a noodlebrain,’ laughed hysterically and walked away. The flight attendant serving drinks with her didn't even react. This was just an odd thing to be told. I am not sure whether to be offended, disturbed or to laugh. But I'm also wondering if she may be mentally unstable and should be complained about. I don't think it is appropriate to call people doe doe head or noodlebrain.”
The beauty of this post is that we have no idea who this lovely flight attendant is or who the person telling the story is. Anonymity allows the writer to tell the story as he wishes and convey the message he desires without worrying that someone he knows or anyone else who was present during the situation may see it. He does not have to think of the consequences of his actions and only worry about the responses he will get from his fellow FTers. One response read as follows:
“Assuming that this happened as reported, I would definitely let AA know. I'm not sure I would go so far as to be offended, but this is certainly not appropriate behavior. From the way the report is written, it does sound more like an instability than an aggressive behavior. If so, that's probably more a cause for concern, and something AA would definitely want to know about. Cheers.”
Part 4- continued
ReplyDeleteThis response is associated with Suler’s factor of minimizing authority. This factor states, “Everyone - regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. - starts off on a level playing field. Although one's status in the outside world ultimately may have some impact on one's powers in cyberspace, what mostly determines your influence on others is your skill in communicating (including writing skills), your persistence, the quality of your ideas, and your technical know-how.” The person who replied to the original post is providing good advice but we do not know how likely it is for the first person to take this advice. Because the writer of the story does not know what authority or knowledge the person who replied had, they may not be highly encouraged to do as they were told because the credibility of the person replying is unknown.
Furthermore, the flight attendant story can also be looked at using Gee’s Discourse as a framing lens. We can see that a combination of “saying-doing-being-valuing-believing” is present because the person in this post has knowledge of the service industry. In hospitality, the most important thing for a worker is to treat their guests nicely. This flight attendant did not seem to be familiar with this concept. This was the reason why this Flyer Talker decided to share his anecdote and seek advice. People involved in the Hospitality Industry have a better understanding of the importance of doing well in a job where your priority is the people you are serving. While some may think that the flight attendant was just a rude person, the FTer posting the story knows that she does not possess the qualities for her job and therefore should not be working there. This tells us that the members of Flyertalk.com do not only have their own language but also share common knowledge about a specific area, proving Gee’s theory that language happens not just in the classroom, but through social practices. The person who responded seemed to understand the problem quickly and was able to offer advice with no problem.
Places to stay: Posting about offers
While some Flyer Talkers share experiences, others decide to post about hotel deals in different cities. For instance, one Flyer Talker decided to post about the Westin Hotel in Las Vegas, which was having a very good promotion called the “Crazy 8 Sale”, with $88 rates plus great savings. Now, this promotion ended November 23, so members who did not see this before that date could not take advantage of this deal.
In this case, we can look at this post with Suler’s factor of asynchronicity. Asynchronicity states “people don't interact with each other in real time… take minutes, hours, days, or even months to reply to something you say.” While Suler describes this factor as affecting how much people reveal about themselves, the time elapsed between the original post and other members reading it affects whether people will take advantage of the offers posted. If a member sees this post too late, they will have to ignore it and the hotel has just lost a costumer.
Some responses to this post were negative, with members expressing their dislike for that specific hotel. This exemplifies Suler’s factor of invisibility, which states, “Even with everyone's identity visible, the opportunity to be physically invisible amplifies the disinhibition effect.” In other words, because members know they are not seen, they have more courage to post negative comments than if they were discussing this deal in real life. This can also lead us to solipsistic introjection, a factor saying that conversations may be created in our heads if we assign characteristics to the people we interact with online. Although the author of the original post does not know who the people responding to him are, he has the chance to make it up in his head. If the messages online become a real conversation in that person’s head, he may feel free to respond back with comments he would otherwise keep to himself.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteParts in Italics did not show but this last post (Part 4) is all new, starting with the second paragraph. I did not have this section before.
DeleteOM08
ReplyDeleteDuring my drafting I found it difficult to find a method that I could analyze for my community. I had a hard time trying to apply Gee’s theory to my writing. However, I tried my best to add more to my paper in the introduction and the multiliteracies section in order for my audience to get a clearer understanding. Also I tried going into more depth about Gee’s theory and trying to apply it more to my community.
I also added a new section titled Twitter vs. Online chat which explains how the producers of the show are using these two online communities. I tried to explain how each is beneficial for the producers and how exactly each individual one is used. I always talked a little more about Gee’s theory in my method section. I added more to my overall conclusion so my audience would have a better understanding on how exactly the theories were used.
Introduction
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. It was interesting to try and keep up during the show with the online chat and the Tweet at the same time. I found it very challenging but I was able to manage.
Twitter vs. Online Chat
Twitter was a very good source for the producers to utilize and see what the audience thinks. Since the producers do not own Twitter they are able to go back and look at the Tweets that are added daily even when the show stops airing. The producers have the ability to look as far back as they want to go. Also they can do this for all nine seasons of the show. The Online live chat is good way to see how the audience reacts to the cast members. This can help the producers get feedback on the cast members which can be beneficial.
Methods
ReplyDeleteI 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
Mirabelli 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. The language in this community was very diverse. Since people from all over the U.S watch it some of the comments made were using a different sense of language. For example instead of saying relaxing or chilling people would say cooling which took me the longest to feel out what they really meant. By following the persons language it came clear to me that they were using the same dialect just a different way of saying it.
Conclusion
ReplyDeleteI 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. This is where Gee’s theory about Discourse because the way people behave over the internet is their doings. Their sayings are what they type in the chat rooms. 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.
0119
ReplyDeleteReflection:
For the final draft of my Digital Discourse Community Ethnography, I am making a number of changes including rewrites and additions. I will be adding a paragraph that relates more to the culture side of the initial question, and explains the effect of culture on the discourse within the community. This should give the reader a better understanding of culture’s effect on discourse and give an example to really look analyze.
