User talk:Seanmcb2

My name is Sean. This is my user discussion page for a digital media and culture project.Seanmcb2 (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 2: To what extent are my online and offline identities aligned?
The rapid changes that have occurred in digital media in recent history has further complicated the ways in which we can understand the concept of identity. Digital media and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have given us the opportunity to, as well create our identity in ‘real life’ face to face interactions, also cultivate and maintain online identities through our social media profiles and online interactions. In this short essay I will reflect upon my own construction of online identity, referring to academic theory of the topic in order to evaluate the way my online and offline identities are similar or different, the way other people can impact the construction of identity and whether we can actually be understood to have on singular identity or if we have multiple different ones.

My online identity(s) can be seen to differ greatly from those offline in some ways but there are also points at which they overlap. I only have a presence on two social media platforms – Facebook and Instagram – and the way in which I construct my online identity is vastly different according to which platform I am using. As Quinn and Papacharissi suggest, my online activity is affected greatly by ‘context collapse,’ in which the ‘merging of audiences and relational contexts into a single digital space’ requires me to self-consciously filter what it is that I share online and to compartmentalise specific relationships into separate social platforms. I use Facebook in a general way to portray a generic, verifiable identity linked to my real-life that is used for day to day messaging and that family members or acquaintances can interact with. On the other hand, the identity I construct on Instagram is vastly different as that is where I talk with closer friends, post photos and be much more open as there is less chance of relatives witnessing the more personal aspects of my social media use. In this way, the importance of other people and the act of being seen by others in the construction of my identity is apparent as I choose to curate and manipulate my separate online identities in order to comply with certain expectations in a family or friendship context.

My Facebook identity is curated to follow on from my singular day-to-day identity, while my online identity when using Instagram is vastly different from my offline identity in certain contexts – for example, when I am with my family or acquaintances that I am not close with – but the offline identity is also linked and meshed with offline presence. My Instagram identity is linked with a real-life identity that I construct, and hide from some, when with close friends and going to social events. In this way it can be seen that, as Ibrahim claims, that ‘online and offline identities are bound in complex ways and are not dichotomised’ and that ‘social media identity formed through peer communities is enmeshed with our offline identity’. In reflection of my own personal identity performance on social media, it is not the case that I have a singular online identity that contrasts with one singular offline identity, but rather that I have multiple different ways of constructing and maintaining identity, both on and offline, depending on the context and audience that I am performing identity for. Seanmcb2 (discuss • contribs) 22:47, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your view of contrasting identity, and how there are multiple identities for both on and offline circumstances depending on social context. Danah Boyd and Alice Marwick also discuss ‘context collapse’ if you are interested into looking further into this concept, I found it very useful with my understanding of it. Your use of the word ‘manipulate’ in regards to our expressions of identity caught my eye, because I think this brings up crucial questions about authentic self, that are important to address, such as, are we lying to one audience and being truthful to another? Additionally, I think your use of images and captioning were relevant and added to your discussion very well to strengthen the essay. Jade144 (discuss • contribs) 23:58, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 3: Annotated Bibliography Part B


•	Fox, Jesse., Cruz, Carlos., & Young Lee, Ji. (2015) ‘Perpetuating online sexism offline: Anonymity, interactivity, and the effects of sexist hashtags on social media’. Computers in Human Behavior 52: 436-442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.024


 * In this study Fox, Cruz and Young Lee study to what extent the participation in sexist behaviour – anonymously and non-anonymously – online impacts the levels of sexism offline and in the workplace. The authors carry out a quantitative study of the levels of sexist attitudes and behaviour in the participants after they are separated into four separate groups and asked to interact with sexist hashtags on Twitter. In the study the four separate groups were instructed to retweet sexist hashtags anonymously, to write their own tweets with the sexist hashtag, to retweet sexist hashtags from an identifiable account, or to write their own sexist tweets from an identifiable account respectively. The participants were asked to complete short surveys before and after using Twitter to gauge the level of sexist attitudes they held and then took part in a job hiring simulation to judge the competency of female candidates. The aim of this study is to assess how anonymity online and the level of interactivity – retweeting or composing tweets – affect the level of sexist attitudes and behaviour. This study is useful to my research on online disinhibition and to the more specific topic of the role of dissociative anonymity in the creation of the online disinhibition effect. Some limitations to this study are that the participants are all university students from the USA, not ethnically diverse, and that they had very limited time to interact with Twitter and so the results may be skewed by these factors. This study found that anonymity online increased sexist attitudes after the time on Twitter, especially if writing their own tweets and not just retweeting from others. From these results the study supports the concept of the online disinhibition effect and the role that dissociative anonymity has on this effect. This study will be used in my research as it provides empirical data regarding the effects of dissociative anonymity and it also shows that toxic online disinhibition can be seen to carry on ‘real-life’ consequences offline, complicating the excuse for toxic behaviour that online and offline experience are distinct. Seanmcb2 (discuss • contribs) 22:47, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 4: What ARE Wikis?
Wikibooks, according to the wikibook page dedicated to explaining what the platform is and is not, is a collection of ‘open-content textbooks.’ What this means, in essence, is that Wikibooks is a platform on which people can work collaboratively on writing textbooks, manuals and instructions guides regarding specific topics. As these textbooks are open-content, anyone can create and edit what is written in a wiki freely. In this way the platform encourages collaboration and interactivity in order to produce a textbook of information that is continuously edited and mediated within a community of people, bringing together their collective knowledge and interactivity.

