Day 1: Monday, 7 July.
• Aim at becoming an insider of/to your selected social network. You need to a get sense of this space; how it works, what it means to conduct oneself as a proficient user/member of this space.
• If you're already au fait with say, Facebook, think about exploring another social networking site and comparing the two.
• You will start in pairs or trios and explore your selected social network site together. Then, by Friday of this week, find two other sets of pairs etc. to make up a group of around 6 people. This larger group will be your report-writing group.
• Make use of our in-house social network insiders, too—don't be shy about asking people for hints and tips as you muck around in your chosen space.
• The focus for this course is about identity and social networking.
Key concept:
Identity:
• The idea and practice of a "linear life-course" used to dominate people's thinking about identity
• Now, a linear life-course is out of the ordinary. Jim Gee talks about the workplace now being characterized by "shape shifting portfolio people" – that is, people who's working lives comprise a series of projects and who work collaboratively with a range of different people etc. and not necessarily for the same company each time
• Zygmunt Bauman and "liquid modernity" – things keep changing; what you knew before and had learned through previous experience isn't guaranteed to remain useful or to work in the same way in a similar situation down the track
• Current times are characterized by flexibility, mobility, transience, true diversity
• Identity is shaped on the fly and no longer always tied to Church and State (i.e., to religious beliefs and national borders)
• In place of the old "life project" (assuming one would be working for 50 years for the same company and work one's way up within this company or institution), people are now making the development of their identity their life project. This might not be consciously so, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is indeed the case. That is, identity is one of the few remaining things over which we still have some measure of control. This is especially the case for young people who can and do invest in shaping, nurturing—even designing—presenting and negotiating their identities, mediated by a stack of digital technologies that have emerged and become quite widely available on a scale.
• This investment in identity might well explain the attraction of social networking sites (and blogging, etc.)
• Bauman uses his claims about "liquid modernity" to critique what he calls the "content fetish" of schools. That is, he argues that digital technologies make accessing content (i.e., facts, dates, etc.) super-easy and accessible, and that people are valuing strategies for thinking and doing stuff with content. Yet schools are paying not attention to this shift.
• Erich Fromm – a social psychologist – argued that humans are very different from other animals by dint of having consciousness. Human beings, through the development of their consciousness, were ripped apart from their primary bond with nature. Humans are conscious of themselves as separate entities. This separation has called into being a set of basic, powerful needs in order for humans to remain psychically intact. Three of these needs include:
o social relatedness
o identity
o a framework with which to make sense of the world
• The risk society—a society characterized by the fragmentation of the family and local community by moving physically around the world in pursuit of work/projects, by moving/living virtually as part of their work and/or everyday lives. This risk society throws into sharp relief the growing absence of the human needs identified by Fromm as a default mode within people's lives. Thus, people's investment in social networking spaces makes all the sense of the world when read within the context of the risk society.
• So, how do people actually do identity work within social networking spaces? How do their interact with others? How do they make sense of this space in which they are participating? One key point here is that it is impossible to have a truly "private" identity. Philosophers like Wittgenstein argued that language makes thinking and social activity possible. Language enables us to categorise and classify the world so that we ca interpret it for ourselves and for others. Language itself can never be truly "private" either; it has always—and will always—be thoroughly socially constructed and enacted. Thoughts, concepts, etc. are truly public. As Martin Buber put it: for every "I", there is a "Thou". What I am and who I am is truly and deeply shaped and informed by my interactions with others. Our identities are bound up with our relationships with the people around us (as well as with those who came before us, and most likely those who will come after us). Any analysis of "identity" therefore needs to include an analysis of the individual, as well as of the individual in relation to others within a given social context or activity. In short—and tying this to your previous coursework—identity also is thoroughly shaped by (and shapes) D/discourses (see Gee 2004).
• In your analysis of the social space, examine how people interact with each other; what words do they use; how do they react to each other and what does this tell you about them; what meanings are conveyed by the images/videos/URLs people choose to post to their spaces; what applications they've installed in their profile space and who else is linked to these applications and what this tells us.
• To analyse your data and the concept of identity within your data, you can use sociolinguistic analysis of what people write; semiotic analysis of what images are posted (e.g., people's profile images; people's public photo albums); categorical analysis of relational activity; taxonomic analysis of interactional types; etc.
• You will need to use Scholar.google.com and your access to the Mount Saint Vincent online journals to locate readings relevant to your study.
o http://www.msvu.ca – click on "library"
o username: research
o password: academic
o Or, you can always use the 14-digit barcode number on your ID card and the last 4 digits of either your student number or your telephone number to access to MSVU's online library
Class website:
http://colin.lankshear.googlepages.com/cornerbrook08
Class blog:
http://socialnetworking08.blogspot.com
To post to this blog, compose your post in an email message and send it to:
colinjl.socialnetworking08@blogger.com
Task:
Use the first session to explore a range of social networking sites, including (but not limited to):
• http://www.myspace.com
• http://www.facebook.com
• http://www.bebo.com
• http://www.orkut.com
• http://www.blackplanet.com
• http://www.migente.com
• http://www.friendster.com
• http://www.hi5.com
• htpp://www.cyworld.com
• Aim at becoming an insider of/to your selected social network. You need to a get sense of this space; how it works, what it means to conduct oneself as a proficient user/member of this space.