I also plan on adding a conclusion paragraph that applies the initial question to other scenarios (discourse communities). I could explain that the situation that Virtual Motorsports is in, is much different than other communities, and why. I feel that this will establish greater knowledge of discourse communities and personalities within them for the reader.
Second Draft:
The 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 and cultures 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 players 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.
Additions:
ReplyDeleteOne can sign up to race a series at any time in the series, even just for the final race, but with this there are still a high amount of absences of on certain days. For example, the final race the 2012 Specracing Series 3 was on Thanksgiving, a holiday only Americans observe. During a race like this, you’ll find very few Americans racing; therefore, the discourse can be different. Europeans may feel more comfortable with everyday conversation they could relate to; since they are would be the majority.
Individuals with a common interest are the true foundation of an online community, and I have realized that the personalities of these individuals are what shape the discourse within the community. The Virtual Motorsports community is a community with very few clashing personalities and therefore produces very professional discourse while the personalities of individuals in other communities may produce different types of discourse such as violent arguments.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete0119
ReplyDeleteIn addition to visual discourse of my community I have found a new development in the authority and identity lens, administrators are able to delete and separate groups of photos that have been uploaded. I am going to take that and show how that shapes the way visitors navigate the community.
Also I have found that the community has a type of self cleaning feature to where users report infections of any kind and keep the community running smoothly. Also when signed in there is an emailing feature to keep connected on a personal level between users just like the way Facebook and twitter have message functions.
The bookmarking feature with tattoo’s is also become more relevant as my research continues in the community, for example if you are looking to get a tattoo and want to create something you cant picture then you can load all sorts of liked photos into your bin and turn them into a artist or studio to see what they come up with for a design that you may like.
---------------------------------
Digital Discourse Community Ethnography Draft
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.
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.
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.
ReplyDeleteWhen 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.
The other items used to analyze the community are authority and identity, very 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?
REFLECTION:
ReplyDeleteAt the present moment I believe I have completed my ethnography to the best of my ability. In the previous blog posting I revised my initial paper by adding citations and creating a different tone to the start of the argument. I believe this was very well written and decided to keep it as such. The first paragraph was not the best in my initial posting and after talking to Professor Longhany I thought long and hard on how to fix it. So I went back and decided to bring in some social media/personal reflection. I thought this mix of media/reflection would draw in the reader into being captivated by the idea of natural living. This is not a topic I was well versed in and had to really delve into the mind set to craft a piece I thought was really cognizant of the paper type and the community in which I studied.
During my time with Professor Longhany he told me to look back and review the different methodologies. I took his advice to heart and studied the literacy gurus presented in Wardle’s book. I referred back to my book at I revised my essay. For this second revision I went back again and made sure I hit all the major points. For this week’s section I added a few paragraphs to ensure I made a valid argument. I found that the only part I had to work on was Gee. I believe I did this quite well.
The 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.
Raw 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:
ReplyDeleteFor 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.
Methods 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.
David 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.
Rhetorical Situations of Blogging:
ReplyDeleteOnline 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:
The importance of Gee was not to be overlooked during this ethnography. As I read the blog articles posted by the many contributing authors the mere fact that I understood it meant that I could be in fact misinterpreting what the writers wanted me to think. Gee proposed the radical idea that an authors’ intent might be different than the reader. “People can be wrong about smaller points while being right about bigger points,” Gee (pg 482). Reading this and then going back to my blog made me even more curious. I used Gee’s insight and did more research to see if their claims were substantiated. I never came across something that seemed to be completely off the mark. Language is important and being able to convey your message without any hiccups in the translation is vital to an effective piece of literature/blog/writing piece. Discourse is an argument. Arguing takes skill as it involves the regurgitation of facts from credible sources; being credible is important. The key to writing in this environment is to find the facts and show them to the public to see how they wrap their personal experiences around it. This is language. Language shaped the articles I read and the experiences I had shaped how I interpreted the articles I read about. “
Conclusion
ReplyDeleteOnly 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
0037
ReplyDeleteSo far I have been adding significant analysis and examples into my draft. I have been changing the structure of my paper to better fit the outline that we were given in class. I believe that what my paper is comprised of so far will help me get on the right track to how the paper is supposed to look like / be overall.
It is a little difficult to fit the authors in with my analysis. The transitions from the authors to my Discourse is what I find to be the most challenging. Otherwise, I think that my progress thus far is good and will help me produce an even better final draft.
Introduction:
With every music group or artist comes a fan base. Sometimes they are crazy, rabid fangirls who attend nearly every concert and buy tissues of their favorite musician off of ebay, and sometimes they are harsh music critics. Bandom, is a mixture of the two.
Bandom 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.
0037
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.
I want to use these open means of communication as a way to study the community as a whole and on a more professional level. I know that there is more to Bandom and its members than acting crazy over bands, but I wanted to find a way to show it in an academic manner. Now, I have the chance.
Method:
I wanted to use analysis from several of the authors that we read over the course of the year thus far; the different perspectives and analyses would assist me in analyzing Bandom and those within the community as a whole. A couple analytical principles that I feel are applicable to my online discourse are Gee’s definitions of Discourses and how one is apprenticed into the Discourse, and Wardle’s representation of signs of authority and use of lexis.
Every time I logged into my Twitter account, I knew there was something happening on my timeline that could help me demonstrate the various facets of Bandom. More often than not, I was spending my time scrolling through the tweets of the hour, reading the thoughts of the people I followed. If a tweet served as an example for a point made by an author, I copied it and saved it to my computer. I thought that this was the easiest way to collect and use the data present on my timeline.
Results:
I found several tweets / users that could be analyzed by the aspects of Gee and Wardle’s writing. Together the evidence and analysis will show that Bandom is more of a complex Discourse than what others may have thought of it previously.
