This Thursday, I have the great honor of guest lecturing to David Silver’s fantastic, innovative class on Digital Literacy. This semester, David’s been bringing in a wide range of experts to meet with his class – a small group of honors students at the University of San Francisco. I’m very excited to meet this exceptional group and their prof; they’re in a very special learning environment this semester.
I’ll be talking about my research on social networks and my work with ClaimID, among other things. The talk will be informal, which is a relief after the three talks I gave at the iConference last week (note to self, 3 is too many). My goal is to leave my audience with new questions and perspectives on social networks; this is actually a significant challenge because David’s class is made up of undergraduates.
As I move towards my dissertation proposal, my interests are focusing on the role online social networks play in relational processes; how they help people make new friends, and how they help people maintain friends at distance. I’m most interested in in-transition populations – students leaving high school to attend college, or college students moving to their first job. These individuals have unique social-informational needs – think about how many friends a first-year college student makes…information overload! – and I’m interested in studying the role social networks play in aiding them. Interestingly enough, this topic – the thing that may one day be my dissertation, grew out of this blog post (these posts were also pretty influential).
My talk weaves together a number of these themes: social network use and adoption behavior, privacy and disclosure, cultural acquisition, identity formation. What I hope to get across is why social networks are so great that I get out of bed each morning to study them. If I can’t make that argument I’m in trouble!
As David notes, this talk is open to the public, so I’d like to invite you to attend. Details can be found at the USF page or the Upcoming page. The talk will be at 6:30PM on Thursday, in Fromm Hall on the USF Campus.
Tags: conference, lecture, travel
Hi Mr. Stutzman,
My name is Lulu McAllister and I am one of the Davies students you have so kindly honored in your last post.
I thought I would mention, since it might be helpful for your presentation, that I am specifically interested in hearing your thoughts on how individuals can navigate multiple identities. For instance, would it be detrimental to my business identity if I include inside jokes with friends from college on a profile that is accessible to both my work and private spheres? One of our readings for this week included an example of an individual who left pictures of himself partying in a profile visible to his coworkers and boss under that assumption that his boss would understand that these images reflected his private life and therefore had no effect on his professional self.
I’m curious to hear more from you about what your research has said regarding how members of online communities choose to censor themselves.
Looking forward to meeting you.
-Lulu
hello fred!
we’re excited to host you on thursday!
in addition to all the material you plan to cover, and in addition to the excellent suggestion by lulu, i’d be interested in you talking about – either in your presentation or during Q and A – how you balance and juggle studying digital media and making digital media. in other words, how do you study social networking sites like facebook while also building apps like claimID? and, does doing one help your understanding of the other?
most graduate students i know (and nearly all professors i know) focus most of their attention on what we might call “traditional” academic scholarship – researching, writing papers, presenting papers at conferences, and publishing papers in journals and books. but, increasingly, i’ve noticed that there is a new generation that seem to be equally comfortable with building stuff as they are with analyzing stuff. so, long story short: how do you balance the two and do you suggest such a juggling act to young students who may be contemplating graduate school in the near future?
again, we’re all excited to welcome you to USF and to SF. safe travels.
Hello!
I, too, am a student in the Davies Forum at USF, and I am anxiously awaiting your presentation. Social media, besides being something that I regularly use in my life, is a pretty cool thing to study. What strikes me most is the idea of identity and content creation, not just management. Or, more specifically, how social media can not only aid one in relational processes, but also how social media can enhance (or detract?) from these processes. I’m sure you’ve heard the sound bytes about the novelty of “friends” in social media. “Hey look, I’m John Mayer’s friend, and all I had to do is click a button.” Social media have definitely put a spotlight on quantity as well as quality. But, what I’m most interested in, is how social media aid and enable expression and creation; in other words, might it be possible that social media have allowed us to have a type of relationship, a creative relationship, which would be much more difficult to sustain in the pen and paper world?
In any case, looking forward to your arrival and Thursday evening. I’ll bring chips!
Sara here, another of the “small group of honors students,” and I will also throw in my $0.02.
Working off of what Lulu suggested, I want to know whether I even *need* to manage multiple identities. How many employers actually utilize SNS’s when making hiring decisions?
Also, what is the audience perception of those who have made their profiles private (if such research exists, or if you have your own inklings)? Is it assumed that these people are merely protecting their privacy, or is it assumed that these people have something to hide? As a graduate entering the workforce, should I make my profile private, or should I open it up to everybody?
Hi, I’m Lis, another Davies Scholar excited for tomorrow! I have been interested and curious for awhile about how SNSs have changed our communication and social lives, and also in the whole idea of identity performance/formation. awesome.