The title of this post is presumptuous, because I haven't written it yet. I have a book contract for my dissertation. Yay! Cheers! What every graduate student dreams of while slaving away over their hot word processor, eyes glazed over as they attempt to wrangle the methods section into submission for the umpteenth time. And …
Hello from new RA at MSR
I'd like to introduce myself as a new RA at Microsoft Research's Social Media Collective. I'll be around for the next year, and hopefully interesting posts and updates will accompany that. I've also added a link to my *new* blog in the sidebar (no posts yet but stay tuned!). Hopefully I'll be using that space …
Location-based social media in Boston
As part of the Social Media Collective this summer, I've been working on a couple of projects involving location-based social media, Foursquare in particular. For one of these projects I've been interviewing a range of Foursquare participants, as well as a variety of Boston area vendors who utilize Foursquare for their respective businesses. I've been …
Rethinking Homophobia(s)
Dear SMC readers: I work at the intersections of queer studies, digital media, and ethnography. Sometimes I like to dip deeply into the disciplinary wells of one area and serve it up to the other audiences I hope I engage with my research. The review below highlights some of the best work coming out of …
“Teen Sexting and Its Impact on the Tech Industry” (danah’s talk for the RWW Conference)
In a cultural context where Congressman Anthony Weiner foolishly published salacious content on Twitter, it's hard to ignore sexting as a cultural phenomenon. Countless adults send sexually explicit content to one another, either as acts of flirtation or more explicit sex acts. And yet, when teenagers do so, new issues emerge. Teen sexting gets complicated, …
“Networked Privacy” (danah’s PDF talk)
Our contemporary ideas about privacy are often shaped by legal discourse that emphasizes the notion of "individual harm." Furthermore, when we think about privacy in online contexts, the American neoliberal frame and the techno-libertarian frame once again force us to really think about the individual. In my talk at Personal Democracy Forum this year, I …
Nicole Ellison at Berkman tomorrow (6/7/11)
Our very own Nicole Ellison will be speaking at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University tomorrow. 12:30 pm Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor RSVP required for those attending in person to Amar Ashar (ashar@cyber.law.harvard.edu) The benefits of Facebook “Friends”: The social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices This talk …
Continue reading Nicole Ellison at Berkman tomorrow (6/7/11)
Book Club: May 2011
Every month, the members of the Social Media Collective read a current non-fiction book that's relevant to our research interests and discuss it (just like grad school!). This month, our selection was The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, by James Gleick. As you can see, it's quite a tome: 527 pages of intellectual …
How Teens Understand Privacy
In the fall, danah boyd and Alice Marwick went into the field to understand teens' privacy attitudes and practices. We've blogged some of our thinking since then but we're currently working on turning our thinking into a full-length article. We are lucky enough to be able to workshop our ideas at an upcoming scholarly meeting …
Welcome to our group blog
This is a group blog for the members, past present and future, of the social media collective at Microsoft Research New England, run by danah boyd. We are a group of academics from diverse disciplinary and methodological backgrounds who study a broad array of social technologies and practices. We're going to use this blog to …
Social Media Collective 