James Paul Gee writes about communities and discourses within his article. However, unlike other authors, he points out a difference between discourses and “Discourses.” Capital D Discourses is defined as a “saying-being-doing-believing” combination within a certain community. I believe that this depicts Bandom completely. As shown by the many tweets I have seen, individuals within Bandom continue to perpetuate this “attitude” even in other aspects of life, both on and offline.
0037
ReplyDeletepart 3
One user tweeted a picture recently; it was of her Halloween costume. She had decorated herself like a zombie, but with one important detail. She had painted Ryan Ross’ intricate stage makeup onto her face and included the caption, “Sometimes ur Ryan Ross and sometimes when ur him u die.” (Ryan Ross is the ex- guitarist of Panic! At The Disco and always had intricate stage makeup for the concerts during the ‘Nothing Rhymes with Circus’ era.) I believe that this is a perfect example of Gee’s definition of Discourse within Bandom. This member of Bandom took an aspect of her Discourse and applied it to her life as a whole (the doing-believing part,) and further exemplified Bandom as a way of life and not just an online community.
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.
As stated earlier in the introduction, individuals included in Bandom believe and recognize that they are on a plane of “higher power.” This too is a (mostly) unspoken concept within the community, but all members recognize its existence. This bit of analysis does not have to do with the authority within the Discourse, but the authority that a member of Bandom has in comparison to those who are not a part of Bandom.
0037
ReplyDeletepart 4
Members of Bandom can be recognized in a variety of ways: the clothes that one wears; the custom designs to one’s personal belongings; the music lyrics tattooed onto one’s body; the list goes on. However, most of these minor details can only be recognized for what they truly are by another member of Bandom. When one does recognize another member, a simple exchange occurs. One member compliments or brings up in conversation the detail that was noticed; the other member then recognizes the other person to be a part of the community and thereby mentally places them in a rank higher than “the common folk.” This process is simple and can even be done without a verbal recognition; all it takes is for one member to recognize another through a display of representation.
The only textual example of this that I can give is a tweet of an individual describing her encounter with another member of Bandom. The tweet reads, “I saw a girl in an ATL [All Time Low] hoodie the other day. I was wearing my Moon Pigs shirt. We made eye contact, nodded, and continued on our way.”
0M08
ReplyDeleteRevisions
This week while I was revising I took time to dive into the actual postings of the community that I have been researching. A struggle that I had was having too much information on my topic. I thought when I started off I wasn’t going to have enough to go on but as I wrote more and analyzed I saw that I had way to much and that I needed to sift through all that I had to create a comprehensive piece that wasn’t too long. I noticed in the first two paragraphs I spent a lot of time trying to get to a point without actually making one so I tried to make sure that the next paragraphs that I wrote were more concise and two the point.
When I was working with the literary practices of the group I tried to set it up to where I approached a misconception about the community provided an example about how this misconception is wrong and then I analyzed the situation. I will be the first to admit that my analysis still does need to be developed a bit more in order for my piece to be complete. But it is better than the complete lack of analysis I had before. To improve the piece more I think I need to analyze more literary aspects of the group as well as being able to explain the details more in depth. I still feel that my explanations make sense to me but for someone who hasn’t read all the research and talked to people like I have it is a little bit harder, escaping the filter bubble that I am in is hard. From my point of view it all makes sense but I had my mother read it and she had a harder time understanding it then she probably should of because my explanations weren’t clear enough.
I tried to incorporate as much as I could from the interviews that I was able to do, so that their dialogue is being used to show that the sources are real people and not nameless faceless drones on the internet
part 2 0M08
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 what artist it is, but I know I love the song. For some people this love lies with sports, or food or clothing but for everyone there is that one thing that you could go in detail for days over and your friends start to get to get this look about them when someone ask you your opinion on the matter because they know they are done for. 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.
To fully understand how their world works you must fully immerse yourself in as Gee explains in his work. There is no way to be one foot in and one foot out, 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
A 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 by 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.
part 3 0M08
ReplyDeleteAlthough 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 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 because messages will go out like ‘SB ATL Mall 2:30’ which means that Scott Braun was spotted at the mall in Atlanta at 2:30. Something simple but if you were not fully immersed in the community you would not be able to fully comprehend you probably would of gotten Mall at 2:30 thinking it was just someone tweeting fro people to meet them at a certain mall at a certain time, but what you don’t see is the full meaning behind it. 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 is knowing 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.
.
part 4 0M08
ReplyDeleteBieber Fever
In todays world any message can be transmitted like wildfire across the globe, which means in the world of a Belieber that information is constantly changing and you have to stay up on all that is current. Many think that Beliebers are twelve year old unintelligent little girls, when in reality there is a vast amount of knowledge that goes into being a belieber you have to have a working understanding of everything in the music business, to know which producers are producing which songs to know where to go for sneak previews you have to be able to know geography to know where Justin is going to be at and at what times. You also almost have to have the skills of a travel agent to estimate which tourist attractions and hotels the crew might go to while they are in town.
For my research I started on the website BieberFever.com, but I soon realized that twitter was their main source of communication because it allows for members to be able to communicate in real-time with each other. Something that could of taken weeks for someone to see on a blog post it only takes a couple seconds to see on twitter. Beliebers make up a vast majority of the users on twitter. Following their conversations sometime takes a translator so having Bree, Shelby and Taylor to decipher for me was truly a blessing. There are a lot of inside jokes and made up words that you have to learn to be fluent and its not like there is every a way to be completely fluent there are always going to be things you don’t know but you do the best you can to understand as much as you can. There are basic things you should know like a being a Belieber is one of the highest honors in the Belieber community, that you never and I mean never heckle any of the crew, family or friends of Justin Bieber unless you want to be decapitated and exorcised from the community, and when in doubt always have your go to person. “Its not always about knowing everything, its more knowing who to go to for certain information. I don’t even think Justin [Bieber] knows all there is to know and the fan base is about him!” Shelby told me when I talked to her.
