Life is good!

Today has been one of those days in which I realize how good life is and how well things are going for me. I had a meeting with one of my professors today to talk about his upcoming book (I'm doing the website for him) and we started talking about all sorts of digital media/youth issues. It was a very good conversation that left me feeling quite inspired. It's nice to know that other people (scholars) take interest in your research. There are some more details/good news from that conversation that I don't want to publicly announce until things become official, but yea, it was a very good conversation with lots of potential research opportunities. 

Also, as of yesterday I am now part of the Latinitas Teen Reporter Intern Program. I've done a little bit of academic research about the organization, primarily their social networking site, and I've done a little bit of volunteering, but haven't been as involved as I wanted. An opportunity presented itself for me to be one of the TRIP facilitators and as busy as I am, I'm really excited to do it. I love academia (obviously) but I definitely feel the need to also be in the "real world", working with "real people" outside of academia. A lot of my research addresses issues of youth cultures and in particular girls, so it's a perfect way for me to bridge my academic interests with "real world" issues. I like to think my research is important and makes a difference, but it's also really nice to do something hands on outside of academia. Working with girls gives you a whole different perspective on their world that is hard to really grasp from a research perspective. I'm also hoping to possibly incorporate some of the girls into a couple research projects, as I'm all about giving youth a voice in research so that it's not just research "about' youth but rather research by youth. 

In addition to publishing FlowTV and working with Latinitas, I also have a summer teaching job that I've done the past few years. I get to teach reading to all levels - kindergarten through college  - it's a lot of work but very rewarding. I enjoy working with kids and helping them (hopefully) fall in love with reading. I just got my schedule yesterday and I'm quite pleased with it. 

And finally, I'm about to tackle some of my summer research projects. I've got a chapter coming out in Sharon Mazzarella's edited book Girl Wide Web 2.0 (the follow-up to Girl Wide Web) which I really need to get ready. It's a chapter from my Master's thesis which addresses girls' blogs as spaces of community-building, but right now it's way too long and I'm not quite sure how to cut it down yet. I'm also planning on doing some interviews this summer to talk to people about their use of Facebook. I'm particularly interested in the ways Facebook fosters weak ties and how this creates opportunities for exposure to political and ideological difference. I've worked up the proposal, just waiting on IRB approval before I start conducting the interviews. Hopefully that goes well since I'm presenting at the Internet Research 10.0 conference in Milwaukee this fall. And finally, about a year and a half ago I wrote a paper about the Megan Meier MySpace Suicide Case and presented it at the 2008 International Symposium on Online Journalism. A lot has happened with the case since that paper was written so I'm hoping to update and expand it over the summer and get it ready for publication. I didn't really address the legal aspects of the case at the time I wrote the paper, but I'm wanting to address some of the strange ideological gender biases associated with the legality of the case (as well as just bring the paper up-to-date). 

Today was also really good because I got to talk to my Dad on the phone for awhile. He and I have a really great relationship, but for whatever reason we usually communicate via text and email rather than the actual phone. But today we have a nice long conversation and it was really nice. I love my Dad :) 

So that is my summer in a nutshell and really I couldn't be happier. It has been pretty hot lately, but when I'm not working I've been spending a lot of time outdoors with friends - floating the river, going to the beach, hanging out at Barton Springs, Bar-B-Qs. Heat is much more bearable with water and friends. So yea, things are going really well in my academic life and my personal life - what more could I ask for?

Image Credits: 1. Life is Good 2. Latinitas  3. Facebook Politicians 

Special Issue Social Media

FlowTV recently sent out a call for submissions addressing various issues of social media. We received a record high number of submissions which was very exciting to read. Apparently Twitter is the new hot topic - both in academia and mainstream - as there were a lot of articles talking about the various aspects of Twitter. The Special Issue includes several perspectives on Twitter but also includes columns addressing blogs, gender, Digg, race, YouTube, cell phones, academia, citizen journalism, celebrity culture, privacy, and much more. 

Please check out the Social Media Special Issue and I strongly encourage you to leave comments.

Happy Weekend. 

Twittering the academic community

danah boyd

Although I've never met her, I follow danah boyd's Twitter feed. Recently she asked her followers to send her questions we might have for the teens she was about to go interview. I sent her a question and was pleasantly surprised to see she answered it on her blog. Check it out here! (I'm @texas_sooner).

