My Myspace Ethnography by Barbara Nantz

Barbara Nantz’s Ethnography about Myspace

Tags are under SNS

Myspace is a social network that people can come together and find other people like them.  They can also look for people with the same interest, hobbies, or professions.  If you have moved several times, like I have, you can also find old friends by searching your highschool by graduation year.   The ways to meet or find people are endless if the user registered with some real information.  I found that married females are harder to find, but the search can be done by location and first names.  This social network is a way to share pictures as well as keep in touch with family and friends.  I personally keep in touch with my dad who lives in New York.  I post private things to my myspace account that only people on my friends list can see.  If I don’t know them, then they can’t see any of my private pictures.  This is a safety method for those that are afraid to be too social on the Internet.  I also have pictures that are public which anyone can see and comment on.  I have my page set to public, but you could make it were only the people you choose can see your whole profile by setting your page to private.  

The picture policy states in general that you can’t submit any offensive pictures, but I felt that was a judgement call on the viewer.  So, I read more to see what “offensive” was to myspace.  It stated:  ”Any photo containing cartoons, comics, celebrities, nudity, pornography, sexually explicit images or any copyrighted image (unless you own the copyright) is not permitted. Photos of celebrities and cartoon or comic images are generally copyrighted by the owner.” This was a much better explanation, but I’ve seen several pictures that the person was flipping off the camera that I personally find offensive.  I don’t see anything like that in the rules, so I guess it’s allowed.  If you do have a complaint, they provide a link to email customer service the detailed information over the incident.  I thought about emailing them about the people flipping off the camera, but didn’t.  Besides, I don’t have to look or associate with that person if I don’t want to.

 

 Also, copyright issues could get myspace into quite a bit of trouble,  Since they stated not to post copyrighted material they are not responsible for anyone that does.  I don’t think this would be a problem, but you always need to abide by the copyright laws.  The way people are willing to sue, it is better to be safe than sorry. 

While socializing in myspace I looked at several mypace accounts and joined several groups.  I found for the most part, people are here just to socialize and talk with people while showing off pictures and their abilities to create a cool home page.  I noticed that the pages are representative of the personalities of the people they represent.  Whether you keep your page private or public also shows how much each person trust the internet with their information.  During the semester, I heard of several times when a person’s identity was taken and a false account was created for them. This is the things that remind you that you are putting yourself into a world wide web and not just the screen in front of you.  Working with the social network of people you always have to mind your manners and make sure what you are meaning to say comes across in the written word.  I only read one reply on a group discussion that I thought might have been written with the intent to hurt someone’s feelings.  It was quickly commented on by the other group members to help cool any fire that might be started over the remark.  For the most part, it is safe and as long as you are there for the right reasons, should have no problems with the myspace rules.  

Most of the people that I associated with said that they joined myspace to connect with old friends.  Some like to keep up with friends from highschool or college.  The other reason people joined was to find people with like interests or beliefs.  When you are working in a stressful profession or have beliefs that are not readily shared by most, it is nice to have people to talk to that share you stress and beliefs.  That is why most organizations like AA, have support groups to share stories and hardships together.  It makes people feel better to know that they aren’t alone in their battles.  This site provides this opportunity for many who want to remain anonymous will still feeling part of a group.

 

Myspace does reserve the right to pull any posts or blog entries that they think is in violation of their policies.  This is what they claim, but I have not seen it happen.  I think that their monitoring is mostly accomplished through the other users of myspace.  They also have set ways to tell if a photo contains nudity and probably has certain words in a blog that set off red flags for myspace.  This is is what I have herd through others, but have not tested this policy (if you know what I mean).  I am not for sure how the rules are enforced except by being reported by another user.   For the most part, it seems like the users can do what ever they want as long as they don’t offend the other users.  

 

I asked my students at school why they use myspace and they said for “another form or communication”. They want to be able to talk to their friends while they are online so they don’t have to get off and call each other.  I think that is a good reason,  but instant messaging would be a better tool for that. I know that they like to check each others profiles out and see how many friends each one has.  I feel it is a little bit of a competition between them.  

 

For my conclusion, I would like to state that myspace is a social place for people to meet, keep in touch, or get to know each other.  It seems that many know each other from past experiences and just want to have a place to post new information for all to see.  I noticed that, the ones in my teacher group, mostly chat through the groups with people they don’t know.  I could tell from lots of their interactions, that even thought they have never met, they are friends. That is what happens when you bring a group of people together with similar interests.  

saving to finish later

I was wondering who knows how to retrieve a post after you click on the save button?  If I start typing my paper, I will probably not finish it in one day, so how can you retrieve it to finish it later?

SNS and when is the ethnography due.

I just checked my SNS and there are no more posts on the question I asked about why you use a social networking system.  I have found that the rules are given to you at the beginning, but  you are reminded of them whenever you go to add anything to your my page like video or pictures.  It won’t let you post nude pictures or copy-written things, but I have seen some pictures that I would say are almost nude.  I guess almost doesn’t count here.   You also have to be 13 or older to sign up for an account, but there are several occasion were I have read posts that I could tell or they hinted that they weren’t 13.  I think  I should have reported them, but how do you prove someone isn’t a certain age?  I have seen lots of foul language, but have not seen a rule against that yet anyways.  