Time is truly an important factor that Beliebers have to work with; all knowledge passed around has a ticking time clock announced to it. For example if there was a confirmed sighting of Justin Bieber at your local mall, finding out about it even two hours later does you absolutely no good.(still need to work on this)
Shelby is probably one of the most accomplished Beliebers in the community, she has been to countless concerts, award shows and has many run ins with Justin Bieber and his crew. “you have to be able to work with little to no information at all” Shelby says when I asked her about how she is so successful. She then went on to tell me most of the times she actually finds them is out of pure luck, or in her words “being blessed”. “I live about an hour from where he lives so I mean when he goes somewhere he usually makes a scene its all about finding the scene and when someone tweets something like going for ice cream I automatically know he means X place because it’s the best ice cream in town.” She says the same goes for when he is rehearsing, you have to be able to read through countless reports to find the most credible one. A lot of what is published is lies a lot about being a Belieber is knowing how to sift though the information to find the tiny little nuggets of gold.
part 5 0M08
ReplyDeleteThese practices in the community demonstrated well-developed research skills and knowing patterns that occur. I think that these research skills promote higher level thinking, it would be one thing to see the message about ice cream and then ride around to every ice cream store in a thirty mile radius but to know which ice cream store takes not only incredible skill but knowledge of the subject at hand. If there is one thing you can say about these Beliebers is that they definitely know their mark. “Being a Belieber has actually helped me in school, all the different ways I learned to research Justin[Bieber] helped me when I had to research about history or politics for my classes” Taylor.
While interviewing each of the girls I played a little game with each of them I found ten news articles about Justin Bieber that were circulating at the time, the topics ranged from him getting a new car to him be sighted in a deli in Calabasas ( where he lives). I would either read or message them the story, depending on how the interview took place, after which I had them to tell me which ones were fact and which ones were fiction. There were six true articles and four false ones, one of which I made up myself. I thought of this because Bree told me when I met with her the first time that true Beliebers have an uncanny ability to know which stories are true and which stories not to even waste their time on. Again they amazed me and everytime they got the answer right, now you are probably thinking I put in a story in there about Justin Bieber landing on the moon and of course someone would be able to guess that one was false. The false articles were Justin Bieber spotted buying shoes in L.A last weekend, one about him binge drinking on a night out on the town, another about him deciding to be a guest judge on a TV reality show and the last one, the one I made up, about him getting a routine hair cut. All these things seem to me like they could be plausible either way but a true Belieber knows how to sort fact from fiction. The following is Bree’s analysis on the fake stories
He wasn’t buying shoes in LA because he was in Canada spending time with his family in Stratford last weekend, he would be out binge drinking not because he doesn’t drink but because he doesn’t drink in public and goes through great lengths not to be photographed that way. He wouldn’t accept a job on a reality show because he is touring until 2014 and then after that he is projected to have another album out which doesn’t leave much time to judge a show and about the haircut, his hair stylist was on vacation these past two weeks and no one absolutely no one else, not even his mother is allowed to cut his hair only Vanessa.
Beliebers use fact and reasoning skills to be able to detect which are the lies in every situation.
0119
ReplyDeleteThere are many changes I am making to my final paper. I am extending my evidence by providing many more examples of the communication occurring in my online community. This includes stories and comments to those stories shared. There will be stories that have negative reaction and also positive reactions. I will paraphrase or summarize some and directly quote others because some have a greater impact and meaning if they are not altered with.
Another area that needs much more elaboration is my analysis. I will incorporate John Suler’s article to analyze the examples I provide. I will also look into filter bubbles and see how that can help support my paper further. One thing I have to avoid are personal pronouns because I used them repeatedly in my first draft and it makes my paper look unprofessional. APA format was recommended so I will have to familiarize myself with it to structure my paper in a certain way that can improve it.
________________________________________________
Reddit is a well-known online community that allows for its members, or “redditors”, to post content and also comment on them. The postings are either links or self-posts (texts written by the redditor) and they are organized into different groups called “subreddits”.All posts are part of the “upvote/downvote” system which allows members to vote for or against other members’ posts according to how relevant the post is. Comments within the posts can also be upvoted or downvoted. Individual votes can be changed freely by the member who voted. The newest posts with the highest amount of upvotes will appear on the main page of their subreddit. The main page, or front page, of Reddit displays high rated content selected from the main page of subreddits. The front page is constantly changing due to the high amount of activity by the members.
One of the many communities within Reddit is the subreddit /r/AskReddit, which is one of the most popular subreddits. In this subreddit, reddit members ask a question in the title of their post and in the post other members answer it and comment on the answers. These questions can be about absolutely anything as long as it meets certain rules. Some of these rules are: that the questions must be thought-provoking, there cannot be any personal information posted, and the questions’ purpose cannot be to gain publicity.
In “Psychology of Cyberspace”, John Suler describes the disinhibition effect, dissociative anonymity, and invisibility. The disinhibition effect can either be benign or toxic meaning that it brings out the positive or negative side of people. People in an online community might act more generous than they would in real life by complementing or helping another person on the web. They might also act in a rude and malicious manner, making threats and making people feel like crap. Dissociative anonymity is being able to keep your identity hidden because people will only really know only what you tell them about yourself. This anonymity relates to the disinhibition effect since people feel like they can be more open. What they say cannot be connected to their identity outside of the internet and they do not have to take responsibility for what they share. “Invisibility gives people the courage to go places and do things that they otherwise wouldn’t.”(Suler 6) Invisibility is similar to anonymity but different because invisibility is more physical. People might know a lot about who you are when you are on Facebook but they cannot physically see you, meaning body language and expressions are not seen. This is a very important part of the disinhibition effect because it allows for a bigger range of discussion due to not being able to see an immediate sign of disapproval that would alter a discussion significantly if it were to be face-to-face.