People continually ask me why I like Twitter, and this is a perfect example of why I think it's a valuable tool. I use it to gather news and follow headlines from various news sources, journalists, and politicians, but it also allows me to social network with a lot of media scholars. I come across a lot of great research and interesting tidbits of information from the scholars whom I follow. And it's even cooler when they respond.

Image Credit: danah boyd

Interesting news of the week

Most popular shirt? Yup!

It's Friday and I'm headed to the beach this weekend with some friends. I haven't been to the beach in years, I'm definitely looking forward to the trip. But before I leave, I thought I'd share some interesting stories I came across today. 

The first is a Washington Post article I came across via the AoIR Listserv. "It's Made of 100% Cotton; It's Sales are 99% Ironic."

It's an interesting example of viral marketing, I guess, although I don't really think the term viral nor virtual marketing really encapsulates what is going on. Worth reading.  Here's an excerpt:

As retailers, media companies and even government agencies attempt to get with the times and connect with an online audience, every once in a while they get a reminder: Anybody, or any group, armed with a Web browser can anonymously game the system and manipulate the marketplace at sites inviting user feedback -- for profit or just for fun.

The second article is one I came across via my Facebook News Feed about the Pope's Facebook application. I'm actually surprised this is just now happening: "Pope 2.0: Vatican launces Facebook Application." It's nice to see the Catholic church embracing new technologies as way to communicate with people. 

Become a Fan of the Pope

Finally, I have to leave you with this adorable picture of President Obama. It's touching  in many regards. Both the little boy's expression of awe, which is such a recognition that there is (finally) a President who has "hair like him."  I also find it inspiring to see our President humble himself to a 7 year-old boy. Just precious! 

"The youngster wanted to see if the President's haircut felt like his own."

Image Credits:

Wolf Shirt

Pope Facebook

Obama 

Weisure...seriously?

Weisure? Or ruined vacation?

Welcome to the "weisure" lifestyle by: Thom Patterson, CNN

What better way to draw attention to blurring boundaries than by blurring words? Sociologist Dalton Conley has coined the term "weisure" to describe the mingling of work and leisure time. Yea that's right, I said weisure. I think I find this term even goofier than glocal, which still makes me giggle a little. 

Having skimmed over Conley's CV I think issues of race, class, and gender are on his academic radar, thus the critique I'm about to offer is more directed towards the CNN article than perhaps it is towards Dr. Conley. That said I find the overly optimistic and glossy description of the "weisure lifestyle" to be rather problematic. A much more appropriate term would be the "weirsure class" (but of course we don't like to acknowledge class in America...). The idea of weisure most prominently ignores issues of class and equally as much gender. 

To start with, let's talk about class. A large percentage of America's workforce still occupy service industry and manual labor jobs and so it is important to understand exactly who gets to participate in weirsure time. Somehow I don't think Walmart employees, or construction workers, or Starbucks baristas are permitted access to their smart phones during shifts. 

Additionally, the article did not really account for the growing demands in which business professionals are expected to be available anywhere anytime. Bringing your work home, even "fun" work, is still work and can be disruptive. Even outside of the professional sphere, danah boyd  (2008) discusses the ways in which social networking sites foster feelings of "I must keep up with everyone", which certainly aren't healthy. Social convergence leads to a loss of control and privacy. 

weisure?

Next, the presentation of weisure problematically overlooked the role of gender. Within modern times one only has to look to the stay-at-home parent (most often the mother) for evidence of weisure. Taking care of children and a home is unarguably a lot of work, but for many parents there is also pleasure to be found in that work. Reading a book at the park while your kids are on the swing set should constitute weisure time - it is neither all work nor all leisure nor does it occupy separate public/private spheres. Issues of gender were not addressed within the article at all, which is of course indicative of America's continued dismissal of child rearing as valuable work. 