• If you're already au fait with say, Facebook, think about exploring another social networking site and comparing the two.
• You will start in pairs or trios and explore your selected social network site together. Then, by Friday of this week, find two other sets of pairs etc. to make up a group of around 6 people. This larger group will be your report-writing group.
• Make use of our in-house social network insiders, too—don't be shy about asking people for hints and tips as you muck around in your chosen space.
• The focus for this course is about identity and social networking.
Key concept:
Identity:
• The idea and practice of a "linear life-course" used to dominate people's thinking about identity
• Now, a linear life-course is out of the ordinary. Jim Gee talks about the workplace now being characterized by "shape shifting portfolio people" – that is, people who's working lives comprise a series of projects and who work collaboratively with a range of different people etc. and not necessarily for the same company each time
• Zygmunt Bauman and "liquid modernity" – things keep changing; what you knew before and had learned through previous experience isn't guaranteed to remain useful or to work in the same way in a similar situation down the track
• Current times are characterized by flexibility, mobility, transience, true diversity
• Identity is shaped on the fly and no longer always tied to Church and State (i.e., to religious beliefs and national borders)
• In place of the old "life project" (assuming one would be working for 50 years for the same company and work one's way up within this company or institution), people are now making the development of their identity their life project. This might not be consciously so, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is indeed the case. That is, identity is one of the few remaining things over which we still have some measure of control. This is especially the case for young people who can and do invest in shaping, nurturing—even designing—presenting and negotiating their identities, mediated by a stack of digital technologies that have emerged and become quite widely available on a scale.
• This investment in identity might well explain the attraction of social networking sites (and blogging, etc.)
• Bauman uses his claims about "liquid modernity" to critique what he calls the "content fetish" of schools. That is, he argues that digital technologies make accessing content (i.e., facts, dates, etc.) super-easy and accessible, and that people are valuing strategies for thinking and doing stuff with content. Yet schools are paying not attention to this shift.
• Erich Fromm – a social psychologist – argued that humans are very different from other animals by dint of having consciousness. Human beings, through the development of their consciousness, were ripped apart from their primary bond with nature. Humans are conscious of themselves as separate entities. This separation has called into being a set of basic, powerful needs in order for humans to remain psychically intact. Three of these needs include:
o social relatedness
o identity
o a framework with which to make sense of the world
• The risk society—a society characterized by the fragmentation of the family and local community by moving physically around the world in pursuit of work/projects, by moving/living virtually as part of their work and/or everyday lives. This risk society throws into sharp relief the growing absence of the human needs identified by Fromm as a default mode within people's lives. Thus, people's investment in social networking spaces makes all the sense of the world when read within the context of the risk society.
• So, how do people actually do identity work within social networking spaces? How do their interact with others? How do they make sense of this space in which they are participating? One key point here is that it is impossible to have a truly "private" identity. Philosophers like Wittgenstein argued that language makes thinking and social activity possible. Language enables us to categorise and classify the world so that we ca interpret it for ourselves and for others. Language itself can never be truly "private" either; it has always—and will always—be thoroughly socially constructed and enacted. Thoughts, concepts, etc. are truly public. As Martin Buber put it: for every "I", there is a "Thou". What I am and who I am is truly and deeply shaped and informed by my interactions with others. Our identities are bound up with our relationships with the people around us (as well as with those who came before us, and most likely those who will come after us). Any analysis of "identity" therefore needs to include an analysis of the individual, as well as of the individual in relation to others within a given social context or activity. In short—and tying this to your previous coursework—identity also is thoroughly shaped by (and shapes) D/discourses (see Gee 2004).
• In your analysis of the social space, examine how people interact with each other; what words do they use; how do they react to each other and what does this tell you about them; what meanings are conveyed by the images/videos/URLs people choose to post to their spaces; what applications they've installed in their profile space and who else is linked to these applications and what this tells us.
• To analyse your data and the concept of identity within your data, you can use sociolinguistic analysis of what people write; semiotic analysis of what images are posted (e.g., people's profile images; people's public photo albums); categorical analysis of relational activity; taxonomic analysis of interactional types; etc.
• You will need to use Scholar.google.com and your access to the Mount Saint Vincent online journals to locate readings relevant to your study.
o http://www.msvu.ca – click on "library"
o username: research
o password: academic
o Or, you can always use the 14-digit barcode number on your ID card and the last 4 digits of either your student number or your telephone number to access to MSVU's online library
Class website:
http://colin.lankshear.googlepages.com/cornerbrook08
Class blog:
http://socialnetworking08.blogspot.com
To post to this blog, compose your post in an email message and send it to:
colinjl.socialnetworking08@blogger.com
Task:
Use the first session to explore a range of social networking sites, including (but not limited to):
• http://www.myspace.com
• http://www.facebook.com
• http://www.bebo.com
• http://www.orkut.com
• http://www.blackplanet.com
• http://www.migente.com
• http://www.friendster.com
• http://www.hi5.com
• htpp://www.cyworld.com
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