Within /r/AskReddit there was a post that has caught everyone’s full and undivided attention that has come upon it. This question absolutely met the rule that requires questions within this subreddit to be discussion-inspiring and thought provoking. The title was, “Throwaway time! What's your secret that could literally ruin your life if it came out?” Wow what a crazy question, would people really write about something like this? Yes they did and they actually poured out their deepest, darkest, most personal secrets. Many mind blowing stories were shared in this space and still are. For example, one person wrote “I lit a tree on fire for kicks, and ended burning half a forest down and several homes went up in flames in the process. I wanted to say ‘i did that’ when I saw it on the news.” Someone commented on that saying “I appreciate your anonymous Internet honesty, but as a firefighter I gotta say fuck you.” Another person shared a story that was pretty long so this is a summary of it. He shared that when his cousin died when they were seventeen, there was a reception after the funeral at his cousin’s house. He went into his room, stole all the money that was there and other valuable things that would go unnoticed. No one in his family ever found out and he does not regret it and will not admit it. Unsurprisingly this one got a lot of negative reaction from other redditors. They bashed him on having no empathy. One said, “You're a real piece of shit, but at least you made it obvious that you know that too when you said you didn't regret it. At least you're an honest piece of shit.” Not all stories sparked outrage like these two though.
ReplyDeleteThis story is one of the most commented on in this subreddit due to how emotional and touching it was:
First, I don't need an intervention - I just need to vent.
Almost three years ago (June 16th), my wife suddenly passed away at home, at the age of 34. I was the one who found her, and she'd been gone for at least an hour if not more when I did.
We'd been together for eleven years. It wasn't perfect - what marriage is? - but things had been worse, and were in the process of finally getting better. Being best friends can help you get through the worst of times. I felt guilty that one of my thoughts was "at least now we won't fight over stupid crap that doesn't really matter".
For at least six months, I was on autopilot. I went to work, did what I had to do to get paid, and just. didn't. care. Ate a lot of fast food because I didn't want to expend the energy to go to the grocery store. I bought my cats food from Amazon because they'd deliver it to my front door.
Depression is a horrible thing; only now can I look back and realize just how bad it was.
It's not every day, but there are times when I think about joining my wife, but then that would just mean an end result of other people having to deal with the aftermath of my problems.
There are days when I get home from work and unlock the front door and walk into a quiet house, where I would give up everything I own to have someone there to give me a hug and sincerely ask how my day went and honestly care about my answer.
Something so simple as human touch, compassion, and companionship is worth more than anything else in the world. If you've got it, if you have someone that loves you - don't give that up. Don't waste it. Don't be petty or throw it away because of other little things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of life.
Some of us wonder if we'll ever get to experience it again
People commented saying how bad they felt for him and how his story really touched their hearts. It made them realize how much people can take their loved ones for granted. This story seemed to be the one that affected people the most emotionally. Some of them tried to comfort him with their responses, “I am so, so deeply sorry for your loss. Your wife would want you to find help and be able to find joy in life again. There is no doubt about that. I found it incredibly touching that you still cared for and fed your cat through this - you are still caring and able to love. That truly touched my heart. I hope you are able to find love again, or a deep companionship. You deserve it.” Some related to his story, “After reading your story I just started bawling man, I suffer from Depression as well, and I see my life in your post. Man your last line hits home, this is no intervention just wanted to say "i'm sorry" and i wish i could give you a long hug right now. am thinking of you.” This shows that redditors do not only comment to be humorous or harshly critize someone, they also show compassion and understanding. There is a level of respect that is rarely seen in many other online communities.
ReplyDeleteThis is the disinhibition effect in full effect. They say and share all these things about themselves because it will not be directly linked to the rest of their lives. This is a place where benign disinhibition and anonymity are practiced to ask questions and create discussions that people can relate to and share their experiences openly. This anonymity is seen in the forest fire story because that person can be open and not go to jail because there is no way to know that person’s actual identity. Invisibility is also practiced. There were things that people commented on that they would not actually say to that person face to face because they would not have the courage.
Gille, 0037
ReplyDeletepart 1
I don’t know how much progress I’m making with this paper but I add on specifics very often. I’m not sure if I’m digging deep enough into the information that I need to be portraying through investigating Instagram. I know Mirabelli and Gee both go along perfectly within my investigation and I know the basics of their writings, but I know I need to dig deeper and give more evidence of what I’m trying to prove. I have been collecting examples of people posting a photo and everyone knowing what the picture is portraying without the caption. A picture can be powerful and language is very important in Instagram whether texts are used often or not—pictures portray a message that can be stronger than words.
I had a paragraph about the background information behind Instagram and how I stand as an active user. Do I need to add more to how instagram works? My second paragraph called “photographically active?” is an overview of how active users use Instagram and what it means to be a “popular” user. Is this paragraph even necessary? My third paragraph doesn’t have a title yet, but it is a start of the investigation of how Mirabelli uses multiliteracies and how they tie to Instagram perfectly. My “Discourses” paragraph is another strand of the paragraph before, stating about Gee’s Discourses and how it perfectly works with how Instagram isn’t always about the words that are used, it is the importance behind the pictures that “hit home” for a user viewing the photo. I’m hoping I’m on the right track, I will take any advice that anyone has for my paper; I want the best outcome for this final paper!
Background
Instagram 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, (known as 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. As an active member in this community, my analytical lens will help us search deeper into the message users are trying to send through the posting of a photo, along with the caption they add to it. Many websites and communities are used for business reasons along with communication, but I believe Instagram is simply used for entertainment as well as communication.
Gille, 0037
ReplyDeletepart 2
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.
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). Tony Mirabelli writes in his “Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers” about multiliteracies. This is perfect to dig deeper into Instagram as it describes the way people don’t just read texts, they read the person and the situation.
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 reading a paper or 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.