Finally, weisure was presented as rather ahistorical; work and leisure have certainly blurred prior to the advent of the information society, or the PC, or the smart phone. Within the article, nostalgic longing for the 1950s surfaces as some idyllic period in which boundaries between public and private were nice and neat. I don't understand why the 1950s are continually the starting point for all historical perspectives. Looking back to the preindustrial age, public and private were much more permeable. As Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl (2005) write:

...preindustrial societies, especially small-scale agricultural and rural communities, exhibited comparatively porous public-private boundaries. Heavy reliance on interpersonal communication for exchange of information and for coordination, high levels of familiarity among members of communities, and high social interdependence meant that the public sphere intermingled closely with what would be more private domains in the later age" (383).

In fact, it wasn't until the industrial era that public and private boundaries were more definitively erected. And even in the 1950s there were panics about public/private disruptions. The television brought "the outside world into the home" as never before. Coupled with the rise of suburbia (obviously classed), leisure time became more privatized as individuals chose to relax within their own homes (or backyards) rather than in public.  

I don't want to be dismissive of weisure lifestyles, certainly new technologies are eroding boundaries and challenging conceptualizations of work, leisure, public, and private. However, any time we talk about revolutionary changes as a result of technologies, we must always be mindful to ask who has access to these changes and who is denied access. Furthermore, we should also contextualize our arguments within a historical framework of social change rather than risk falling into a technologically deterministic trap. Technology is not causing these changes, but rather facilitating them. Boundaries have never been as distinct as we might like to think, they have been challenged before and it is important to consider the ways in which history has dealt with these changes lest we get too caught up in nostalgia and technological revolutions. 

Source:

Bimber, B., Flanagin, A. & Stohl, C. (2005). Reconceptualizing collective action in the contemporary media environment. Communication Theory 15, 365-388.

Image Credit:

1. Laptop on beach

2. Walk in park 

As if I needed another reason...

...to be in favor of Obama: White House Plans to Reverse Bush Antitrust Rules. 

The Obama administration today said it would reverse rules made during the Bush administration that made it difficult to stop anticompetitive business behavior.

Excellent news indeed.

Image Credit:

Obama

Net Neutrality Under Attack...again

Rupert Murdoch, what a fine American...err, Australian

Murdoch: Websites to charge for content

I don't have time to write my thoughts about this right now, but I at least wanted to get the link up here. Net neutrality is under attack yet again, this time from Rupert Murdoch who is quoted, 

"We have been at the forefront of that debate and you can confidently presume that we are leading the way in finding a model that maximizes revenues in return for our shareholders... The current days of the Internet will soon be over."

This is really disappointing and scary, I feel as though the internet just keeps moving even closer to becoming just another cable/broadcast model wherein the participatory elements of the medium will be severely restricted. While scholars have been discussing this for some time, it has not surprisingly been silenced within popular internet discourse. More thoughts later though, gotta get back to campus.

Image credit: Murdoch 

Dogs' time

Scout, the laundry basket, and my clean sheets

I've heard it said that dogs don't really have a sense of time, but I gotta say, I think my dog definitely has a sense of time. He knows when I'm not "not supposed to be home" and he's so excited when I come home unexpectedly. Usually I'm gone all day on Thursdays, but I'm wanting to go out this evening, so I decided to come home and eat lunch and let Scout out then go back to campus for office hours and class. As soon as I walked in he came out of my bedroom, where he'd clearly been sleeping, and he came into the living room with a very quizzical look of, "Who is coming into my home?" Once he realized it was me he came running up to me and started running figure 8's around the house like he does only when he gets really excited. He's still sitting on the couch next to me "smiling". He never gets this excited when I come home unless I bring someone with me. So my only conclusion is that dog's do have a sense of time, and he's excited that I came home early today. 

Of course, this will probably only increase his disappointment when I leave again in an hour or so, but still, it was a nice way to come home. I got very little sleep last night and as a result I've been in a rather irritable mood all day. Stress does that to me (and I've been stressed all week), and I'm aware of it, but I have a hard time fixing it. And it's just been little things bugging me today, like the fact that Einstein's was out of the only two coffees there that I like, and out of milk, and for some inexplicable reason they added butter to my bagel, I have no idea why. Then my bus was late and I was losing patience wasting time at the bus stop, ugh. Point being, I came home quite irritated over really minor incidences and when I get like that I get even more irritated with myself for being irritated in the first place, vicious cycle! But Scout put me in a much better mood; it's hard not to smile when you are with such a cute and happy dog. I'm so thankful for pets, they bring so much pleasure to our lives and can so quickly change my mood for the better.