In my own experience of interacting with the Wikibooks platform through my work on the collaborative essay, I found that the platform is extremely useful for the facilitation of collaborative research. Due to the open-platform nature of Wikibooks I was able to freely interact with others in the Wikibook discussion page in order to discuss and debate different approaches and visions each of us had about the structure and contents of the collaborative essay. The collaborative nature of the platform meant that we could continuously edit and tweak one another’s entries and come to a consensus on decisions regarding the final draft. In this way it can be seen how the Wikibooks platform encouraged daily interactivity with the wiki and a long-term level of group participation and collaboration in which continuous peer reviewing and debate allowed for the improvement of the essay through utilisation of the group’s collective intelligence.

Wikibooks fosters the creation of a community as it is an open-content platform as this allows for the construction of ‘communally created projects’ that span across the globe, allowing for people to connect, collaborate and network together in order to pool together their knowledge and skills to create something together that can then be utilised by others. As well as this, Wikibooks uses usernames and so this allows for the omission of real names, locations or social status. In this way, as Myers suggests, the platform acts to reduce hierarchies and democratize the contribution process so that anyone is able to interact with the stores of accumulated information regardless of expertise or background. This further creates a sense of community in which each person is on an equal footing and there is mutual ownership of the collaborative process. The Wikibooks platform can be understood to represent that of a digital commons as it is collectively owned and operated by the community that help to continually create and revise it. The information, through the utilisation of collective intelligence, is stored and made available to all as a public good and a ‘resource from which all may benefit, regardless of whether they help create it'. In the way that Wikibooks fosters a community and encourages collaboration between people, the platform may offer a source of online emancipation in that it provides the decentralization of the production and ownership of the information collected and shared. The Wikibooks platform allows people to band together in order to network and participate in the widespread collaboration of many different people in order to produce something as opposed to spending our time only consuming media, as Clay Shirky suggests many people waste their free time doing. Seanmcb2 (discuss • contribs) 10:45, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK: ENGAGEMENT ON DISCUSSION PAGES & CONTRIBS
Grade descriptors for Engagement: Engagement on discussion pages, and contribs of this standard attain the following grade descriptor. Whereas not all of the elements here will be directly relevant to your particular response to the brief, this descriptor will give you a clearer idea of how the grade you have been given relates to the standards and quality expected of work at this level:
 * Excellent. Among other things, contributions will probably demonstrate a complex, critical understanding of the themes of the module. They will communicate very effectively, making excellent and creative use of the possibilities of the form (including formatting, links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons), and may be written with some skill and flair. They will address the assignment tasks in a thoughtful and transparent way on the Discussion Pages. They will make insightful connections between original examples and relevant concepts, justifying decision-making with transparency. They will be informed by serious reading and reflection, are likely to demonstrate originality of thought, and will probably be rewarding and informative for the reader as well as for fellow researchers collaborating. The wiki markup formatting will be impeccable.

As instructed in the labs, and outlined in the assessment brief documentation, students should be engaging at least once a day, for the duration of the project. The following points illustrate how this engagement is evaluated.

Evidence from contribs to both editing and discussion of content (i.e. volume and breadth of editorial activity as evidenced through ‘contribs’). These are primarily considered for quality rather than quantity, but as a broad guideline:
 * Each item on a contribs list that are 3000+ characters are deemed “considerable”
 * Each item on a contribs list that are 2000+ characters are deemed “significant”
 * Each item on a contribs list that are 1000+ characters are deemed “substantial”
 * Items on a contribs list that are <1000 characters are important, and are considered in the round when evaluating contribs as a whole because of their aggregate value

Overall:
 * a few substantial, and other contribs throughout the periodof the project.

Engagement with and learning from the community on Discussion Pages
 * Evidence of peer-assisted learning and collaboration
 * Good
 * Evidence of reading, sharing, and application of research to the essay
 * Outstanding
 * Evidence of peer-review of others’ work
 * Excellent

Reflexive, creative and well-managed use of Discussion Pages
 * Clear delegation of tasks
 * Good
 * Clearly labelled sections and subsections
 * Good
 * Contributions are all signed
 * Excellent

Civility. Your conduct is a key component of any collaboration, especially in the context of an online knowledge-building community. Please respect others, as well as observe the rules for civility on wiki projects. All contribs are moderated.
 * Excellent

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 15:18, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Instructor Feedback on Wiki Exercise Portfolio
Posts and comments on other people’s work, of this standard, roughly correspond to the following grade descriptor. Depending on where your actual mark is in relation to the making criteria as outlined in the relevant documentation, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall:


 * Excellent. Among other things, these entries will probably demonstrate a complex, critical understanding of the themes of the module. They will communicate very effectively, making excellent and creative use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons), and may be written with some skill and flair. They will address the assignment tasks in a thoughtful way. They will make insightful connections between original examples and relevant concepts. They will be informed by serious reading and reflection, are likely to demonstrate originality of thought, and will probably be rewarding and informative for the reader. The wiki markup formatting will be impeccable.


 * Some very good work here (although the documentation of editing was a little haphazard fo0r the first assessed post, this got a little better as you mov4ed forward). Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are fairly good in general. It is useful to remember that the comments are "worth" as much as posts themselves. The reason for this is not only to help encourage discussion (a key element of wiki collaboration!) but also to get you to reflect upon your own work. This can all, of course be used to fuel ideas that might form part of your project work. Throughout, you are beginning to discuss in an open and critical way (responding to reading, as well as to what other people are saying and are contributing meaningfully to discussion.

General:
 * Reading and research: evidence of critical engagement with set materials; evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material – all very good.


 * Argument and analysis: well-articulated and well-supported argument; evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position); evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections); evidence of independent critical ability – all excellent.


 * Presentation: good use of wiki markup and organisational skills.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:18, 1 May 2019 (UTC)