0037
ReplyDeletePt. 1
After my meeting with Professor Longhany I went to his notes on my first draft to revise my ethnography. This revision was mostly focused on the introduction and the background I have with the community of my choice, Cooks.com. The comments I received from Professor Longhany consisted of adding my history with the community to my introduction and actually developing that as a story rather than just mentioning it.
Next I focused on what my actual research of the community would be. I initially named a section “question” but changed it to “method” because that section explained how I looked at and researched the community. I am now going to continue working on presenting my resources and how to relate Wardle and Suler to my community and arguments.
________________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
Cooks.com is an online community based all around food. Users have the options to share recipes of all sorts. There are different categories of appetizers, Italian, poultry, etc. and there is always room for users to comment on each recipe. Cooks.com could be considered a blog in some sense of food, but the website is just more than recipes. There are sections that consist of nutrition facts, diet ideas, and conversions and substitutions. The community is a way for strangers to come together through the common love of food and staying healthy through food. I became a part of this community about six and a half years ago when I developed the love for baking. I have always loved all types of food and was constantly in the kitchen when my mother and grandmothers were cooking. So, I gradually learned how to cook dishes during breakfast and dinner but that grew into me always wanting to make deserts. Whenever the time came for me to attend an event at school or church I would volunteer to make a red velvet cake. I started out by making the cake from a box cake mix and making my own icing. Then I realized that making a cake from scratch would be ten times better. This is when I discovered Cooks.com, when Google led me there for a red velvet cake recipe. Once I found a great recipe for that on the website I returned frequently for advice on other deserts. This eventually led to me starting my own baking business that consisted of me baking cookies, cakes, and cupcakes out of my kitchen for family and friends who placed orders. They would ask can you make a cake x or type y cookies and I would reply yes with a price. Now I use my own recipes but I still refer to Cooks.com when I want to make something different for dinner and when I’m not sure about a new type of cake or cookies.
Methods:
I based my diagnosis on whether users are more likely to comment negatively on classic recipes or original recipes; as well as who is more likely to comment and respond to what types of recipes. Stereotypes can also be researched in this community, ones that refer to the male community. Men are usually known as the grillers of the family and only cook the hamburgers or hotdogs and occasionally wings for the football game. Exploring through Cooks.com
Resources:
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Wardle’s “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces” and her argument on identity and authority can argue someone’s identity within a community face to face or online. “The Psychology of Cyberspace” by John Suler can be a counterpart to Wardle’s point on identity, due to his argument on cyberspace identities. Speaking first of Wardle’s theory of having an identity in a community means actually being a part of the community. As well as having authority in the community means being well known throughout the community. Upon reading her article I think she gives off the idea that you have to have identity to have authority, but I beg to differ and believe you should have authority in order to establish your identity. I have switched her theory in my mind because anyone and everyone has an identity whether they know it or show it, but unless your identity means something to others and you put it out there so others will notice, it may as well be a thing of the past or personal secret that you keep to yourself. Establishing your authority is making yourself known and making a voice for yourself. Once you put yourself out there and give people a reason to listen and follow you then you are establishing your identity. People are not going to listen to and follow you based solely on the fact that you have a username and profile picture; however, what your biography and material on this profile say will give viewers an idea of what type of authority you produce. An authority will also set you apart from the people who are making a difference. I will use Suler because he gives a point that everyone has an identity in the online world, or cyberspace. I would like to use his theory of disinhibition because it basically supports Wardle’s point of identity and his point that everyone has an identity, whether the identity is true or false. The theory of disinhibition has the meaning that online people are more likely to create a false identity because people are not able to tell if it’s a fake personality as long as it makes an impact and is interesting to follow. After analyzing the points of Wardle’s and Suler’s articles it is safe to say that a majority of my framing will be based on how individuals can change when the internet is sitting in front of them and how they can form into new identities and personalities. Analyzing someone’s identity or multiple identities in different situations can result in an overflow of information.
Context:
What is behind Thanksgiving articles and recipes being posted? Are users of the website more likely to comment negatively on thanksgiving dishes because they are classics/favorites?
Analysis:
Users will comment positively if they have tried the recipe and they were successful. They will also comment in a positive mannered they are familiar with the method being presented in the recipe, so they might comment "adding nutmeg really does bring out the flavor". On the other hand users will openly comment negatively on a recipe such as oven roasted turkey because there is a specific way to cook it and it is a classic from like forever ago. If they notice the method is different or is definitely not going to work, users will forcefully or aggressively correct the method and user.
0037
ReplyDeleteThe changes that I have made to my Ethnography paper are in the red font and are highlighted. I made adjustments to the section where I talked about the travelers from a different country who wanted to come to America. I went into further detail about how their discourse was different from an American’s. I also added a comment about the phrase ‘petrol’.
I decided that a conclusion was necessary to wrap up my paper, so I created one more paragraph at the end. I think that this paragraph ties in the information that I stated earlier and shows what my research was truly about. I also incorporated the author Gee into my paper. I made a connection with his statements about discourse being an identity kit in my paragraph that talked about the different language used.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Digital 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 deleted this sentence). 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. 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. This is a predominatly English speaking website so naturally I would suspect these countries to be the main users. I found several incidents where people used foreign phrases that other people may not be accustemed to.
This website won't allow me to change the font of my writing, but I pretty much described all of my changes in the reflection paragraph.
Delete0037
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’ and ‘petrol’ 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. This can also be related to author James Gee and his ideas on discourse. Gee referred to discourse as an “identity kit” that teaches you how to act, talk and write. After reading a plethora of postings I have come to the conclusion that a person’s so called “identity kit” is heavily influenced on the culture and country that they were raised in.
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. The men in this post above do not seem to have a very reliable source. They believe that five grand will be enough money to go through with their adventure. This makes it very obvious that they are not from the United States and did not do their research on the pricing of RV’s. Many people commented on their posting to set them straight and enlighten them on the true cost of their trip. The creator’s of this website intended it to be a starting point for people trying to find information about different parts of the world and what someone does with the material is entirely up to 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.