The social aspect of the experience for me personally has been to chat with fellow class members about assignments, blogs, and how myspace works.  I have also found many friends that I haven’t spoken with for 10-15 years.  I have enjoyed seeing how they are and what they are up to now.  It is weird to see your friends growing up and being successful.  I was amazed at some of my friends professions like one is a golf trainer and one became a beautician.  I think it is great to contact and stay in touch with pictures to old friends.

From the standpoint of how the others use this social network it seems to be a stomping ground to communicate with people that you don’t see daily or are a long distance from you.  Some seem to work daily on groups and discussing different topics that interest them depending on how their day’s went.  Others seem to be more into just constant contact exchanging junk mail and pictures.  Almost like emailing where everyone else can see it.  I also noticed that most profiles are private and don’t want friends that they don’t know.  Most of my groups usually have about 10 people constantly making comments, while the others don’t make comments (at least while I have been commenting).  It seems that only a handful are really active in the groups while there may be thousands that are members.  

 

Ok, this is my summary of what I have experienced.  Now I have to write and post the paper.  Is it due on the 9th?  I looked and didn’t see the date on blackboard.  

New things on wordpress

ok, I have been working with this upgraded version of wordpress.  I assume that has changed for everyone close to the beginning of the semester.   So my question is for the people that have checked out everything:  What is the difference between a page, link and post.  You can write anyone of these, but I don’t know what the page and link one do, so I have just been doing the post on. 

Stoll

I have officially read the shortest chapter I have ever read.  Just thought I would point out that the 2nd rule for chess is probably the best advice to give to anyone that is making a hard decision to ”make the best possible move you can.”  Some times there isn’t any right move, just the best move.  Loved it and also love playing chess.

My space results

Well, in order to find out more about why people use myspace, I just posted the question to the Teacher Group I’m a member of.  I asked them to reply to why they used myspace and what they wanted to get from it.   More of my comments were exactly like I thought, to keep up with friends.  They didn’t seem to mind answering my questions and seemed to be very honest.  I even had one say they joined an atheist group to share her opinions without being judged and criticized for it.  

 

Since I have been a member of two groups for several weeks now, I have noticed that mostly the teacher want to talk to each other.  They want to make sure that what they are doing in their classroom is the same as everyone else and for the most part, they are the same.  Some comes from schools that handle situations better than others, but all of them seem to agree with each most of the time.  They also seem to just want a sympathetic audience to vent to or to see what others would do in certain citation.  

I haven’t checked today to see if anymore comments were made, but I will check and post more if it is different from above.  I will point out that the ones that are regular users are just social people that are looking to be social.  

Junk food and the Internet, Now I understand McDonald’s

I really agree with Stoll, that restaurants can only provide two of the three things that we want in food: good, cheap, and fast.  If you get good food quick, you have to pay more for it.  If you want good food cheap, you have to make it yourself.  Now I understand why I don’t like McDonald’s food that much anymore.  I have gotten used to the good food of cooking at home and eating out at nice restaurants on the weekends that I don’t like the fast food anymore.  

my point about power point

1st I’d like to state:  How cool a mac aquarium. Love to see a picture of that. (p.177, new uses for your old computer chapter.)

 

Now, I would like to comment on how true it is that a PowerPoint will dehumanize a speech.  I know that when I get a copy of the presentation before hand and the speaker only reads from it without adding anything, I usually tune them out and just read over the handout to see what I am interested in listening to.  I agree that when we teach we need to motivate our audience, connect with emotion, passion, and fire.  ”A sense of warmth, excitement, shared adventure.  A PowerPoint driven meeting delivers chilly, preprogrammed video graphics.”  When I read that,I felt that was what is missing in my teaching.  It has been so disheartening by the number of students that I have that don’t care about school, working, or even moving to get a pencil that I provided, that I forgot why I teach.  I left out the excitement I usually feel when I am teaching the subject that I love.   I know that I have been the worst teacher I have ever been this year because of the lack of planning and the large number of students with no desire to learn what so ever. I have just referred 17 out of the 50 students (in high school) I have for summer school.  This is the first year that I have more than 5 people fail my class.  I’m sure my lack of enthusiasm towards my subject was a cause of some of those failures.  I feel like I am the one to blame, but it is hard to go into a classroom full of students that hate you, hate what you teach, and hate being at school on a daily basis and stay upbeat.  Sorry for the rant, but reading about being excited and putting emotion into my daily routine made me think about how unattached I had become to the students.  I am glad I read the book and hope I can become excited about my subject again.  THanks for listening.        

Stoll, The connected Library

I was reading through this last chapters of the book and feel like I agree more with him now that in the previous chapters.  In this chapter, The connected Library, on page 161 he states the need to keep books in libraries.  I tend to agree with him that books will last longer than computers.  The initial cost of purchasing a book compared to computers is much cheaper and books don’t require upgrades.  Maybe they might need to be rebound but is much less than new software.  

 

I would also like to point out that books can be shared and talked about and bring people together.  You can read a book to your child, but I’m not for sure if it would have the same effect if you read it from a computer.  My point being that I don’t think books are going to become extinct any time soon, but I do believe the was we get them might change a little like the warehouse for older books.    

Stoll, Help Desk

I just read a couple of chapter in Stoll’s book and found Help! I’m stuck at a help Desk! to be very amusing.  I don’t think I would be able to repeat a simple step the way he described that he had to do.  I am more hands on and would have to come and show them how to do it.  I also think that they would remember it better too. 

 

Still reading, more to come later…