Michael Marinari
ReplyDeletePart 1 – 0119
So far ive been busy at work on my ethnography. I changed my introduction a tad adding more information and support to my findings from previous studies done by Wardle. I also added the new interview section I had with one of the moderators of the community. The interview went fantastic and helped me get a better understanding on what keeps the members returning to the site to log their progress.
I’m hoping to add a lot more analysis to my paper because I feel like there is a lacking of deep analysis. With a deeper analysis I will be closer to receiving a strong grade for the end of the semester. Also, there are many grammatical errors that could use some work and possibly adding more advanced vocabulary could persuade and inform my audience better.
The conclusion is the only section I’m struggling on but I’m sure I can close it out well once I finish including all of my work and findings. I will continue to add onto my work as the week continues and hopefully have a great piece by this Thursday.
0037
ReplyDeleteAs 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.
In conclusion, the research that I have gathered shows that people from different countries have different ways of discourse. Even though this communication is happening in the same language, there are many situations where different cultures have an effect on the conversation. The screen shots show the evidence that I discovered from www.lonelyplanet.com and further prove my point. It is evident throughout this website that a person from England does not have the same primary or secondary discourse as a person from the U.S. would. They are still able to communicate and share traveling experiences with each other despite this obstacle.
0037
ReplyDeleteReflection:
As I began drafting more versions of my discourse community ethnography, I introduced new data in order to strengthen the text. In all three sections of the paper, I elaborated more deeply to help clarify some of the statements being made. Also, I provided a strong example for the Authority section of the ethnography.
In the next few days, I plan to incorporate more examples from Writing about Writing to better analyze the topic. In addition, I will be preparing a Conclusion section in an effort to reiterate the main points being made in this piece.
Up to this point, I believe that my paper has a good structure based on the data that I have already compiled. Another thing to note is that I frequently edit the text for any grammatical and/or spelling errors. I will have a better understanding of the goals that I still need to accomplish as I continue to revise this paper.
0037
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.
0037
ReplyDeleteContext
One 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.
The website does not allow italics or underlining, but the Reflection above the draft accurately describes the changes that I made to my paper.
Delete0119
ReplyDeleteI honestly did not think I was going to change my essay much (I am not trying to say it was perfect, it is just not my style to go back and change my work), but I have to thank Brandon Jones for giving some good ideas in his response for my week 13 blog. It caused me to change some wording in my essay and add more personal experiences to somewhat personalize my essay. I decided to change it into sections, an idea stemming from the response, and include my opinions and experiences in them. Originally I was trying to think about if my essay was all right or if I should redo it all. I decided to keep what I have and work off it, a conclusion I am happy I came to. The changes I made in this draft (hopefully the final draft) have been focused on a few topics I had left out: secondary discourse, authority, the evolution of the roles, and the rewards.
I changed the font into blue for the changes and italicized them as well to make sure they will appear on the blog (which hopefully they do). Somehow all the changes had places that they could be set into perfectly, a lucky coincidence that allowed me to not change much of my essay and take out parts that need to be in it. I believe that I filled all the holes and gaps that Brandon pointed out and ones that I noticed along the way. Like I said in previous essays, I tried to make my title sound good and my sentences to flow while keeping the readers attention along with the rhythm of the essay. The sections I added make up about a third of my essay, but they are additions I doubt I will regret.
A League of its Own: A Unique Gaming Discourse Community
ReplyDeletePart 1: Welcome to the Fields
League of Legends (LoL) is an online video game that contains a multitude of discourses within its own general discourse. In this game, players compete on what’s known as the Fields of Justice as they 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. There is a secondary discourse to this game as well, however. The secondary discourse would be the discourse that is only understood between a player and a group of friends. For instance, when I am playing with a group of friends and one of us runs into the enemy towers so the enemy team doesn’t get the kill we all type FIELD GOAL in the chat box just as an inside joke. A more common phrase of the secondary discourse would be when a champion called Mordekaiser is being played and many players type either “br br” into the chat to make fun of the fact that this champion was often seen being the top pick by Brazilians in Season 1 signified by the br for Brazilian.
Part 2: Same Motives, Different World
ReplyDeleteIn 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. One aspect which sets a gaming community such as League of Legends apart from other communities is that there is no coach, no webmaster, and no primary or secondary influences to control authority. In the classic games of LoL, the authority is held by one of two people: the person that can initiate a fight with the enemy team or the person who can deal the most damage and get the most kills. Although the ultimate authority is Riot Games, the authority in an actual game belongs to the most skilled.
The 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 if you decide to solo queue or duo queue (going alone into a game without friends or with only one friend). 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. In ranked solo queue, like classic games, the authority is held with the person who can either take the most damage or deal the most damage. However, in ranked 5v5 games and tournament teams there is one person who holds the authority to call the plays simply entitled the play caller. As seen in the Season 2 World Finals this year, this title is commonly held by the support players because their exigence is to keep the team alive while getting kills instead of trying to get kills without thinking about the consequences.
ReplyDeletePart 3: Becoming a Champion
Over my time spent playing LoL, I have noticed a few things that establish it as a unique discourse community. Though most people do not tend to notice it, the roles of LoL have established stereotypes and shaped the personalities of the players and vice versa. For instance, I have always been a person that tries to watch out for my friends and make sure they are always happy. I have come to believe that this is why I play the champions that can take the most damage instead of the big damage dealers. However, the character that I play most (a jungler called Amumu) can also be made to deal a ton of damage which I tend to do when I get cocky and believe “I am better, therefore I don’t need to be careful.” As I watched the Season 2 World Finals this fall, I noticed that the champions the people chose fit their personalities. The hothead chose the AD carry role, the most protective player was the one that chose the most defensive champion, the calm one chose the play calling position, the cautious yet ambitious one took the middle lane, and the jungler position was filled by one of two stereotypes: another ambitious person or another defensive player. Like other discourse communities, the roles people take are often formed by their personalities; unlike other discourse communities, a gaming community like league of legends can also allow a role to form a players style and personality.
The main change in my ethnography is the topic of humor videos and how that will become my focus. At first my focus was solely the videos themselves on YouTube but because it was too broad I decided to narrow my vision on to only humor videos and how makers of these humor videos take different approaches with their humor and all with the same goals in mind which are to have as many possible like, views and subscriptions. In my ethnography I have searched for the most successful approach and why is this approach more effective.
ReplyDeleteYouTube 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.
You 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.
How Is Authority Established?
ReplyDeleteYouTube 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.
A large genre that is present in the YouTube community in Humor. I have gone and done my searching to find the different approaches to humor some authority figures in the YouTube community take to maintain its authority’s status. A previously mentioned Ray William Johnson and Fred are some I have looked into along with others like the Annoying Orange, and eGo. All these comedians have their own identity like the annoying orange is and orange with a large human like mouth and of course we know that the creator uses an avatar of an orange to make his videos. eGo shows his own person in his videos but his attitude is portrayed differently as feminine male…
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. Before these emblems were put into the game, the only amount of responsiveness was negative because a player could not honor another player for being good and was only able to report a player for being unskilled or unsportsmanlike. These reports were sent to the Tribunal, a source of “justice” that Riot began. Though the Tribunal succeeded in getting a little justice (such as getting people banned because they only worked against their team), it never led enough of a movement to establish authority. With the medal, people get rewarded for their kindness, which somewhat shifted the stereotypical role attitudes for a while.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, 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.
0037
ReplyDeleteThe only major change I have made to my ethnography is adding the paragraph analyzing the differences between in game chat and forum and blog discussions. I also intend to add a section on authority and the results of my observations. I wrote a section on authority already but I deleted it because I didn’t like the way it fit in so I’ll do another one. In my introduction, I still need to place my analytical lenses and indicate the gap I am writing in.
Overall, I think my paper will turn out alright. I think it has a good structure with strong headings and information. I have a lot of observations and an interviewI still need to include but after that, it will flow much better. One thing I need to work on is choosing how I can use my analytical lenses to help me analyze my observations.
Introduction
League 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
On 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 ultimate, 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
ReplyDeleteNow that examples have been shown of both game chat and forum discussions, I can analyze the main differences. The first and most obvious difference between game chat and discussions on forums and blogs is word choice and sentence structure. Since League of Legends is a faced-paced game, the player must be focused on controlling their champion and not typing an impractically long sentence. When they must say something to their team, the words are abbreviated and short to save time and there is very rarely any type of sentence structure. On the other hand, the forums and blogs call for a more formal composition of sentences. Since the player doesn’t need to worry about dying while they are wasting time typing perfect sentences, bloggers generally take more time and write grammatically correct sentences without any abbreviations. Another difference between the two is how respectfully users treat each other. If a player in a game is dying a lot and is going to cost their team the game, they will be getting cursed out by their team. There will be no holds barred in the name calling. However, on the forums and blogs users tend to treat each other with a bit more respect. If someone says something that is incorrect on the forum, users will most likely dodge an assault of vulgar language and get away with a statement that they are wrong. I believe the cause of this difference is that well in game, people are in the heat of battle and get very upset if they are going to lose because of one player since they are very competitive players. On the forum, an incorrect statement isn’t going to cost the player calling it out a loss, so they take it easier on the person.
0037
ReplyDeleteWhile doing this draft of my digital discourse community ethnography I’ve noticed that I simply listed what I’ve found and what I’ve done to find it, without drawing a conclusion. I added a conclusion that emphasizes what I have taken away from my research and shown how behavior in forums that review works of art works.
To be honest I haven’t done too much to the body of my draft except for changing words, and editing grammatical errors from the previous draft. I’m not sure I’m on the right track in the Identity and Authority sections, but I’m keeping the structure the same just in case.
I haven’t decided if I need to add a new section or sections, or keep my ethnography focused on Identity and Authority. Nevertheless, I plan to expand my next draft significantly. I believe there is more to be said about Authority and Identity, so I might go back and record more communication on the website.
Introduction
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 and their importance within this online community.
Continued...
ReplyDeleteIdentity
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. Many 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.
Continued...
ReplyDelete...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.
Conclusion
My mentality going into this investigation was that I’d be entering a community full of people who enjoy and respect movies and the culture of cinema. What I’ve found is the exact opposite. The site is full of members who bad-mouth perfectly good movies and insult users who give simplistic and positive reviews of movies. Why do they do this? To either gain or maintain authority within the community. By using film literacy and knowledge, users bring down movies and members. By writing negative reviews, members often feign intelligence, making it seem like they noticed “flaws” that the other, average, simple-minded users couldn’t possibly have noticed. The subject matter doesn’t even have that much affect on the way the site operates. I’ve briefly viewed other forums pertaining to the arts (cuisine, literature, visual art, and music) where the behavior of members is synonymous. The root of the problem is that people are treating art objectively, when it should be treated subjectively. Thus, respect for others’ opinions is scarcely present.
I would be interested in hearing how the forums work, for example Skyfall that you mentioned, what starts the forum visually speaking? Also i think you could do a better job framing the paragraphs and creating a lens, maybe breaking up aspects so that after the reader is done it's not just one big idea. Something you might be able to explore as far as feedback would be that generally speaking someone is more likely to say something if they didnt like it versus commenting on how great it was. You could look at a few users and show how they are negative or positive in their original purpose of signing up, what drives them to the forum ? With a forum there are plenty examples of commentary and maybe pick a movie and showcase what is being said and how?
DeleteI am very much pleased with the contents you have mentioned.… Hair cuttery davie fl
ReplyDelete